The current literature on Chinese urban studies and governmentality undertheorises the reform of local governance with regard to the activation and empowerment of community in China. Inspired by Dean’s and Sigley’s discussions of non-liberal or ‘Chinese governmentality’, this paper seeks to understand and conceptualise one of China’s most noted examples of community development, the so-called Shanghai model, using the Foucauldian concept of pastorship. Understood here as distinct from the notion of ‘advanced liberal’ governmentality, it is argued that Shanghai’s community governance depends on the governing concepts and technologies associated with the socio-political construction of the ‘pastoral’ relationship between local Party leaders and citizens. By focusing on the case study of Luwan district and one of its grass-roots community organisations (Wuliqiao Street Office), this paper will demonstrate the characteristics, institutionalisation and limitations of, pastoral governance.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BeckU. (1999) World Risk Society. Cambridge: Polity.
2.
BrayD. (2006) Building ‘community’: new strategies of governance in urban China, Economy and Society, 35(4), pp. 530–549.
3.
ChenY. F. (2003) Exploring how deprived groups express their interests, Strategy and Management, 6, pp. 87–92.
4.
CruikshankB. (1999) The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens and Other Subjects. New York: Cornell University Press.
5.
DeanM. (1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society: Foucault, Power and Social Structure. London: SAGE.
6.
DelantyG. (2003) Community. London: Routledge.
7.
DuoJiC. R. (2003) The Reader of Urban Community Construction. Beijing: China Sociology Publisher.
8.
FlyvbjergB. (2001) Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9.
FoucaultM. (2002) ‘Omnes et Singulatim’: toward a critique of political reason, in FaubionJ. D. (Ed.) Michel Foucault: The Essential Works: Power, pp. 298–325. London: The Penguin Press.
10.
GuJ.. (2000) The community mediation and social stability: a research report of Shanghai Luwan District WuLiQiao Street Office. Shanghai University.
HowellJ. (2004) Governance in China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Inc.
13.
HuJ. T. (2003) Speech in Deng’s inspection of Tianjin, in: Ministry of Civil Affairs (Ed.) The Yearbook of Community Development in China. Beijing: Chinese Society Publisher.
14.
HuJ. T. (2009) The President’s Order Number 16 (27th/June/2009). Beiing: The President Office of the People’s Republic of China.
15.
ImrieR. (2004) Governing the cities and the urban renaissance, in: JohnstoneC.WhiteheadM. (Eds) New Horizons in British Urban Policy: Perspectives on New Labour’s Urban Renaissance, pp. 129–142. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
16.
ImrieR.ThomasH.MarshallT. (1995) Business organisations, local dependence and the politics of urban renewal in Britain, Urban Studies, 32(1), pp. 31–48.
17.
JonesM.WardK. (2002) Excavating the logic of British urban policy: neoliberalism as the ‘crisis of crisis-management’, Antipode, 34(3), pp. 473–494.
18.
LCPC (Luwan Communist Party Committee) (2002) The internal institutions of WSO. LCPC, Shanghai.
19.
LDG (Luwan District Government) (2005) Luwan eleventh five-year national economy and social development plan. Luwan District Government, Shanghai.
20.
LeeJ.ZhuY. P. (2006) Urban governance, neoliberalism and housing reform in China, The Pacific Review, 19(1), pp. 39–61.
21.
LinS. L. (2003) Community Democracy and Governance: Case Studies. Beijing: Social Science Academic Press.
22.
LinW. I. (2010) The formation of community governance in Shanghai, Chinese Administration, 82, pp. 23–50.
23.
LiuC. (2006) Social changes and neighborhood policy in Shanghai, Policy and Society, 25(1), pp. 133–155.
24.
McClymontaK.O’HareP. (2008) ‘We’re not NIMBYs!’: contrasting local protest groups with idealised conceptions of sustainable communities, Local Environment, 13(4), pp. 321–335.
25.
McFarlaneC. (2010) The comparative city: knowledge, learning, urbanism, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(4), pp. 725–742.
26.
Organisation Department of SCPC (Shanghai Communist Party Committee) (2008) Shanghai’s two initiatives (Shunag Chuang Huo Dong) of expanding and strengthening the party construction of community. Organisation Department of SCPC, Shanghai.
27.
RenY. (2006) Globalisation and grassroots practices: community development in contemporary urban China, in: WuF. (Ed.) Globalisation and the Chinese City, pp. 292–309. London: Routledge.
28.
RobinsonJ. (2006) Ordinary City: Between Modernity and Development. London: Routledge.
29.
RoseN. (2006) Governing ‘advanced’ liberal democracies, in: SharmaA.GuptaA. (Eds) The Anthropology of the State: A Reader, pp. 144–162. Oxford: Blackwell.
30.
SCAB (Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau). (2000) Community Development Report of Shanghai 1996–2000. Shanghai: Shanghai University Press.
31.
SCPC (Shanghai Communist Party Committee) (1996) Policy opinions about strengthening the construction of street office, neighbourhood committee and community administration, in: Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau. (Eds) Community Development Report of Shanghai 1996–2000, pp. 527–531. Shanghai: Shanghai University Press.
32.
ShiehL.FriedmannJ. (2008) Restructuring urban governance, City, 12(2), pp. 183–195.
33.
SigleyG. (2006) Chinese governmentalities: government, governance and the socialist market economy, Economy and Society, 35(4), pp. 487–508.
34.
TaylorR. (1989) Chinese hierarchy in comparative perspective, The Journal of Asian Studies, 48(3), pp. 490–511.
35.
WalkerR.DanielB. (2007) The Chinese road: cities in the transition to capitalism, New Left Review, 46, pp. 39–66.
36.
WSO (WuLiQiao Street Office) (2000) The research and principle of community development in WuLiQiao Street Office, Luwan District, Shanghai. WSO, Shanghai.
37.
WSO (2006) Annual review of WSO (2003–2005). WSO, Shanghai.
38.
WuF. (2000) The global and local dimensions of place-making: remaking Shanghai as a world city, Urban Studies, 37(8), pp. 1359–1377.
39.
WuF. (2002) China’s changing urban governance in the transition towards a more market-oriented economy, Urban Studies, 39(7), pp. 1071–1093.
40.
WuZ. H.. (2002) The legal system of community in the transition of urban and social structure, Government’s Research of Legal System (Shanghai), 5, pp. 1–62.
41.
XuD. M.ZuK. Y. (2005) Civilisation and Civilised City: A Research of National Framework for Assessing Civilised Cities. Shanghai: Shanghai People Publisher.
42.
XuQ.ChowJ. C. (2006) Urban community in China: service, participation, and development, International Journal of Social Welfare, 15(3), pp. 199–208.
43.
ZhangJ. S. (2004) Shanghai Li-Long neighbourhood: mobilising grass-root politics, uniting state and society, Chinese Social Sciences, 2.
44.
ZhangT. W. (2002) Decentralisation, localisation, and the emergence of a quasi-participatory decision-making structure in urban development in Shanghai, International Planning Studies, 7(4), pp. 303–323.
45.
ZhangT. W. (2007) Innovation in Chinese urban governance: the Shanghai experience, in: HambletonR.GrossJ. S. (Eds) Governing Cities in a Global Era: Urban Innovation, Competition and Democratic Reform, pp. 113–124. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
46.
ZhaoM.ZhaoW. (2003) Community Development Planning: Theory and Practice. Beijing: China Architecture & Building Press.
47.
ZhuJ. G. (1997) The power transition in urban street area: the model of strong state and strong society, Strategy and Administration, 4.
