The Politics of Community Building in Urban China T his book aims to make sense of the recent reform of neighbourhood institutions in urban China. It builds on the observation that the late 1990s saw a comeback of the state in urban China after the increased economization of life in the 1980s had initially forced it to withdraw. Based on several months of fi eldwork in loca- tions ranging from poor and dilapidated neighbourhoods in Shenyang City to middle-class gated communities in Shenzhen, the authors analyse recent attempts by the central government to enhance stability in China’s increasingly volatile cities. In particular, they argue that the central government has begun to restructure urban neighbourhoods, and has encouraged residents to govern themselves by means of democratic procedures. Heberer and Göbel also contend that whilst on the one hand, the central government has managed to bring the Party-state back into urban society, especially by tapping into a range of social groups that depend on it, it has not, however, managed to establish a broad base for participation. In testing this hypothesis, the book examines the rationales, strategies, and impacts of this comeback by systematically analysing how the reorganization of neigh- bourhood committees was actually conducted and fi nd that opportunities for participation were far more limited than initially promised. T he book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Studies, Development Studies, Urban Studies, and Asian Studies in general. Thomas Heberer is Professor of the Politics of East Asia in the Institute of Political Science/East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Christian Göbel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University, Sweden. Chinese Worlds Chinese Worlds publishes high-quality scholarship, research monographs, and source collections on Chinese history and society. ‘Worlds’ signals the diversity of China, the cycles of unity and division through which China’s modern history has passed, and recent research trends toward regional studies and local issues. It also signals that Chineseness is not contained within borders – ethnic migrant communities overseas are also ‘Chinese worlds.’ The series editors are Gregor Benton, Flemming Christiansen, Delia Davin, Terence Gomez and Hong Liu. The Literary Fields of Encyclopedia of the Twentieth-Century China Chinese Overseas Edited by Michel Hockx Edited by Lynn Pan Chinese Business in Malaysia New Fourth Army Accumulation, ascendance, Communist resistance along the accommodation Yangtze and the Huai, 1938–1941 Edmund Terence Gomez Gregor Benton Internal and International A Road is Made Migration Communism in Shanghai Chinese perspectives 1920–1927 Edited by Frank N. Pieke Steve Smith and Hein Mallee The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Village Inc. 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To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Thomas Heberer and Christian Göbel The right of Thomas Heberer and Christian Göbel to be identifi ed as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Heberer, Thomas. The politics of community building in urban China / Thomas Heberer and Christian Göbel. p. cm. – (Chinese worlds) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Community development–China. 2. Neighborhood government–China. 3. Urban policy–China. I. Göbel, Christian, 1973 June 25- II. Title. HN740.Z9C63783 2011 307.1’4160951–dc22 2010039696 ISBN 0-203-82845-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 978-0-415-59702-9 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-203-82845-8 (ebk) Contents List of fi gures ix List of tables x Acknowledgements xii List of abbreviations xiii 1 Introduction: political innovation without democratization 1 The reorganization of China’s urban neighbourhoods 2 Infrastructural power 6 Governance and community 7 Imposed communities: the shequ 9 Governmentality and regime stability 11 The argument 14 Data 15 2 Social control, social fragmentation, and the reimposition of state power 20 Urban institutions of social control 20 The withdrawal of the state and growing social instability 26 Social fragmentation and disintegration 27 Reacting to new demands on the state 31 Conclusion 33 3 Enhancing infrastructural power: s hequ organization 34 The organization of urban neighbourhoods 34 Tasks 43 Financial resources 46 Salaries 47 Associations 49 Homeowners’ committees: semi-autonomous bodies challenging formal structures 51 Conclusion 54 viii Contents 4 Legitimating narratives 56 The telos of a harmonious shequ 57 Turning subjects into citizens 62 Delineating autonomy: the moral state 63 Self-administration 66 Conclusion 68 5 Shequ governance 71 Electoral processes in the shequ 71 A reservoir of ‘volunteers’: local party organizations 82 Informal participation 86 Case studies 93 Conclusion 96 6 New schemes of social security: urban neighbourhood communities as institutions of output legitimacy 99 Shequ: new social welfare providers 100 The unemployed and their perspectives 102 The politics of urban income support 104 Income support funding 111 The Residents’ Committee: social security agency 113 Conclusion 114 7 Attitudes 116 Participation 117 Attitude towards elections 124 Preference towards certain types of election 126 Attitudes towards Residents’ Committees 137 Attitudes towards homeowners’ committees 143 Conclusion 149 8 Conclusion 152 One step back, two steps forward? 154 Why is China so stable? 157 Notes 163 Bibliography 169 Index 188 Figures 3.1 Organizational structure of shequ in the city of Shenyang (2005) 39 3.2 Party organization of Yong feng shequ in Shenyang (2003) 40 3.3 Organization of property administration (city of Shenzhen) 52 4.1 Propagating a New Citizen Morality 65 8.1 The emergence of citizens – the perspective of the party-state 161