This panel looks to public policy, digitalization, and social actors in China’s grid management. The strategy has advanced societal administration (shehui guanli) with new channels of technological oversight, digitalization and new information networks coupled with a reorganization of local neighborhood committees. While some see a turn to more centralized, authoritarian administration, others highlight the benefits of security and improved services for local communities. Initiated already early in this century, the organizational innovation took clearer shape in the years of Covid controls. The crisis forced rapid reorganization of local committees, a reform that continues to evolve in the post-Covid era. A national policy promoting grid organization has gained momentum recently in the effort to manage housing disputes and other local areas of instability and polarization. Will comprehensive grid organization now redefine the earlier community organization in post-Covid China?
Theories of the developmental state provide a conceptual platform, while case studies provide a current profile, as precedent and profile tell us of prospect. Applied technological advances in information systems and digitalization provide one stream of academic interest. The political reorganization of local committees in China’s system of urban management provides a further stream. The effect of administrative reforms such as centralization and regionalization on neighborhood committees represents a third stream. Security at the local level, its definition, and the structures addressing polarization, particularly in the housing companies would be a fourth stream of interest.
We look to how the grids affect solidarity, particularly in the shift from the self-management of the more independent neighborhood committees. We welcome case studies tracking local adaptation of the grid initiative. Looking more to concepts, we welcome papers tracking the effect of grid management on patterns of China’s distinctive center-local rule.