Local Practice Of Demolishing Illegal Buildings And Achieve Good Governance By Introducing Soft Law Mechanism

This paper focuses on the story about demolishing illegal buildings by introducing a “soft law mechanism”,and the story happened recently in HM Community,H Subdistrict.At first,the absence of both “hard law administration” and “soft law governance” from HM Community caused missequence of the illegal buildings and constructions.After that,the government power failed to demolishing the illegal buildings when encountered the community residents with "weapon of the weak",which led the government to the difficulties of “double legitimacy”.Eventually,the government and the community residents reached consensus by implementing a soft law mechanism,the people agreed to demolish their illegal buildings,and the government reach the goal of governance.Through interpretation of "the soft law mechanism for illegal buildings" found in thestory,This paper argues that in the field of governance at the grassroots level,after the disintegration of Totalist society the main interests of Chinese society turned form monism to pluralism.In this case,the primary government should be more efficient by using a soft law governance mechanism to achieve the objectives set by “hard law”,so that,“good governance” could be achieved.The paper consists of five parts:The introduction part is mainly about “soft law” and “good governance”,“flexible management” and “hard law governance”,“double legitimacy” and other theoretical concepts which are necessary.The first part is the story of HM Community based on field study.Through field investigation,we were able to realize difficulties of the grassroots government when facing the “double legitimacy dilemma”,that is the government should not only take actions to demolish the illegal buildings according to the law,but also make proper arrangement for the community residents(the owners of the illegal buildings).The second part discusses the dilemma of the hard law when facing the illegal buildings.The problem should be: undefined powers and responsibilities,unclear boundary,uneven administrations responsibilities,and the inefficient accountability system.Through full argument on these issues,this paper argues that good governance could not be achieved by purely using hard law,and the harmonious and stable development ofgrassroots community need soft law mechanism.The third part demonstrates the motivation and benefit of the soft law mechanism to cure the illegal buildings.This chapter analyzed the administrative vacuum in the grassroots community,indicating that the soft law mechanism could help to avoid the “double legitimacy dilemma”,and the soft law mechanism is more effective only because it is based on consensus.The conclusion part summarizes the topic and argues that the soft law mechanisms can combine the State-will and the livelihood rights by promoting pluralism through consultation and communication,and is conform to the aim of good governance.