Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 6, 2021

The Innovation of Social Governance in Contemporary China under the Guidance of Party Building

(Abstract)

Huang Xiaochun

In the course of the reform process of improving China’s social governance model based on collaboration, participation, and common interests, guidance under Party building has become an important institutional arrangement for promoting the collaborative governance of multiple actors and improving the overall capacity of the primary-level governance system. The example of the historical process of urban social governance innovation in Shanghai reveals the overall institutional connotations of guidance through Party building, finding that they contain the institutional elements of three dimensions, i.e., inter-organizational coordination, building a governance network for a mobile society, and promoting the simultaneous growth of the governance community. With the help of the political guidance, incentive drive, and network integration of Party building, these institutional elements have effectively responded to many deep-seated challenges in governance transformation. In the context of its historical transformation, the governance under the guidance of Party building has an important strategic significance for promoting the reform of service-oriented government, leading the orderly development of Chinese social publicity, and achieving the full coverage of the governance network. This points to a new path for the innovation of sociological theory with Chinese characteristics.