Grassroots governance reform in urban China

Abstract

Trott offers an analysis of China’s urban grassroots governance reform known as community construction (shequ jianshe). Contrasting these recent institutional changes with the introduction of Western-style governance reforms in the years leading up to 1911, the chapter highlights the domestic processes underlying the current reforms. Spurred by the post-Mao socio-economic transformation, community construction represents efforts to reconfigure grassroots political institutions to new realities. Tracing the reforms back over several decades reveals an incremental process of institutional adaptation marked by distinct stages. Local needs and experimentation interact with central priorities and processes to yield a home-grown pool of institutional models. Whether these incremental changes can influence the principles and practices of one-party rule remain to be seen.