Abstract

Typology and Characteristics of Social Governance in China: With a Focus on the Experiments of Social Governance in Beijing.

Sang-Jin Han, Young-Hee Shim, Young-Do Park.

Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC(Communist Party of China) Central Committee in 2013, the basic framework of social policy was shifted from “social management” to "social governance". Understanding this shift as a response to the social risks accumulated after the market-oriented reform, we  explored the types and characteristics of social governance in China from this viewpoint.

China emerged as a risk society after the collapse of Danwei regime. The party-state leadership defined social risks as developmental risks and responded to such risks with a society-building policy which was practically implemented in the form of the Shequ (neighborhood community) reconstruction. The shift from social management to social governance is required to carry out the dual tasks of the policy, that is, the reconstruction of the social service supply system, on the one hand, and the grassroots democracy building, on the other.

From this viewpoint, we defined the characteristic of the Chinese social governance at the two levels: macro and micro levels. At the macro level we defined the characteristic of the Chinese social governance  as the ‘authoritarian pluralistic’ governance. While the term “pluralistic” reflects the force of decentralization brought out by the modern structural differentiation among the state, market, and society, the term “authoritarian” reflects the force of centralization of the party-state regime. Therefore, a central task of this ‘authoritarian pluralistic’ governance is to keep a balance between the centrifugal and centripetal force. The key point in this regard is to allow social associations and citizens as well some operational autonomy in social service supply  and self-governing autonomy. However, transformation of these social autonomies into a political autonomy is prevented because it may threaten or  destabilize the monopolistic power of the party-state. For this task, the mechanism of selective control of social associations and the project system were developed with respect to the people’s livelihood(minsheng) on the one hand, and the mechanism of “authoritarian deliberation” were developed with respect to the grassroots democracy, on the other. These mechanisms, however, collide with the purpose of social governance, because they bring out a new governance hierarchy which may bring forth the risk of the risk governance.

At the micro level, we find that the authoritarian pluralistic governance was put into the practice in the various forms of Shequ governance experiment. In this context, we focused on the four structural forces which drive the Shequ governance experiments. They include the force of administration, marketization, deliberation, and communitarian cohesion. The institutional framework of Shequ governance will vary and therefore its type will also vary according to the combination of these four forces. This structural-dynamic classification allows us to classify various Shequ governance experiments into four distinct types: "administration-led model", "the market-led model", the "communitarian model", and the "deliberative model" of governance.

Qinghe experiment, which we explored as a case study, can be considered as a distinctive subtype of the "deliberative" governance model. This Qinghe experiment is characterized by the participation of various experts, while in China the deliberative model is developed, as a rule, to strengthen the communication between party-state and citizens. Despite its some shortcomings, the most important significance of this experiment lies in the fact that it reveals a possibility of dealing with the risk of risk governance which is brought forth by the entangling of the project system and the authoritarian deliberative system.

Contents

01 Introduction

1_Background and Purpose

2_Literature Review

3. Research Method and the Data

02 From Social Management to Social Governance

1_The Shift of the Social Policy Framework: from Social Management to Social Governance

2_The Social Background and Dynamics of the Shift: A Response to the Emerging Risk Society

03 Typology and Characteristics of Social Governance in China I:  the Macro Level

1_The Dual Task of the Party-State Regime and the ‘Authoritarian Pluralistic’ Governance

2_The Dimension of People’s Livelihood (minsheng) 1

3_The Dimension of People’s Livelihood (minsheng) 2

4_Authoritarian Deliberation and the Grassroots Democracy-Building

5_Implications of the ‘Authoritarian Pluralistic’ Governance

04 Typology and Characteristics of Social Governance in China II: the Micro Level

1_Four Structural Forces of the Shequ (Urban Community) Governance

2_Supply of Social Service and Types of Shequ Governance

3_Grassroots Democracy and Deliberative Type of Shequ Governance

4_Four Models of Shequ Governance

05 Qinghe Experiment: A Case Study

1_The Background of Qinghe Experiment

2_The Process of Qinghe Experiment

3_The Implications of Qinghe Experiment

06 Resume and Conclusion

1_Resume

2_Conclusion

References

Appendix