現代中国における社区居民委員会の従属性と非従属性―地方行政の断片化と共産党のネットワーク

抄録

Since the introduction of the Reform and Opening-up Policy in 1978, social inequality and instability in Chinese cities have reemerged. Conflicts between individual urban residents, private enterprises, social organizations, and local authorities over wealth and opportunities created by the rapid economic development have intensified. Moreover, frustration among those who failed to benefit from this competition is also on a sharp rise. Social tension, along with social diversity, has made it very difficult for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain social stability in urban China. In order to cope with this situation, which might become a severe risk for the party-state system, the CCP has been trying to reinforce its urban governance through residents’ committees.

In the official context, the residents’ committee is a grassroots level autonomous organization, which takes care of daily issues within local communities. Members of residents’ committees are chosen through elections. This election gives the residents’ committee a “democratic” image. However, in reality, it is a sub-administrative organization controlled by the local government. Not only does it provide benefits for urban residents, but it is also in charge of management and surveillance of the urban populous. Therefore, many literatures have concluded that local governments have established a firm control over residents’ committee and through that control the CCP has improved its urban governance.

In order to investigate state influence towards residents’ committees, the author conducted fieldwork at a residents’ committee (“J” committee) located in Hangzhou city from 2015 to 2017. One of the objectives of this ethnographical observation was the election process of choosing the new leadership of “J” committee. This paper introduces what the author encountered during that election and elaborates over those findings.

All of the members of “J” committee leadership, turned out to be CCP members. They interfered with the election process by mobilizing other party members within the community. Mobilized party members interfered with the election in various ways in order to secure a high voting rate. They did this to gain high evaluation from the local government, which decides the annual budget of “J” committee.

What became clear through this ethnographical observation was that “J” committee was indeed manipulating the election in order to gain more resources from the local government. Since the officials of the local government and members of “J” committee were both party members, it could be said that lower level party members were actually maneuvering against their superiors. This incident shows that local governments do not necessarily possess firm control over residents’ committees. Therefore, this paper argues that the theory of “Fragmented Authoritarianism” propounded by Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg might be applicable to the explanation of urban governance in contemporary China.