Grid Governance and “Social Management Innovation”

Grid governance initiatives were first piloted in Beijing in 2004, when digital maps were introduced to organize municipal administration tasks into various grids (wangge) according to geographical boundaries. In 2008 during the Beijing Olympics, Beijing extended the grid governance scheme to include public security by establishing an online platform which provided public security information collected from residential neighbourhoods within each grid. Since 2010, Beijing has expanded the coverage of the scheme to incorporate social service management (shehui fuwu guanli 社会服务管理).Footnote ¹⁵ The pilot experiment in the Dongcheng district 东城区 of Beijing used grids as basic governance units. Using information technology, the experiment divided the 17 street offices and 205 residential communities in the district into 589 social management grids. Each grid was assigned personnel from all three levels of governance (district, street offices and residential communities). This aimed to increase the efficiency of task allocation as well as to provide new evaluation criteria by which local administrative personnel were to be appraised.Footnote ¹⁶

In 2013, based on the results of local experiments conducted in previous years, the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress formally identified grid governance as “an innovative social management method” and advocated the construction of a comprehensive service management platform at the grassroots level.Footnote ¹⁷ By 2014, Beijing had established a three-tier governance system – grids, residential communities and street offices – and organized all social service tasks into the grids, which incorporated 92 per cent of the street offices in Beijing.Footnote ¹⁸ In 2015, the local policy aimed to combine the three networks of municipal administration, public security and social service management into one comprehensive grid governance network that covered the whole of Bejing by the end of 2017.Footnote ¹⁹ Across the rest of China, the implementation of grid governance has become a local governance priority in many cities. For example, the civil affair bureaus in Shenyang, Suzhou and Guangzhou have all published local policies on conducting grid governance in various districts.

There are several important commonalities in the grid governance schemes across China. First, local governments aim to use the grid governance network to obtain first-hand information and gain a clearer understanding of the local situation in order to monitor more effectively certain groups of residents. These groups vary according to different types of neighbourhoods and the governance priority in the particular neighbourhood. For example, in residential communities which accommodate a large number of rural-to-urban migrants, neighbourhood security and management of the migrant population are the local government's main concerns, and the migrant-residents are likely to be the “targeted” group. In middle-class neighbourhoods where residents’ collective interests and disputes associated with property rights are the governance priority, the residents involved in such disputes are considered to be the targeted group. Generally speaking, the targeted groups of residents within a grid are usually those residents who are considered by the local government to have the potential to be involved in social conflicts which might lead to larger scale social unrest, and they vary in different neighbourhoods according to their collective interests and actions. In this way, grid governance aims to reduce the number of collective incidents and petitioning and further enhance public security at the neighbourhood level.

Such practices, to a certain extent, encourage the transformation from administration to service provision, from top-down campaigns to bottom-up daily tasks, and from government-dominant governance to the participation of diverse citizen groups. Across different localities, the mapping out of grids identifies five key components: people (residents and other interests groups), localities (neighbourhoods), issues (governance matters), objects (targeted group of residents) and organizations (both state and non-state organization). In recent years, grid governance has gradually become a more institutionalized grassroots management system, which coordinates different levels and sections of government, organizes citizen participation and mass mobilization, and manages collaborations between the state and non-state actors and organizations.

In Chinese urban neighbourhoods, as this study shows, the “grid governance model” (wanggehua guanli moshi 网格化管理模式) has been adopted as a key governance strategy to ease the tensions between multiple interest groups and work towards the government's goal of achieving more harmonious, functional governance dynamics. In the context of middle-class neighbourhoods, the targeted groups of residents within a grid usually include those who are in dispute with property management companies, their homeowner associations, residents’ committees, or with other residents. Departing from official narratives, this study aims to highlight the ambiguities, diversities and flexibilities of local practices and interpretations of what grid governance is. The official narratives are important in this sense because they set the tone for what practices are acceptable, especially when there is a lack of clear guidance. On the one hand, this article uses official narratives to show the changing government mentality, as is claimed by local government, such as the involvement of diverse/multiple actors in local governance and the pursuit of more efficient governance. On the other hand, this study illustrates a gap between what the official narratives claim about grid governance and its actual practices.

Governance in Chinese Urban Middle-class Neighbourhoods

Urban middle-class neighbourhoods in China offer a privileged lifestyle, based on the affluence of the residents. Like elsewhere, gated communities in China have become the symbols of a high standard of living, with magnificent gates and communual facilities managed by property management companies.Footnote ²⁰ However, new homeowners’ experiences and interactions with property management companies have led to new neighbourhood governance issues. The Waterfront Neighbourhood in the city of Suzhou offers a snapshot of the common issues that crop up in various middle-class neighbourhoods in different cities. Since 2006, nine middle-class residential communities, ranging in size from 3,000 to 10,000 residents, have been gradually established, all under the administration of the Waterfront Street Office. Within three years of moving in, residents became dissatisfied with the inadequate maintenance of the estate's facilities, excessive management fees and poor quality management. The homeowners began to worry that the incompetent management of the estate would lower the value of their properties and their community status. All nine residential communities in the Waterfront Neighbourhood set up homeowner associations in order to represent the collective interests of the homeowners and protect their private property rights. Through a series of collective petitions and protests staged between 2011 to 2012, the homeowner associations attempted to fire their existing management company and hire another company to take care of maintenance and other functions in their housing estate. However, the management company accused some homeowner associations of being manipulated by a small group of residents. Furthermore, although the management company was fired, the homeowner associations failed to find a replacement. This led to a new round of homeowner association elections – and more collective petitions and protests.

The middle-class neighbourhoods I visited in all three cities experienced similar problems to those of the Waterfront Neighbourhood. These kinds of disputes have become a major social stability concern for local governments. In the case of the Waterfront Neighbourhood, the local government criticized the residents’ committees for “passively responding to collective actions” organized by the middle-class residents, and demanded that the residents’ committees adopt new strategies.Footnote ²¹ There have been similar calls for more effective neighbourhood governance in middle-class neighbourhoods elsewhere. Grid governance schemes have been set up in response to such calls.

Under the grid governance structure, the basic unit is the “grid” (wangge), which usually consists of three to five residential buildings, or approximately 300 to 600 households. Under the leadership of the residents’ committee and its Party branch (dangzhibu 党支部), grid governance aims to provide multiple communication channels through which to discuss and mediate disputes arising from community affairs, and ultimately to establish a strong core leadership of neighbourhood Party organizations within middle-class residential communities. Grid governance is also employed to encourage efficiency in the management and evaluation of resident committee staff, since individual staff members all have responsibility for their own grids. Setting up the management structure is a top-down process, but the actual running of the scheme is done under the combined leadership of residents’ committees and residents’ initiatives and volunteering, and thus echoes the concept and existing practices of “resident autonomous governance” in urban neighbourboods.

Horizontal and vertical relationships within the neighbourhoods are all managed through the grid governance structure. Residents’ committees coordinate horizontal relationships between residents, resident groups and property management companies. And, as the backbone of the grid governance structure, the Party branch in each residential community (shequ dangzhibu 社区党支部) organizes the vertical relationships between the grids, the residential communities and local street offices. In Waterfront Neighbourhood, for example, every grid governance team is staffed with CCP members and operates on a “three-in-one” basis, which combines Party organization building, residents’ committee administration and residents’ participation in community affairs.

The Residents' Committees and Construction of the Grids

Grid governance functions under the firm leadership of the residents’ committees. It is the committees’ responsibility to mobilize volunteers within the grids and to “dissolve small disputes within the grid and big conflicts within the community” (xiaoshi buchu wangge, dashi buchu shequ 小事不出网格，大事不出社区).Footnote ²² A wide social base is key to the successful implementation of grid governance. Without public support, it is difficult for residents’ committees to coordinate communications between the different interest groups and mediate community disputes. For every grid, there is a governance team comprising five to seven members who normally include resident volunteers from each building, staff members of the residents’ committee, representatives from residents’ social activity groups, representatives from the homeowner association, and building managers, who represent the property management company. Sometimes the resident volunteers overlap with representatives from the residents’ social activity groups. The resident volunteers are the glue which holds the grid together. Within a grid, each building is considered to be a resident group, and each group has a resident group leader and one or two other resident volunteers. Resident volunteers’ responsibilities are mainly concerned with the horizontal relationships in the neighbourhood, including managing disputes among residents or conflicts between residents and property management companies.

In the three sites under study, the residents organized various social activities, such as group dancing, choirs and exercise groups for t'ai chi, basketball and table tennis, along with educational programmes for calligraphy, painting and handicrafts, for example. Residents’ committees are not usually directly involved in these group activities; however, the recreational activity groups provide a resource pool from which to recruit active resident participants or volunteers to facilitate the daily work of the residents’ committees. In the Waterfront Neighbourhood, for example, there are 186 resident organizations. In Garden Bay in Guangzhou, there are 43 resident organizations of which over 90 per cent of the members are retiree residents, and the great majority are female. The active members of the groups are in frequent contact with the staff of the residents’ committee and help with liaison between the residents, the residents’ committee and the property management companies. Residents’ committees are usually eager to help coordinate the existing group activities (gao huodong 搞活动), as this facilitates the setting up of a grid.

The active members of the recreational activity groups are usually sought out to become resident representatives for each grid, and some join the grid governance team as resident group leaders. For each recreational activity group, there is a group leader elected by the resident group members. The election is coordinated or organized by residents’ committees. In some situations, the residents’ committee helps to gather nominations and self-nominations on behalf of the residents’ organization. After the nominations have been put forward, residents’ committees usually send out election notices, host the polling station in their office building, and organize the logistics on election day. Throughout this process, residents’ committees publicly share who their preferred candidates are, which usually influences the voting. In most of the cases, residents consider the residents’ committee to be trustworthy and favour candidates who can work with the residents’ committee to obtain more support for their groups. As a result, elected team leaders tend to have good reputations, enjoy public support and trust, and are usually experienced in team management. More than half of resident group leaders are retired cadres. They then become the key contacts for the residents’ committees in the grid governance structure. The local government offers a nominal payment to the group leaders of usually less than 200 yuan every month.

From the state's perspective, grid governance is based on both “autonomous governance” and “co-governance,” where multiple actors and organizations are involved in dealing with community affairs. If the “autonomous governance” aspect places emphasis on the recruitment of resident volunteers, then “co-governance” highlights the participation of various interest groups. In middle-class neighbourhoods, grid governance involves representatives from homeowner associations and property management companies, enabling residents’ committees to develop better relations with the property management companies. Existing studies have shown that in many cases, residents’ committees are isolated from or even in conflict with property management companies when it comes to daily governance in middle-class neighbourhoods.Footnote ²³ By bringing property management companies in under the umbrella of the grid, residents’ committees are then in a position to offer them guidance and support. Property management companies do not enjoy much public support in residential communities, and their dealings with residents are often contentious. They normally have to rely heavily on the communication channels provided by residents’ committees to resolve disputes with the residents over service provision. In some cases, where the residents’ committees have a better knowledge of the residents in the grid, the property management companies depend on the committees in order to carry out their daily tasks. In addition, by supporting the work of residents’ committees, the parent company can establish better relations with the local government, which, in turn, may help it to acquire more business in the area. Thus, in general, property management companies are willing to be involved in grid governance schemes by cooperating with or even following the lead of residents’ committees.

The leading role residents’ committees play in the grid governance framework has meant that they have gradually shifted from focusing on specific work tasks to overseeing and leading the operation of the grids. In Suzhou, for example, residents’ committees are expected to be “in charge of which direction to go, not what specific jobs to do.”Footnote ²⁴ The Party secretaries of residents’ committees are expected to take a step back from being directly involved in solving specific problems and instead focus on providing guidance to the governance team members of each grid on how to deal with explicit situations. Under the grid structure, residents’ committee staff members are not directly engaged in mediating conflicts as the key or sometimes the sole mediators, as they used to be. Instead, they invite members of grid governance teams, including representatives from the resident volunteers, homeowner association and property management company, to establish a liaison committee, after identifying which grids host potential conflicts or complaints from the residents. The members of the liaison committee then work together to resolve disputes or respond to complaints in their assigned grid. Thus, residents’ committees now manage governance teams in urban neighbourhoods, rather than carry out specific tasks themselves. This practice is in line with the central government's initiative to reduce the workload of residents’ committees.Footnote ²⁵

Volunteering and the Operation of the Grids

Volunteering, under the guidance of residents’ committees, has become the major organizational format for the grids, with the resident volunteers and their social activity groups being the major pillars supporting their operations. The state considers volunteer groups in residential communities, including recreational activity groups, to be mass organizations (qunzhong tuanti 群众团体) or social organizations (shehui tuanti 社会团体). The emphasis on volunteering and non government-led participation is to highlight the “autonomous” feature of grid governance, which aims at bottom-up participation in neighbourhood affairs. In some middle-class neighbourhoods, the grid governance model encourages resident volunteer groups to register with the residents’ committee instead of the local civil affairs bureau (minzhengju 民政局). In that way, the residents’ committees retain a supervisory role and keep control over the volunteer groups; residents’ committees have no capacity to mobilize volunteer groups registered with the mingzhengju as they are not considered neighbourhood groups.

Grid governance has particularly targeted retired residents. Those born in the 1940s and the 1950s have largely spent their daily lives attached to their work units. After retirement, they had to shift their focus from their workplaces to residential communities. Urban neighbourhoods have become the new centres of social and political life for these active retirees. In my field sites, I observed that the residents’ committee staff are almost all in their 20s and 30s, and over 95 per cent are female. When mediating community disputes, the young staff feel they do not receive much respect from older residents. The Chinese cultural tradition of respecting one's elders has offered some senior resident volunteers a unique advantage in that the residents are more likely to respond to them than some of the young and inexperienced committee staff. As a result, residents’ committee staff actively mobilize the senior residents by building close personal relationships with them. They greet the senior residents with a warm address of “Aunt Li” or “Uncle Wang,” chat with them about their families and neighbours, show up for their performances and always show their gratitude: “without the support and help from the aunties and uncles, we wouldn't do our job well.”Footnote ²⁶ In return, many of the senior residents look upon the committee staff as “nieces” and are happy to help them.

Through voluntary activities, residents can have a say in conflict resolution in the neighbourhood. In middle-class neighbourhoods, the two areas that frequently cause contention between neighbours are noise and the use of common hallways. In addition, disputes arise between residents and the property management company regarding the use of public spaces and the public repair funds (gonggong weixiu jijin 公共维修基金) that are allocated for building repairs and maintenance. Group mediation within the grid is a popular way to resolve quarrels between neighbours. The mediation team is composed of grid governance team members and other resident volunteers. The residents’ committees usually recruit a mediation team by strategically selecting retired resident volunteers and CCP members in the grid who have formal or informal contact with the parties in dispute. The mediation process can last for a few weeks or even months, with all kinds of difficulties and frustrations, but this does not seem to discourage the resident volunteers, who told me that the resolving of conflicts gives them a sense of satisfaction and self-fulfilment.

In Waterfront Neighbourhood, residents in Building X had been complaining for three years about the vegetable garden planted by one resident on the roof of the building. The resident, Mr Li, lived on the top floor of the building and was using the common space on the roof above his apartment. At first, the neighbours lodged a complaint with the property management company, which failed to persuade Mr Li to give up his garden. Generally, property management companies are concerned about upsetting residents in case the residents refuse to pay the company's management fees. The property management companies feel they are in a weak position when it comes to mediating conflicts between residents. The residents of Building X discovered that the garden soil was blocking the pipes of the building and that the roof beneath Mr Li's vegetable patch had started to leak. Angry neighbours then approached the team leader of their newly established grid and the residents’ committee. The team leader, Mrs Zhang, and another retiree resident volunteer from the building began to visit Mr Li about twice a week, just for a neighbourly chat but without mentioning the vegetable patch. During these visits, the volunteers and Mr Li became closer. Mrs Zhang learned that Mr Li was very interested in joining the choir and dance group. Owing to the limited performance spaces, Mr Li had never had an opportunity to perform on stage. As team leader of her grid, Mrs Zhang was also in charge of the choir and dance group and used her position to make a deal with Mr Li, who eventually agreed to discuss the removal of the garden. The volunteers, residents’ committee staff and property management company staff then formed a liaison committee to talk to Mr Li and to help him remove the garden and clean up the roof.

When disputes arise about the quality of service provided by the management companies and their lack of financial transparency in regard to the management fees paid by the residents, residents’ committees usually mobilize volunteers in each grid to gather residents’ opinions and also to go with the property manager to meetings between the management company and the residents. In such cases, the volunteers have less involvement in the mediation process and are more engaged in soliciting their fellow residents’ opinions.

By using the volunteers as tools of communication, the grid governance structure to a certain extent provides a platform for deliberation and offers a potential space for the participation of multiple interest groups who are usually ignored in formal institutional settings. A key feature of deliberative democracy, functional deliberation emphasizes public discussion, reasoning and preference formation and transformation among free and equal citizens, and seeks legitimate political decision making through informed, respectful and competent dialogue that produces justification and the mutual agreement of those affected by a decision.Footnote ²⁷ By the time the different interest groups in a grid come together for mediation, they already have a fair amount of knowledge about each other's demands and requests, and the meetings are more likely to focus on practical solutions and reasonings rather than just reiterating complaints. Furthermore, any decision reached through such discussion is more likely to be respected by all parties.

Nevertheless, in contrast to the satisfaction and fulfilment felt by the resident volunteer mentioned above, homeowner association members expressed a sense of frustration at “not achieving anything.”Footnote ²⁸ The relations between homeowner associations and residents’ committees are not so close as those between volunteers and residents’ committees. The homeowner associations in general do not like residents’ committees interfering in their elections and activities; residents’ committees, on the other hand, are keen on coopting homeowner association members into the grids for practical concerns of social stability. Although homeowner associations are supposed to have a representative in each grid, they often have little contact with the resident volunteers in their grids. In a few cases, homeowner association members reported that they had never even heard of grid management and that they did not know the resident group leader in their building.Footnote ²⁹ In a neighbourhood with strong grid influences, the residents’ committee and the governance teams can dominate the elections of homeowner associations by promoting their preferred candidates.

The Neighbourhood Party Organizations and Mobilization of the Grids

While the residents’ committees focus on managing the horizontal relationships between different interest groups in grid governance systems, local Party organizations mainly deal with the vertical relationships that strengthen its top-down political and social controls. The CCP has attempted to develop a pervasive organizational structure where Party sub-branches at the grassroots level serve as the foundation of the CCP's political apparatus. In the reform era, the CCP's organizational reach has extended to non-state sectors.Footnote ³⁰ Since the 1990s, establishing branches at the grassroots level within urban residential communities has been a key Party strategy.Footnote ³¹ Following the principle of “Party organization built in grids” (dang zuzhi jian zai wangge shang 党组织建在网格上), the local state expects to strengthen the leadership of neighbourhood Party branches centred around residents’ committees.Footnote ³² As such, resident Party members are encouraged to establish Party branches within their assigned grids. In Dongcheng district in Beijing, 822 grid Party organizations were established among its 589 grids.Footnote ³³ In the field sites I studied, the grid Party organizations were supervised by the Party organizations of the residential communities and were expected “to ensure there is Party organization in each grid, and to ensure all CCP members serve as pioneering models for the core leadership of the grid Party organizations.”Footnote ³⁴

There are two main approaches to building new Party organizations. One is to develop the existing neighbourhood Party organizations already set up for local residents who have their household registration registered in the residential community. The residents’ committees target the retired Party members in the communities as the starting point for their snowball recruitment of resident volunteers. In the neighbourhoods I visited in Guangzhou, 16 per cent of resident members and over 50 per cent of organization leaders were Party members, and nearly 70 per cent of the neighbourhood Party branch members were retiree residents. In addition, the core leadership positions in the neighbourhood Party branches led by residents’ committees were open to the resident volunteers. In Garden Bay, for instance, the leading group of the neighbourhood Party branch had seven members, including five residents’ committee staff and two residents who were also the team leaders of two residents’ organizations and also members of the grid governance team.

The second approach is to grant new associational memberships to those who were previously Party members in their former workplace or city of residence. Many of the senior residents in middle-class neighbourhoods today are “senior migrants” (lao piao 老漂) who have moved to either be near or live with their children. Having left their networks and associational life behind them, these retirees look to their new residential communities for their social life. In Waterfront Neighbourhood, within the existing grid governance structure, the residents’ committee set up a local Party branch for these “senior migrants.” Named the “relocation Party branch” (yidi dangzhibu 异地党支部), the group organizes political study sessions and other political activities for these new residents. Through their associational membership with the relocation Party branch, many of the “senior migrants” are actively kept in touch with the residents’ committee and have become members of the grids.

The senior migrants’ social life usually revolves around the residents’ committees and activities organized by grid Party groups. Take Mr Wang for example. A retired university professor from a neighbouring province, he moved to Waterfront Neighbourhood six years ago to live with his son. The move left Mr Wang feeling lonely and isolated: “After I retired, I was still in touch with my work unit. I attended Party branch activities and political studies all the time. I met my former colleagues for lunch from time to time. But after I moved here, the only person I knew was my son. When he went to work, I had nothing to do at home.”Footnote ³⁵ Mr Wang came across a notice from the residents’ committee calling for a volunteer to teach calligraphy classes to school-age children in the neighbourhood. He contacted the residents’ committee and offered his services. He also became a founding member of a Party branch set up for other senior migrant residents like himself. Mr Wang considered the relocation Party branch as “a second home here where I am connected to the [Party] organization again.”Footnote ³⁶

The residents’ committees use multiple means to connect with existing Party members within each grid and to recruit new members. The residents’ committees find out about candidates and members through resident group leaders and volunteers in their grids and from the local police. They use recreational activities, other Party members’ contacts and neighbourhood public announcement platforms to attract the attention of potential new Party members. Unlike years ago when information was mostly spread through social networks and word of mouth, today social media are the primary communication channels in neighbourhoods. In Waterfront Neighbourhood, each grid has its own online chat group and there are social media discussion groups for different purposes. Messaging apps such as WeChat have rapidly gained in popularity and are widely used for all kinds of Party activities in the neighbourhoods. For instance, Ms Xu has multiple roles: she is the residents’ group leader, the association team leader and a member of the core leadership of her neighbourhood Party organization. According to her own calculations, she has over 200 contacts on her WeChat groups that relate to her neighbourhood activities. New technology has hugely improved the capacity and efficiency of human resources coordination in urban neighbourhoods.

Besides recruiting resident volunteers, Party branches within the grids also try to coopt representatives of homeowner associations and property management companies. The Party organizations particularly try to encourage homeowner association members from the non-public employment sector to apply for CCP membership through their neighbourhood Party organization rather than through their workplaces. Also, when the junior staff of the property management companies apply for CCP membership within their company, recommendations from the residents’ committee and its neighbourhood Party branches are viewed very highly.

Resident volunteers have non-material incentives to try to resolve disputes within their grids. Those incentives are largely associated with their position within their grid, the perceived authority they represent, and their Party membership. During interviews, volunteers emphatically told me: “I am not doing this for myself.” They often cited the Party leadership and the mass line as providing legitimacy for their mediation activities. This justification was especially useful when dealing with conflicts that went beyond the grid, such as disputes over the use of the funds for public repairs. In principle, the public repair fund is for the restoration and maintenance of the common facilities in the residential compounds, and expenditures need the approval of homeowner associations. However, in most cases, the property management companies often try to dodge their responsibilies and expect the homeowner associations to pay for repairs and take the lead in maintenance projects. These conflicts go beyond individual grids and extend to the community as a whole. When trying to mediate such disputes, the resident volunteers sometimes have conflicts of interest and are themselves questioned about whose side they are on. In those circumstances, they normally wave their CCP membership as proof of their objective positive and to gain the trust of their fellow residents. As Mrs Zhou explained: “My neighbourhood at the beginning asked me why I wasn't on the side of our homeowners. I told them that with my nearly 30-years' CCP membership, I can assure them that I am fair and reasonable. I take the side of justice. Of course, the neighbours trust me not only because of what I said. They have seen how I treat people and do things every day as a CCP member. So, they are convinced.”Footnote ³⁷