By Long Haibo & Shen Yuan, Research Team on “Innovative Development of Social Governance in China”, Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC

Research Report No.58, 2018 (Total 5333) 2018-3-29

Abstract: At present, the overall performance of social governance at the grassroots level is generally sound. Local governments have shifted the focus of social governance down to the grassroots level, forming a governance model featured by gridded management, the coordination between communities, social organizations and social workers and collaborative governance. Deqing county in Chaozhou city of Zhejiang province has formed some effective measures by innovating social governance methods and constantly improving self-governance capabilities and management service at the grassroots level. On the one hand, it has invited some local worthies as consultants to participate in democratic consultations and give advises on village affairs and strived to cultivate an urban-rural integration model for social governance based on the rule of law, the rule of virtue and self-governance. On the other hand, through the establishment of the “happy community” center, the county government has streamlined the different functions of the community center, and enhanced the overall service level. For future development, the county government needs to push forward the social governance work at the grassroots level in the new era. First, it needs to pay more attention to the governance effectiveness, and focus on leveraging the incentive mechanism; second, efforts need to be made to consolidate the foundation of democratic consultations and build a new interactive relation between the government and the community; third, it needs to further flesh out the top-level design of policies and realize the integration of grassroots service.

Key words: social governance, multiple and collaborative governance, township counselor conference, “happy community” center