Evolvement of Citizenship in Urban China or Authoritarian Communitarianism? Neighborhood development, community participation, and autonomy

TLDR: In this article, the authors focus on a concept of citizenship grounded in a local context and examine the institutional effects with regard to citizenship generated by the establishment of urban neighborhood communities and the enhancement of participation, concluding that the emerging of citizens and citizenship is a vital precondition for developing a civil society.

Abstract: Frequently, civil society is identified with an increase of associational life. Yet, in this article it is argued that the emerging of citizens and citizenship is a vital precondition for developing a civil society. Here I will focus on a concept of citizenship grounded in a local context. Accordingly, it focuses on both the public discourse on citizenship and the institutional effects with regard to citizenship generated by the establishment of urban neighborhood communities and the enhancement of participation. The author's hypothesis is that by virtue of newly established neighborhood communities in urban areas, a gradual transition from ‘masses’ to citizens seems to manifest itself. This transition process will be examined in four central fields: (a) community participation and grassroots elections; (b) self-administration (autonomy) and the attitudes of residents thereto; (c) the growth of individual autonomy; and (d) value engineering by the party state. As the institutional preconditions for a civi...