Abstract:

High mobility and individualization of relationships has undermined the foundations of China’s social order, and also has posed enormous challenges to grassroots governance. Taking the practice of petitioning social workers in S City as an example, this paper analyzes the operation mode and implementation mechanism of social forces’ participating in grassroots governance from the perspective of “informal relationship” reconstruction. The results show that the state is moving from the front to the back in the grassroots governance, mobilizing the emotions of social members and rebuilding social relations through social forces to achieve the goal of governance. Based on this, this paper puts forward the concept of “flexible governance”, and discusses its value, function and possible predicament to bring theoretical base and reflection to effective grassroots governance.

Key words: flexible governance, informal relationship, grassroots governance