Community governance during the Shanghai COVID-19 lockdown I: the roles and actions of residents’ committees

ABSTRACT

Residents’ committees (RCs) are crucial in China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy. They were at the frontline of combating the pandemic yet received wide criticism, drawing controversies to their roles and actions as grassroots organizations or extensions of state control. To further understand RCs in China’s community governance, this research conceptualizes RCs as street-level bureaucrats (SLBs), capable of exercising discretion and policy entrepreneurship, and argues that RCs are the “intermediary space” between the state and society. Questionnaire surveys and structured interviews were used to examine RCs’ roles and their discretion and policy entrepreneurship during the city-wide lockdown in Shanghai, China, in the Spring of 2022. Results suggest that RC staff, volunteers, and residents tend to perceive RCs’ roles differently. Although RC staff might have considered themselves government representatives, they also reported the need to address residents’ needs when implementing policies. At the same time, they actively used discretion, mobilized volunteers, established temporary systems, and helped with residents’ spontaneous group actions, all without directly violating epidemic policies. These insights suggest new ways to understand the nuances of China’s community governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Community governance
• residents’ committee
• street-level bureaucracy
• COVID
• China

Acknowledgments

This research was presented at the 2023 AAG annual meeting and the 2023 IACP annual conference. The authors are thankful for the feedback from the conference participants. This paper also benefited tremendously from the comments and insights from three anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to Professor Winnie Yip for inspiring this research during a dinner conversation in April 2022 in Cambridge, MA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52308041)