SHEQU CONSTRUCTION: POLICY IMPLEMENTATION, COMMUNITY BUILDING, AND URBAN GOVERNANCE IN CHINA by LESLIE L. SHIEH B.Sc., Cornell University, 1998 MCP, University of California, Berkeley, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Community and Regional Planning) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) March 2011 © Leslie L. Shieh, 2011 ABSTRACT China’s nationwide Shequ (Community) Construction project aims to strengthen neighbourhood- based governance, particularly as cities wrestle with pressing social issues accompanying the country’s economic reforms. This policy has produced astounding outcomes, even though it is implemented through experimentation programs and the interbureaucratic document system rather than through legislation. It has professionalized the socialist residents’ committees and strengthened their capacity to carry out administrative functions and deliver social care. Thousands of service centres have been built, offering a range of cultural and social services to local residents. This research addresses how the centrally promulgated policy is being implemented locally and what its impacts are in various neighbourhoods. The lens of community building is used to explore how the grass roots organize themselves and how they are defined and governed by the state. The research thus seeks to analyze the impact of Shequ Construction, not through measuring outcomes against the intentions set out in policy documents, but through considering the wider, sometimes unforeseen, implications for other processes going on in the city. Based on fieldwork in Nanjing, the chapters explore the meaning Shequ Construction has in four areas of urban governance: 1) fiscal reform and decentralization of public services, 2) suburban village redevelopment, 3) community-based social service provisioning through the emergent nonprofit sector, and 4) role of homeowners’ association under housing privatization and neighbourhood inequality. By examining the interaction of Shequ Construction with a diverse set of policies, this research demonstrates how policy becomes interpreted during the course of implementation by local agencies as they contend with realities on the ground; and conversely how the Shequ policy alters the course and outcome of other policies and projects simultaneously unfolding. Furthermore, the perspective of policy interactions sheds light on the policy-making process in China. In presenting the Chinese experience, this dissertation seeks to contribute to the broader planning discourse on the function and appropriation of community building as a means of urban governance. ii PREFACE A version of chapter 6 has been accepted for publication. Shieh, Leslie (forthcoming). “Awaiting Urbanization: Urban Village Redevelopment in Coastal Urban China,” in Arif Dirlik and Alexander Woodside (eds) Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. A version of chapter 7 has been accepted for publication. Shieh, Leslie (forthcoming). “Nongovernmental Organizations in Contemporary China: Development of Community- based Social Service Organizations,” in Huhua Cao and Jeremy Paltiel (eds) China in the Twenty-First Century: Multidisciplinary Perspectives from Students in Canada and in China. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. The research undertaken was approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board (certificate number H06-04074). iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgement.......................................................................................................................... x 1. Introduction: Policy Implementation, Community Building, and Urban Governance ...... 1 Community Building in China’s Urban Transition ..................................................................... 1 Bureaucratic Hierarchy and Cellular Units .................................................................................. 6 Shequ Construction Research ...................................................................................................... 9 Danwei and shequ .................................................................................................................... 9 Shequ policy objectives and content ...................................................................................... 11 Urban development and shequ ............................................................................................... 14 Policy Implementation in China ................................................................................................ 15 Research Questions: Shequ Construction in China’s Urbanization ........................................... 18 Fiscal reform .......................................................................................................................... 18 Urban village redevelopment ................................................................................................. 19 Nonprofit sector in community-based service delivery ......................................................... 19 Interest-based community ...................................................................................................... 20 Dissertation Outline ................................................................................................................... 20 2. Research Design: Methodology, Fieldwork Process, and Methodological Issues .............. 23 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 23 Overview of Research Design ................................................................................................... 24 Selection of Methods ................................................................................................................. 28 Initial fieldwork ..................................................................................................................... 29 Refocused fieldwork .............................................................................................................. 30 Access and Sampling ................................................................................................................. 33 Sources of Data and Collection ................................................................................................. 37 Shequ researchers .................................................................................................................. 37 Bureau officials ...................................................................................................................... 38 Shequ and urban villages ....................................................................................................... 39 Social organizations ............................................................................................................... 40 Documents ............................................................................................................................. 41 Conditions of Fieldwork and Research Limitations .................................................................. 42 Positionality: On being a foreign researcher of Chinese descent .......................................... 42 Official approval and sampling bias ...................................................................................... 43 Note on Referencing Fieldwork ................................................................................................. 44 3. A Historical Overview: Urban Community in China .......................................................... 45 In Other Worlds and In Other Words: Community and Shequ ................................................. 45 Morality and Elite Activism in Imperial Streets and Wards ...................................................... 49 iv On Self-Governance: Early Political Thoughts and Debates ..................................................... 53 Republican Modernity and Traditional Continuity .................................................................... 56 Birth of the Residents’ Committee ............................................................................................ 61 Legal Standing of the Residents’ Committee ............................................................................ 67 The Appearance of Shequ: Modern Term, Old Concept ........................................................... 68 Observing China and a Chinese Perspective ............................................................................. 72 4. Shequ Jianshe: China's Community Construction Policy Agenda ..................................... 74 An Experiment’s Experiment