Unit configuration and construction logic of grassroots social self-governance implementation in urban areas: an analysis based on the "Ketangjian" self-governance model in Qingpu district, Shanghai, China

In 2019, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee emphasized the "acceleration of modernizing urban social governance," which has significant theoretical and practical implications. In 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee further proposed requirements such as "strengthening and innovating urban social governance" and "improving the level of urban governance and strengthening risk prevention and control in mega-city  governance," pointing out the direction for the next step of modernizing the urban governance system and governance capacity. Urban social governance is an important dimension of national governance and plays  a pivotal role in the national governance system. This requires accurate analysis and clarification of  the relationship between national governance and local governance, grassroots governance and social  governance, urban governance and county-level social governance, and village governance, and promoting  the organic combination of the "system of self-governance, governance based on moral principles, and  governance by law," to truly achieve the orderly social operation of self-governance, governance based on moral principles, powerful governance by law, and orderly politics. The construction of the institutional framework and mechanism innovation of urban social governance requires the governance content and behavior  to be located in appropriate spatial areas and governance units, to flexibly and conveniently form combinations and reconstructions of governance units of different levels, types, and subjects according to local conditions.  To optimize the spatial scale of urban social governance, shift the governance focus downwards, and continuously consolidate the pivot and base of modernizing urban social governance, in order to better form  a rural-urban integration social governance system with top-down linkage, horizontal interaction, facility connectivity, and data integration, and effectively give full play to the value and function of grassroots governance units to undertake the heavy responsibility of promoting the modernization of national governance. 

1. Yu Jianxing. Distinguishing National Governance, Local Governance, Grassroots Governance and Social Governance. Guangming Daily. August 30, 2019, 11th edition. (In Chinese)

2. Tao Xidong. City Social Governance: Features, Connotations, and Innovative Paths of Systems. Theory and Modernization. 2021;(2). (In Chinese)

3. Bai Xuejiao. Moderate Scale: The Organizational Basis for Effective Forms of Residents' Autonomy. Southeast Academic. 2014;(5) (In Chinese)

4. Plato. Translated by Guo Binhe and Zhang Zhuming. The Republic. Commercial Press. 2012 edition. (In Chinese)

5. Xu Yong. Regaining Autonomy: Exploring Version 3.0 of Villagers' Autonomy. Social Sciences Daily. June 5th, 2014. (In Chinese)

6. Tang Ming. From Pilot Projects to Villagers' Autonomy Based on Villager Groups or Natural Villages – A Report on Surveys of 24 Pilot Units at the National Level. China Rural Observation. 2020. Issue 1. (In Chinese)

7. Teng Luyang, Xu Ganli. The Mining and Transformation of Local Resources and the Extension of Political Power: A Case Study of 'Guest Hall Hui' in Xuhang Town, Shanghai. Social Governance. 2020. Vol. 4. (In Chinese)

8. Deng Dacai. The Relationship Between Property Units and Governance Units: Based on the Logic of Rural Governance in China. Chinese Social Sciences. 2015;(7). (In Chinese)

9. Zhihui Huang. From Not being a Farmer to not being a Landlord: The Transformation of Farmers' Housing Pattern and Rural Revitalization in the Relationship of mutual Benefit between Urban and Rural Areas. Open Times. 2022;(3) (In Chinese)

10. Chen Baozhong, Han Qianguang. A Case Study of "Ketanghui" in J District of Shanghai: A Case Study of Flexible Governance in Urban Communities. Lingnan Academic Journal. 2018;(2) (In Chinese)

11. Aristotle. Politics. The Commercial Press. 2013:361 (In Chinese)