Community Governance in China : History and Reality

This book provides an overview of China’s distinctive community governance, examining its 2000-year history and describing its recent development under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

The book presents new insights into community governance in China. It explores the historical genesis of community governance in imperial China, providing a link that helps to understand the relationship between ancient and modern community governance. By explaining the practical differences between “centralised governance” and “networked governance” in these contexts, it moves away from the myth of Tönniesian community and dissects the conceptual differences between Chinese and Western communities. This book is unique in its focus on the economic structure that underlies community governance and its identification of the root cause. It also investigates China’s “poli-community” and the relationship between the state, society, and the family. Finally, the book proposes a potential approach for transitioning from a binary opposition between the state and society to a new mechanism of “state-created society” and building “associated communities”.

This volume will be a valuable reference for scholars and students of Chinese politics, public management, and sociology, as well as for practitioners of community governance.

Wu Xiaolin is currently a professor and the dean of the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University, China. His research interests are urban governance and political development.