Involution And Integration: A Study On The Dilemma Of Neighborhood Committees In Urban Community Governance And Their Mitigation Mechanism

After the founding of The People’s Republic of China,the system of self-governance at the grass-roots level gradually developed in the democratic practice of urban construction,that is,in accordance with the Constitution and laws,residents elected to form a residents committee to conduct self-management,self-education,self-service and self-supervision.In 2018,the Organic Law of the Urban Residents Committee of the People’s Republic of China(hereinafter referred to as the Organic Law of Neighborhood Committees)was amended to confirm that urban neighborhood committees are the only self-governing organizations at the grassroots level in cities,further consolidating and developing grassroots democracy as a key area of China’s democratic political construction.In the 1990 s,with the disintegration of the unit system and the emergence of communities,China’s social structure and management system has undergone significant changes,and urban community committees have gradually fallen into the dilemma of grassroots governance.In 2015,the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee jointly issued the Notice on Further Carrying out the Work of Community Burden Reduction to streamline administration and delegate power.In response to the call,local governments have carried out innovative practices to reduce the burden of neighborhood committees by establishing community workstations,removing administrative functions of neighborhood committees,and purchasing public services through quasi-market mechanisms.However,so far,the reform and development has not only failed to achieve good results,and the neighborhood committee has even fallen into the dilemma of "Involution",which is embodied in two major problems: "edge crisis" and "administrative rebound".Based on the analytical framework of social embedding theory,this study attempts to explore the dilemma of community committees in grassroots urban governance and its causes.Combined with the field research results of M community in Xiang yang,Hubei Province,the author found that one of the main reasons for the "Involution" of current urban neighborhood committee governance is the "weak joint relationship" between the neighborhood committee and the government,community organizations,residents and other major subjects in the government-society relationship network.Firstly,the understanding time between the members of neighborhood committee and other governance subjects is short,and the individual role suffers from symbol ambiguity in the process of governance.Secondly,the interaction frequency between neighborhood committee members and other subjects is low,even if the interaction is mainly "affair" type communication,easy to force behavioral pressure;Thirdly,the emotional relationship between neighborhood committee members and other subjects is weak in the process of communication,and the accumulation of negative emotions will breed contradictions and conflicts.Finally,there is a lack of reciprocal services between the members of the neighborhood committee and other subjects,and the remaining reciprocity norms are based on rationality,diluting interpersonal relationships and not conducive to the establishment of intimate emotional links.It can be seen that,under the nature of traditional acquaintance society in China,the weak association of neighborhood committees embedded in the political-social network makes it difficult for them to obtain more high-quality social resources by relying on favors,which leads to frequent setbacks in the practice of community governance,and finally brings about the dilemma of "internalization".However,the fundamental problem of governance is the lack of autonomy of residents,which is caused by the delocalization of modern urban communities.This paper argues that,to relieve the governance of residents’ committees in "Involution",must strengthen the residents’ committees in politics-the location in the social relation network,turn "weak joint" is the "joint",and realize social relationships in the community residents in urban communities,domain and then embed residents of community identity and belonging,strengthen residents autonomy,we will establish a new pattern of collaborative governance involving multiple actors.