Good Governance Of Urban Neighborhood Space:a Comparative Study Of Three Governance Patterns In H Sub-district Of Shishi City

Community governance is a microscopic embodiment of social governance. After reviewing studies about authority structure research in "State-society" dualistic paradigm, the author focuses on neighborhood space, which is the smallest but daily unit at the grassroots level. The author then tries to observe interaction structures and strategies among different organizations, study in neighborhood governance in "State-Market-Society" framework and finally introspect the deficiency of "State-Society" dualistic paradigm.Supported by a comparative study of three urban neighborhood spaces, it is found that in the process of rapid urbanization, three governance patterns can be explored in H sub-district:Administrative-based model, Market-based model and Autonomy-based model.The relationship between state and society is no longer dualistic but pluralistic, consisting of many different possibilities. In the perspective of "State-Market-Society" framework, neighborhood committee which is the administrative organization at the grass-roots level, acts as a governor rather than "double agent". However, the strength of administration has been weakened so that the committee has to attach to more powerful organizations to gaining recourse. Market organization occupies the role of domination as well as coordinator. Owners committees provide non-institutional authorities such as local favors and social network resources so that it can coordinate relations within market organization, administrative committee and residents. But some owners committees present double peculiarities of domination as well as attachment of agent.In the final part, it is concluded that actions and strategies of governance in H sub-district lack mobilizing effective participation from residents. Then another question opens to discussion:how to transform the objective existence of "Neighborhood" into "Neighborhood Community" in the perspective of good governance? It is supposed that governance of neighborhood space in Shishi City should be transformed into pluralistic rather than single participation. Stable common platforms and neighborhood social capital should be formed to establish neighborhood community and finally realize the aim of good governance.