De-administration of the Community Resident’s Committee: A Case Study Based on the Fieldwork in China

Abstract

With the start of a new round of community reform in China, the issue of administration and de-administration of the residents’ committee has once again become a hot topic. Based on the observation of the practical cases in different parts of China, this paper summarizes three institutional models of community de-administration reform and reveals each model’s policy connotation, development course, main features, and operational effects. There are three main modes: first, “separation of residents’ committee and community workstation model,” focusing on organizational function segmentation; second, “cancel the street office and strengthen the community model,” focusing on power structure reorganization; and third, “administrative access system of community work model,” focusing on the establishment of community power list. The key to the reform of community de-administration is to excavate, cultivate, and release the social factors and mechanisms that the resident’s committee has long been restrained by the administration and to rebuild and reconstruct the balance between the “administrative” and “social” dual attributes of the residents’ committee.