This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of local governance in China, and offers original analysis of key factors underpinning trends in this field drawing on the expertise of scholars both inside and outside China. It explores and analyzes the dynamic interaction and collaboration among multiple governmental and non-governmental actors and social sectors with an interest in the conduct of public affairs to address horizontal challenges faced by the local government, society, economy, and civil community and considers key issues such as governance in urban and rural areas, the impact of technology on governance and related issues of education, healthcare, environment and energy. As the result of a global and interdisciplinary collaboration of leading experts, this Handbook offers a cutting-edge insight into the characteristics, challenges and trends of local governance and emphasizes the promotion of good governance and democratic development in China.

The danwei (workunit) has been the fundamental social and spatial unit of urban China under socialism. With particular focus on the link between spatial forms and social organization, this book traces the origins and development of this critical institution up to the present day.

This book proposes a new interdisciplinary understanding of urban design in China based on a study of the transformative effects of socio-spatial design and planning on communities and their governance. This is framed by an examination of the social projects, spaces, and realities that have shaped three contexts critical to the understanding of urban design problems in China: the histories of “collective forms” and “collective spaces”, such as that of the urban danwei (work-unit), which inform current community building and planning; socio-spatial changes in urban and rural development; and disparate practices of “spatialised governmentality”. These contexts and an attendant transformation from planning to design and from government to governance, define the current urban design challenges found in the dominant urban xiaoqu (small district) and shequ (community) development model. Examining the histories, transformations, and practices that have shaped socio-spatial epistemologies and experiences in China – including a specific sense of community and place that is rather based on a concrete “collective” than abstract “public” space and underpinned by socialised governance – this book brings together a diverse range of observations, thoughts, analyses, and projects by urban researchers and practitioners. Thereby discussing emerging interdisciplinary urban design practices in China, this book offers a valuable resource for all academics, practitioners, and stakeholders with an interest in socio-spatial design and development.

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.

This book is about village governance in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on government archives from Huailu county, Hebei province, it explores local practices and official systems of social control, land taxation, and "self government" at the village level. Its analysis of peasant behaviors bridges the gap between the rational choice and moral economy models by taking into account both material and symbolic dimensions of power and interest in the peasant community. The author's interpretation of village/state relations before 1900 transcends the state and society dichotomy and accentuates the interplay between formal and informal institutions and practices. His account of "state making" after 1900 underscores the continuity of endogenous arrangements in the course of institutional formalization and the interpenetration between official discourse and popular notions in the new process of political legitimization.

Chinese residential communities are places of intense governing and an arena of active political engagement between state and society. In The Government Next Door, Luigi Tomba investigates how the goals of a government consolidated in a distant authority materialize in citizens' everyday lives. Chinese neighborhoods reveal much about the changing nature of governing practices in the country. Government action is driven by the need to preserve social and political stability, but such priorities must adapt to the progressive privatization of urban residential space and an increasingly complex set of societal forces. Tomba’s vivid ethnographic accounts of neighborhood life and politics in Beijing, Shenyang, and Chengdu depict how such local "translation" of government priorities takes place. Tomba reveals how different clusters of residential space are governed more or less intensely depending on the residents’ social status; how disgruntled communities with high unemployment are still managed with the pastoral strategies typical of the socialist tradition, while high-income neighbors are allowed greater autonomy in exchange for a greater concern for social order. Conflicts are contained by the gated structures of the neighborhoods to prevent systemic challenges to the government, and middle-class lifestyles have become exemplars of a new, responsible form of citizenship. At times of conflict and in daily interactions, the penetration of the state discourse about social stability becomes clear.

China has achieved significant socio-economic progress and has become a key player on the international stage after several decades of open-door and reform policy. Looking beyond China's transformation, this book focusses on the theme of governance which is widely regarded as the next most critical element to ensure that China's growth remains sustainable.Today, China is confronted with a host of pressing challenges that call for urgent attention. These include the need to rebalance and restructure the economy, the widening income gaps, the poor integration of migrant populations in the urban areas, insufficient public housing and healthcare coverage, the seeming lack of political reforms and the degree of environmental degradation. In the foreign policy arena, China is likewise under pressure to do more to address global concerns while not appearing to be overly aggressive. The next steps that China takes would have a great deal to do with governance, in terms of how it tackles or fails to address the myriad of challenges, both domestic and foreign.China: Development and Governance, with 57 short chapters in total, is based on up-to-date scholarly research written in a readable and concise style. Besides China's domestic developments, it also covers China's external relations with the United States, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Non-specialists, in particular, should find this volume accessible and useful in keeping up with fast-changing developments in East Asia.