Research On “chimeric Governance” Of Urban Grassroots Society

Since the 1990 s,along with the process of moving towards the socialist market economy,China's urban and rural social management system has undergone drastic changes.The transformation of the operation mechanism of urban grassroots society and the possibility of good governance at grassroots society are the frontiers issues of sociological research.Since the reform,the most important change of the urban grassroots social governance pattern is that,while the state is reforming and adjusting the traditional top-down vertical “line” management system,the state gradually realized the downward shift of the center of gravity,and changed to the “multi-layer”governance pattern with the “street-community system” as the center axis and the multiple subjects embedded vertically and horizontally.Under the proposition of building a community of social governance,strengthening and innovating grass-roots social governance,bridging the structural tension between the state and society,and constructing a “co-construction,co-governance and sharing” relationship model are the central tasks and theoretical objectives of China's social construction in the new era.This study uses the qualitative method of sociological research to carry out a continuous in-depth field survey of several streets in N district of C city.Combined with the sociological theory discourse and empirical data,this paper defines the new grassroots social governance structure generated with the street reform and community construction in the new era as “chimeric governance”.In essence,the “chimeric governance” of urban grassroots society refers to a kind of vertical-crossing,mutually shaped relationship configuration and collaborative governance mode generated by the continuous and close embedment and interaction between the “street complex subject”and “multiple social forces” under the guidance of the street and taking the community as the platform.It breaks through the “single line” governance tradition of the country,and its essence is the construction of local new publicity characterized by “public and common” in the field of grassroots social governance.The research found that it is difficult to explain and reveal the real operational logic of grassroots social governance if the research field is limited to the microcommunity field.In fact,the urban grassroots social governance performance has been deeply shaped by the street administrative power.Therefore,this paper will turn the research field of urban grassroots social governance to the overall view of streetcommunity composite structure,and take “chimeric governance” as the research framework,focus on the theoretical propositions with internal logical correlation,and enrich the theoretical connotation and practical dimension of “chimeric governance”with systematic empirical research.This paper puts the research of “chimeric governance” under the background of the transformation of grassroots social governance structure and street reform in the new period of our country,and carries out an overall research on chimeric governance,the establishment of chimeric relationship,chimeric structure and operation mechanism,chimeric intrinsic power,and mobilization chimerism in emergency state through empirical method.First,the study on the establishment of chimeric relationship.From the perspective of the establishment mechanism of the chimeric relationship,the construction of the chimeric relationship between “street complex subject” and “multiple social forces” needs to meet a variety of basic conditions,including the state's active transfer of social space and leading links,the professionalism of social subject's governance and service,the embedded subject's own resources and social capital,and the active dependence of social organizations on the government.It is found that the establishment of chimeric relationship follows different paths.The main paths of the establishment of chimeric relationship are the independent purchase of social services by the street,the link and assignment of superior government resources,and the construction of chimeric platform by the street.It can be seen that the establishment of the chimeric relationship is mainly dominated by the main body of grassroots governance in the way of purchasing services,but this is not an attempt to construct the relationship of the state's absorption,incorporation and control of the society,but a value orientation of mutual embeddedness and cooperation between the government and society.Its essence is to realize the “revival”and “reconstruction” of grassroots social vitality in the process of constructing “social governance community” led by the state.Second,the structure and action research of chimeric governance.The essence of chimeric governance is a kind of mechanism refining for the construction of structural relationship and the operation of action relationship between the state and society in the governance system.Based on the sociological research paradigm and theoretical resources of “structure-action”,this paper discusses the field relationship and dynamic operation mechanism of chimeric governance.There are different types of chimeric governance structure and action orientation between street-community subject and different social subjects,which need us to make targeted analysis.This study finds that the structure and action of the chimeric governance in the urban grassroots social field are mutually shaped,coupled and covariant.The structure of the relationship between government and society affects the state's choice and progress of the action.The governance action of the government and the society constantly breaks through the limited fields and expands a new structure of the chimeric governance.In a word,chimeric governance not only renews and constructs the society,but also renews and constructs the country.Third,the research on the intrinsic power of chimeric governance.There are still limitations in using administrative authority and resources as the driving mechanism to construct the chimeric structure of grassroots governance and carry out governance actions.Therefore,we need to bring the dimension of political parties into the chimeric governance dynamic structure for analysis.Party organizations play a central role of“commanding the overall situation and coordinating all parties” in China's social system,which can activate and mobilize multiple subjects and resources at the grassroots level and make them participate in the structural system serving the masses.Under the background of street reform,the urban grassroots party organization system with the street Working Committee of Party and community Party Committee as the core has a profound impact on the structure and operation mechanism of grassroots governance.The organizational embeddedness,institutional absorption,political resources and value guidance of political parties have become the indispensable and irreplaceable intrinsic power of chimeric governance.Fourth,the research of mobilization chimerism and linkage in emergency state.In the face of sudden public crisis,the normal chimeric governance mechanism is difficult to switch to a new form and solve the problem properly.Therefore,exploring the logic and action of abnormal chimeric governance in emergency is an indispensable part of chimeric governance research.During the critical period of the outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia and anti-epidemic at the grassroots level,street-community subject adopted the emergency mobilization method to absorb a large number of residents into the epidemic prevention and control system,and constructed the chimeric governance mechanism under the emergency state.The abnormal chimeric governance is not a new start in addition to the original grassroots social governance system,but a mechanism innovation that grows and inlays it.We need to strive to construct the relevance and transformation between normal and abnormal chimeric governance mechanisms,and form a new normal chimeric governance mechanism that conforms to the operation logic of grassroots society.This paper argues that,different from the theoretical concepts representing the relationship between the state and society,such as administrative absorption and dependent cooperation,the important value of the chimeric governance,which aims at constructing the relationship model of “co-construction,co-governance and sharing”,lies in the fact that the state and society “run in” a political social relationship structure which is more conducive to the development of governance action in the process of continuous embeddedness,coordination and shaping further promote the development and upgrading of governance action.In particular,on the basis of mutual embeddedness,street-community structure and multiple social forces are coupled to form a new“chimera of political and social governance”,which goes beyond the simple addition and combination of embedded subject governance power,resources and functions,and produces a new governance and service function.In short,chimeric governance provides a possible theoretical and practical direction for the innovation of grassroots governance.However,we still need to pay attention to the fact that the chimeric governance is only the beginning of its development,which is still in a complex adjustment process and presents some limitations.For example,the embedding of external social subjects may lead to the hollowing out of street-community subject as local organizations;the establishment of chimerism relationship led by the street and in-depth regulation of chimeric action will squeeze the space of social independent operation and lead to the dual development of community and social organizations;the introduction of commercial variables has the risk of profit orientation obscuring the public welfare of services;the governance mechanism of normal and abnormal chimerism faces the complex problems of convergence and transformation,and so on.This requires us to continue to build the “new publicity” of grassroots social governance,endow it with new meaning,develop its new form,and promote the modernization of grassroots social governance system and governance capacity.