Abstract
ABSTRACT From 1949 to the 1980s, the Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted a “mass movement” strategy to avoid bureaucratisation and maintained a semi-formal mode of community governance. After the 1980s, China’s community governance policies were re-directed towards corporatisation and professionalism, and mass movement was combined with technical and quasi-professional strategies. This article demonstrates that regardless of the changing discourse from people-centred to modern “professionalism”, China’s community governance remains authoritarian resilience. Local government bodies continue to expand their power networks to local civil spaces, altering the professionalisation of governance at the community level. Consequently, the modernisation of grassroots governance has created an involution trap and resulted in a precarious professional scenario for social work. This article argues that the true road to the modernisation of community governance is neither a semi-formal mode of governance nor new public management strategies but through professionalisation to promote the democratisation of grassroots governance.
Published Version
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