How to innovate social governance and strengthen grassroots construction

In the evolution of the grass-roots governance system in contemporary China, three kinds of community elites are constantly consolidating the foundation of China's ruling party and becoming the cornerstone of the national governance system. These three types of community elites are revolutionary community elites, experienced community elites and knowledge-based community elites.

For modern countries, grass-roots governance is an important part of the national governance system. The governance of villages, communities and even grass-roots organizations in modern countries does not operate alone in a closed "feudal castle" like traditional society. Whether it is the grass-roots governance that pursues the principle of autonomy or the grass-roots governance that is connected with the state power system, it has an irreplaceable position and role and is the cornerstone of modern state construction.

Grass-roots governance is different from upper governance and internal governance of state power. Grass-roots governance exists to a great extent as a joint point between the state and society. This determines that grass-roots governance depends not only on formal institutional elements such as grass-roots government, law and election, but also on informal institutional elements based on trust, familiarity and community identity. The operation of grassroots governance system is the integration of formal system and informal system. In this way, an extremely important element has entered our field of vision, which is the community elite. Grass-roots governance must be hard, and relying solely on official civil servants of local governments will never be effective. This is determined by the characteristics and logic of grass-roots governance. Therefore, to improve the quality and level of grass-roots governance, we must rely on a special team. This team is a "community elite" and has a strong influence in the community.

Generally speaking, there is an obvious positive correlation between the maturity of community elites and the quality of grassroots governance. The perfect grass-roots governance system benefits from the support and cooperation of grass-roots government managers and community elites. The level and quality of grassroots governance are determined by the unstable foundation. How to cultivate community elites, how to improve their influence, and how to allocate community elites that match the requirements and characteristics of grassroots governance.

In the evolution of the grass-roots governance system in contemporary China, three kinds of community elites are constantly consolidating the foundation of China's ruling party and becoming the cornerstone of the national governance system. These three types of community elites are revolutionary community elites, experienced community elites and knowledge-based community elites. The above three types of community elites are all related to the logic and characteristics of a specific era.

(A) the consolidation of revolutionary social elites and grassroots governance

Revolutionary community elites were born in the early days of the founding of New China, and they played an extremely important role in the grass-roots governance system for a long historical period. The integration of urban and rural society and the consolidation of state power in New China are closely related to the birth and growth of revolutionary community elites. After the founding of New China, although both urban and rural grass-roots societies were absorbed by the formal system, the absorption of society by the state did not lead to the bureaucratization, socialization or community separation of grass-roots managers 100%. Urban community elites with neighborhood committees as the carrier and rural community elites with village committees as the carrier have played an extremely important communication value and integration role in the connection point between the state and society. A large number of oral historical data prove that although the management tools used by the elite in revolutionary communities are very similar to those used by state power, the realization of their management effectiveness depends more on the life-oriented management elements such as personal charm, interpersonal trust and service spirit. This just shows that grassroots governance has unique logic, path and effectiveness standards.

(b) Rebuilding experienced community elites and grassroots governance.

During the period of reform and opening up, with the deepening of market-oriented reform, the relaxation of the unit system and the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, experienced community elites gradually emerged. As far as urban grass-roots governance is concerned, a large number of middle-level managers of state-owned enterprises have left their original organizations because of enterprise restructuring. In the subsequent course, they were absorbed into the community, and the management experience accumulated by managers from state-owned enterprises in their original careers quickly turned into valuable resources to support community governance. This has created a unique team composed of experienced community elites. They have had a great influence on the consolidation of the national governance system and the ruling foundation of China's * * * production party during the period of reform and opening up. Even today, grass-roots governance in many cities has to rely on such community elites and their institutional and cultural inheritance in the community. As far as rural grass-roots governance is concerned, the economic talents born in the reform and opening up have filled the elite vacuum after the implementation of the household contract responsibility system. The growth of new rural community elites is not only embedded in the rural power structure and economic interests, but also grafted with the formal state power system, which has become an important support for rural society to reshape the grassroots governance system. However, it is undeniable that due to many reasons such as age, experienced community elites born out of special life experiences and special transition periods will soon withdraw from the stage of grassroots governance. Whether the intergenerational replacement of community elites in China grass-roots society can be successfully completed will determine whether the cornerstone of national governance can remain indestructible and impregnable. There are indications that cultivating and growing new community elites has become an urgent task for China to reconstruct the grass-roots governance system.

(C) the trend of elite and grass-roots governance in knowledge-based communities

With the retirement of experienced community elites, a new type of community elites is growing, which is knowledge-based community elites. Village officials in rural areas, young community branch secretaries and neighborhood committee (community) directors in urban communities have become a beautiful landscape in current community governance. In our survey, the people who take responsibility in the grass-roots governance of rural communities are often young people with knowledge (many of them graduated from high school) and knowledge (many of them have the experience of going out to work). They are significantly different from the early revolutionary community elites and the later military-to-civilian community elites in growth path, personal characteristics, management methods, vision and so on. The birth of the knowledge-based community elite proves that the community governance of the grass-roots society in China is going through the process of community elite replacement.

Each era has its own characteristics, each era has its own rhythm, and similarly, each era has its own protagonist. In the evolution of grass-roots governance in China, the growth of grass-roots management teams, especially community elites, has its historical position. The growth of any type of community elite also has its specific logic and path. The transformation from revolutionary community elite to experienced community elite is closely related to the secularization movement of grass-roots society, the structural allocation of state power to grass-roots managers and the absorption of grass-roots managers by new social space. For China at present, the growth of knowledge-based community elites is the general trend, but an extremely important problem is that it is difficult to improve the quality and level of grassroots governance only by relying on knowledge. The concrete, life-oriented, interpersonal and topical governance methods and the rapidity and timeliness of response have put forward new requirements for the elite of knowledge-based communities. Based on the survey, our view is: (1) The development space of knowledge-based community elites should be open, not closed. In other words, the elites of knowledge-based communities may not be permanently settled in the community, and the best among them are likely to become one of the new top managers. If most of the former senior managers have experience in managing the economy and the party, then some senior managers may experience the baptism of associations in the future. (2) The sources of knowledge-based community elites should be multi-channels, and schools, society and institutions should all be the sources of delivering knowledge-based community elites to grassroots society. Only through the baptism and forging of society can the "three-door cadres" from home to school and then to the door of the office become truly indomitable new managers. (3) Revolutionary elite, experienced elite and knowledge elite are not separated, but the soul and mission are unified, integrated and continuous. If we study the above three types of community elites as a whole, sum up the experience of grass-roots governance in China, explore the evolution law of grass-roots governance system in China, and further consolidate the "cornerstone effect" and "cornerstone position" of community elites in the national governance system, it will be a great fortune for China's national governance.