China appears to be increasingly moving towards an era of statism through expanded grassroots delegation, where the party-state endeavours to extend its reach and influence over everyday life. This trend has been further solidified by the emphasis on a framework of “downward shift in governance focus” (zhili zhongxin xiayi 治理重心下移) during the 19th Party Congress in 2017. This framework aims to transform grassroots authorities from being viewed as the “bottom ends of administration” (xingzheng moshao 行政末梢) to becoming the “nexus of governance” (zhili shuniu 治理枢纽). Conventional literature suggests that, by delegating more powers and responsibilities to grassroots authorities to engage with the populace and address social grievances, the Chinese party-state has strengthened socio-economic control while reinforcing stability maintenance. Shifting the responsibility for addressing popular grievances to lower-level governments not only helps the central government to distance itself from public blame and increases its flexibility in managing popular resistance but also pressures local authorities to suppress upward-targeting contentious activities and localize social grievancesFootnote 1.
Through the widespread adoption of grid management systems and surveillance programmes, grassroots authorities are empowered to collect information on citizens and monitor individuals’ activities. This enables them to detect social instability more effectively and perform pre-emptive repression to defuse potential issues.Footnote 2 Furthermore, grassroots authorities also actively co-opt social elites, social organizations and citizen volunteers, which reduces potential threats to the regime posed by emerging social forces while mobilizing these groups to take on stability maintenance tasks.Footnote 3
Some studies indicate that transferring the responsibility for managing popular resistance to grassroots authorities can improve government responsiveness. Grassroots officials are often in a better position to embed themselves in local social networks, enabling them to provide more responsive feedback and public services by gathering accurate information about citizen preferences and accumulating local expertise.Footnote 4 In contrast, some scholars note that frontline bureaucrats, faced with a lack of power and resources, have little capacity to address citizen grievances.Footnote 5 There is, however, scant analysis of the underlying reasons behind grassroots incapacity, particularly in the context of the party-state’s attempts to promote downward shift reforms and empower grassroots authorities.
By highlighting the unevenness of downward delegation and its adverse consequences on daily contention governance, this article attempts to complicate the conventional view that the Chinese party-state has tightened its grip on society and reinforced stability maintenance through expanded grassroots delegation. It also explains why grassroots officials lack the capacity to substantively address citizen complaints. This research argues that the inherent tension between decentralization and a centralized political system compels the party-state to implement selective decentralization while strengthening top-down oversight. This ultimately leads to an uneven distribution of incentives and resources among state agents at various levels.
More logistical powers, such as information collection, surveillance and mundane daily services, are allocated to grassroots governments, whereas most decision-making and coercive powers, including law enforcement and court rulings, remain in the hands of district-level functional departments. However, grassroots officials, who lack sufficient authority, are increasingly required to assume broad responsibility for addressing citizen complaints and petitions while being subject to the enhanced oversight of district-level governments. This unbalanced downward delegation has dual impacts on the governance of daily disputes. On the one hand, grassroots governments’ increased engagement in and surveillance of society may enable them to better target unruly citizens and prevent contentious behaviour in more effective ways when governments resort to repression. On the other hand, the uneven distribution of incentives and resources among different levels of agents may diminish substantive governmental responsiveness in the everyday governance of contention.
Specifically, unbalanced downward delegation can undermine substantive government responsiveness through two main mechanisms. First, it exacerbates the mismatch between responsibility and authority at the grassroots level. Grassroots authorities are increasingly held accountable for addressing complaints and petitions that exceed their jurisdictions and capabilities. Second, it can trigger more bureaucratic coordination problems. The aggravation of mismatch between responsibility and authority increases the demand for bureaucratic coordination, while the reinforcement of grassroots authorities’ catch-all responsibility reduces the incentives for capable district-level authorities to cooperate with grassroots officials in addressing citizen complaints. Moreover, grassroots officials have little leverage to mobilize district-level functional departments due to their disadvantaged position within the political hierarchy and the intensified oversight from district governments, even though the party-state has implemented some institutional innovations to empower them to do so. The combination of limited problem-solving capacity and inefficiencies in bureaucratic coordination tends to render grassroots officials less capable of responding substantively to citizens’ grievances in daily governance.
To clarify, this argument does not suggest that the local party-state lacks coordination mechanisms or systematic cross-department cooperation in resolving popular grievances. Furthermore, this study does not contend that grassroots governments face significant barriers to coordinating functional departments in all cases or during all periods. Instead, this article makes narrower claims: inefficient coordination is more prevalent in routine contention governance than in sensitive periods and troublesome cases where significant political pressure is exerted on each local official.
However, even inefficient bureaucratic coordination and low substantive governmental responsiveness in daily contention governance can have significant political consequences. Such problems not only increase the burden on grassroots bureaucrats who are tasked with appeasing aggrieved citizens, but they also reduce the effectiveness of efforts to contain routine grievances and prevent their escalation in the initial stages. This, in turn, may pose greater challenges for higher-level governments as they strive to balance repression with inclusion while maintaining the legitimacy of state-sanctioned participatory institutions and the regime in subsequent stages.
The argument and analysis presented here are based on data drawn from fieldwork interviews, government reports, media coverage and scholarly analysis. To examine how downward shift initiatives shape contention governance in China, the author conducted ethnographic fieldwork in D district, which is situated in a large eastern Chinese city, between 2022 and 2023.Footnote 6 The fieldwork covered five subdistricts (jiedao 街道) and ten communities (shequ 社区) with different jurisdiction scales, characteristics and cases of contention.Footnote 7 D district serves as a theoretically significant case for understanding contention governance in grassroots China. Not only does it boast a substantial concentration of factories and migrant labourers, but it also has undertaken a series of urban revitalization initiatives in recent years. Consequently, it has been the site of many labour protests, land disputes and property rights conflicts. The author conducted individual and group interviews with more than 60 district, subdistrict and community government officials and cadres responsible for stability maintenance. During interviews, respondents were asked about how they deal with contention and petition cases in their everyday work and what challenges they face under grassroots-centred practices. To check the generality of the empirical evidence collected in D district, the author also examined the dynamics of contention management in other cities in China by reviewing government research reports, media coverage and scholarly analysis.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, it presents insights from previous studies to support the theoretical claim of this research. It then describes new characteristics of contention management under downward shift initiatives. The paper illustrates how grassroots governments increasingly face a mismatch between responsibility and authority, which triggers increased demands for bureaucratic coordination. It then analyses why and how grassroots officials encounter significant barriers to mobilizing capable functional departments to address daily work challenges. It continues by examining the political implications of inefficient bureaucratic coordination and low-level substantive governmental responsiveness. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of the limitations and contributions of this research.
Government Responsiveness and the Adverse Effects of Uneven Downward Delegation on Contention Governance
Drawing on the literature on contentious politics, centralization and decentralization, and government responsiveness, this work proposes a different causal mechanism to understand the adverse effects of downward delegation practices on contention governance. The theoretical claim is elaborated in three parts. The theory first explains why government responsiveness is crucial for securing aggrieved citizens’ compliance and achieving social stability in daily governance. It then explains how uneven downward delegation could undermine substantive government responsiveness within a centralized government system. Finally, it examines the consequences of the low substantive responsiveness of grassroots governments by focusing on citizens’ experience with state-run participatory institutions and the dynamics of state–society interactions from a long-term perspective.
Responsiveness as an important approach in daily contention governance
The literature on contentious politics proposes two main approaches to explaining how state authorities manage popular contention: repression and responsiveness.Footnote 8 Conventional wisdom often assumes that Chinese governments are sensitive to contentious activities and tend to deploy repressive measures to suppress them.Footnote 9 However, excessive repression might damage regime legitimacy and escalate contentious activities, and government authorities also face certain constraints in deploying repressive strategies.Footnote 10 A growing body of literature has focused on the more responsive elements of government reactions and the need to balance repression and responsiveness.Footnote 11 Chinese governments can accommodate aggrieved citizens if contentious activities are not too transgressive and the cost of making concessions is not high.Footnote 12 Although responsiveness might encourage further resistance, state authorities need to maintain a balance between repression and responsiveness.Footnote 13 Government responsiveness reflects both changes in state policy at the top levelFootnote 14 and how local governments satisfy aggrieved citizens’ demands in specific cases of contention on a daily basis.
Uneven downward delegation and low-level substantive government responsiveness
Previous studies suggest that when grassroots authorities are held accountable for addressing social grievances, frontline bureaucrats can provide more responsive feedback and public services as they are often embedded in local social networks and are able to gather the required information about citizen preferences and demands.Footnote 15 However, the resolution of popular grievances depends not only on the willingness of frontline bureaucrats to respond to public demands and their ability to collect information about citizens but also on their ability to wield the administrative authority and resources needed to resolve the issues. Several studies have highlighted that frontline bureaucrats often lack sufficient authority and resources to effectively address citizens’ grievances.Footnote 16
Grassroots governments can suffer from a shortage of power and resources for problem-solving under downward delegation initiatives in a centralized government system. The literature on decentralization and local governance has long highlighted a fundamental contradiction in state-building within a centralized administration system: while the empowerment of local officials can extend the reach of the state, it can also exacerbate the problem of local agent control.Footnote 17 Although the central government can strengthen horizontal accountability institutions (for example, independent legal systems and free media) and increase penalties to hold local agents responsible, these investments are often politically costly.Footnote 18 The struggle between top-down control and downward decentralization may prompt the party-state to implement the selective delegation of power to grassroots agencies while strengthening top-down oversight, ultimately leading to an uneven distribution of incentives and resources among state agents at different levels. The state tends to delegate logistical powers – information collection, surveillance and mundane everyday tasks – to subdistrict and community governments but assigns the decision-making and coercive powers that can help to resolve citizen grievances – law enforcement and court judgments – to the district level. Under downward shift practices, grassroots authorities are expected to assume broad responsibility for addressing citizen complaints and petitions yet are not given sufficient authority to do so effectively. Moreover, their performance in fulfilling this duty is also subject to intensified supervision by district-level governments.
This unbalanced downward delegation can undermine substantive government responsiveness in two ways. First, it exacerbates the mismatch between responsibility and authority at the grassroots level. The changes in the management of contentious case flows mean that grassroots authorities are increasingly held accountable for addressing complaints and petitions that exceed their jurisdictions and capabilities. Second, it can lead to more bureaucratic coordination problems. The aggravation of the mismatch between responsibility and authority increases the demand for bureaucratic coordination, while the reinforced catch-all responsibility placed on grassroots authorities diminishes the incentives for capable district-level authorities to cooperate with them in addressing citizen complaints. Furthermore, grassroots officials have little leverage to mobilize district-level functional departments owing to their disadvantaged position within the political hierarchy and the intensified oversight of district governments. Although these downward shift practices can increase the state’s engagement with aggrieved citizens, the lack of problem-solving capacity and the inefficiency of bureaucratic coordination tend to hinder grassroots officials’ ability to respond to citizens’ grievances in daily governance, leading to what this study calls “engagement without resolution.”
Citizens’ experience with participatory institutions and the dynamics of state–society interactions
The low substantive responsiveness of grassroots governments affects aggrieved citizens’ initial experiences with state-sanctioned participatory institutions and shapes the trajectory of state--society interactions in subsequent stages. Existing studies have noted that while the participatory institutions themselves can boost public approval of the regime, the presence of government-provided complaint channels may lead citizens to expect more substantial responses over time.Footnote 19 Aggrieved citizens might develop new strategies and resort to boundary-pushing behaviour if they feel that their demands and grievances are not being heard or resolved by following the established procedures.Footnote 20 The structural failures of grassroots governments can increase citizens’ negative experiences following their initial engagement with state-sanctioned channels, prompting them to adopt disruptive tactics to attract the attention of higher-level governments. Consequently, upper-level authorities may be confronted with more boundary-pushing bargaining from aggrieved citizens, making it more difficult for them to balance repression and inclusion as well as maintain the legitimacy of participatory institutions and the regime at subsequent stages.
The Downward Shift in Contention Governance in Xi’s Era
The party-state’s shift towards downward delegation is closely tied to two of its primary concerns. First, grassroots governments serve as the direct link between the state and society, so delegating more responsibility and power to grassroots authorities is an essential step for the party-state to strengthen state-building and tighten its grip on society, an approach which aligns with the state’s broader agenda of consolidating political control.Footnote 21 Second, the campaign for downward delegation resonates with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) key ideology of the mass line. The party-state seeks to bolster its legitimacy by employing grassroots authorities to improve service provision and more effectively address social grievances.Footnote 22 According to the official discourse: “The shift of focus downwards is a governance practice in which our Party wholeheartedly serves the people in the new era.”Footnote 23
The Chinese government has long emphasized the principle of “territorial jurisdiction” (shudi guanli 属地管理), with higher-level governments regularly delegating primary responsibility for managing disputes to local governments. However, compared to the previous leadership, contention management at the grassroots level has presented three new characteristics during the downward shift campaign of Xi’s era. First, efforts to transfer the burden of stability maintenance to grassroots governments have been accelerated and institutionalized. Following the 19th Party Congress’s proposal of the downward shift framework, the central government successively issued several key documents to establish institutional arrangements for what and how to delegate.Footnote 24 Downward shift arrangements have been further reinforced by the party-state’s renewed emphasis on the “fengqiao model” (fengqiao jingyan 枫桥经验), a governance pattern from the Mao era that focuses on resolving conflicts and disputes at their root causes locally, without escalating them to higher-level authorities. In particular, the role of the community authority, as the executive arm of the subdistrict government, has been emphasized. Grassroots authorities are not only tasked with enhancing the detection of social instability and preventing its escalation but also with addressing citizens’ concerns and resolving disputes at the grassroots level. In addition to performance assessment indicators related to the maintenance of social order, the subjective satisfaction of complainants has also become an important assessment target in recent years.Footnote 25
Second, contention governance at the grassroots level is closely intertwined with grassroots Party building. Subdistrict-level Party committees (jiedao danggongwei 街道党工委) are central to the grassroots state apparatus and responsible for coordinating various political and organizational resources to defuse contentious activities.Footnote 26 Community Party branches (shequ dangzhibu 社区党支部) are tasked with extending Party cells into grid units designed to monitor citizens’ activities and detect potential unrest.Footnote 27 Additionally, grassroots Party organizations have been encouraged to co-opt social organizations and professional groups to help deliver public services to residents and defuse contentious activities through Party-building work.Footnote 28
Third, the party-state has also correspondingly promoted the delegation of more authority and resources to the grassroots level, enhancing funding and empowering local governments in service provision and administrative law enforcement.Footnote 29 However, owing to the central government’s concern about the professional quality of grassroots officials and oversight of low-level state agents, the empowerment of grassroots governments is often selective and inadequate. While more logistical powers, such as information collection, surveillance and basic everyday services, are allocated to grassroots governments, the majority of decision-making and coercive powers, including law enforcement and court rulings, remain in the hands of district-level functional departments. The list of law enforcement activities delegated to subdistricts in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen indicates that most of the law enforcement responsibilities previously associated with district-level urban management bureaus have been transferred to subdistrict governments. In contrast, other district functional departments have largely retained their original law enforcement powers. In addition, the government documents that outline this delegation of power to grassroots agencies also emphasize the importance of district governments reinforcing their supervision over grassroots authorities.Footnote 30
The party-state has sought to address the mismatch of powers and responsibilities at the grassroots level through a mechanism known as “whistle-blowing” (chuishao baodao 吹哨报到). This mechanism originated from a grassroots governance experiment in Beijing but was widely promoted across the country following its endorsement by President Xi. Under this governance model, when subdistrict and community governments encounter problems that exceed their capacity to meet citizens’ demands, they can “blow the whistle” and request assistance from capable government agencies at the district level. The relevant functional departments are then required to attend the site and engage in dispute resolution.Footnote 31 However, as discussed below, this institutional innovation is often less effective than officials anticipated. The following sections elaborate on the significant obstacles that grassroots authorities face in coordinating with capable functional departments to address popular grievances.
Mismatch between Responsibility and Capacity on the Ground
Grassroots governments are increasingly at the forefront of state–society contentions under the downward shift campaign. More contention cases and political responsibilities are being passed to subdistrict and community authorities. Grassroots officials are required to engage with aggrieved citizens face-to-face and proactively identify potential social threats through daily investigations. As a result, they are the first point of contact for a diverse array of complaints and requests from citizens.Footnote 32 In addition, citizen petitions and complaints that were previously managed by district-level functional departments are often transferred to subdistrict and community authorities in line with the principles of downward shift and territorial management. For example, under the nationwide campaign for litigation source governance, district and county courts routinely pass litigation cases to subdistrict and community authorities for dispute mediation first before they are filed.Footnote 33 In interviews, grassroots officials reported that they had experienced a surge in the number of caseloads under the downward shift initiative. One community bureaucrat explained:
Resolving these conflicts and disputes is exhausting. It was a bit better in the past. Contention cases are divided into many types; some types of cases, such as consumer disputes, were referred to other functional departments in the past. However, in the last two years, all cases have begun to be assigned to the community authority, and the other departments have disappeared.Footnote 34
According to the list of powers and responsibilities (quanze qingdan 权责清单) used to allocate citizen complaints in D district, subdistrict and community governments are the primary responsible units in more than half of all types of complaints. Specifically, more than 85 per cent of the grievances that fall within the petition and stability maintenance category must initially be handled by subdistrict and community governments.Footnote 35 The actual caseload undertaken by grassroots governments may be significantly larger, as digital platforms often automatically assign cases with unclear complaint details and ambiguous responsibilities to subdistrict and community bureaucrats, under the principle of territorial management.Footnote 36 In the same vein, a government research report in Beijing noted that many complaints were assigned directly to the local authority (shudi 属地) to coordinate and handle, whereas the number of appeal cases involving functional departments was relatively small.Footnote 37
Although grassroots authorities increasingly serve as the primary unit with responsibility for dealing with citizen complaints and petitions, they do not have the administrative authority or resources to resolve many of the issues. During fieldwork, grassroots authorities reported that they were often presented with grievance cases that extended beyond their capabilities and complained about the mismatch between their responsibilities and capacity.Footnote 38 One community Party secretary acknowledged that the lack of law-enforcement authority hindered their ability to resolve conflicts:
Everyone knows that the community [authorities] do not have the authority to enforce laws. Although the community [authority] has staff members who are responsible for governance in related policy areas, they do not have law-enforcement powers. We may be able to address some neighbourhood conflicts, but it is obvious that we are not as useful as some functional departments in resolving conflicts and disputes related to supervision authority.Footnote 39
Similarly, subdistrict-level authorities also face limitations in law-enforcement power and supervision authority and complain that they lack the necessary regulatory tools (meiyou zhuashou 没有抓手) to resolve disputes. One official in the subdistrict-level labour office explained:
For labour disputes, we generally mediate first. To put it bluntly, mediation is the process of persuading the employer and employee through dialogue. There is no guarantee that the employer will be receptive to your persuasion. If mediation fails, we need to proceed to labour supervision. At the subdistrict level, we do not possess the power to enforce labour supervision. In certain cases where investigations are required, we need the cooperation of the inspection team from the human resources bureau. You can imagine the authority we have.Footnote 40
Officials from the urban construction office, another important department of the subdistrict government that regularly resolves property disputes and labour conflicts at construction sites, also complained that the regulatory tools available to them were very limited and that they had to rely largely on their powers of persuasion.Footnote 41
The increasing complexity of social conflicts also makes cross-departmental coordination and cooperation increasingly crucial. It is not uncommon for grievances to involve multiple demands that require the cooperation of many different functional agencies. Furthermore, the lack of specific government regulations and guidelines for addressing certain complex cases also underscores the necessity for multiple-department negotiations and cooperation at a higher level. One subdistrict official told me:
The most challenging part for us is handling petition cases for which there are no guiding rules, such as disputes over small property rights. There is no specific guidance for this type of dispute with regard to applicable laws. The related district government regulation is also outdated and no longer valid. At the very least, we need regulation references when addressing contention cases. As grassroots authorities, we do not have jurisdiction in this matter and thus need relevant higher-level functional departments to fill the regulatory gap.Footnote 42
Bureaucratic Frictions and Ineffective Coordination in Daily Contention Governance
As demands for bureaucratic coordination increase, and the capacity for coordination becomes ever more critical for resolving grievances and generating responsiveness, grassroots authorities encounter significant barriers when attempting to mobilize higher-level functional departments to resolve contention cases. This often provokes bureaucratic friction at the local level. Such friction can be understood from two perspectives: tensions between district-level governments and grassroots authorities, and feuds between vertical functional departments (tiao 条) and horizontal local authorities (kuai 块). The subdistrict government ranks at the bottom of the political hierarchy and thus has the least influence of all levels of government. Additionally, the Chinese bureaucratic system has long experienced conflicts between tiao and kuai units.Footnote 43 While kuai units are responsible for maintaining stability under the principle of “jurisdictional management,” tiao units control and exercise regulatory authority and law-enforcement power.Footnote 44 When grassroots authorities attempt to coordinate district-level functional departments to resolve an issue, they not only push against the barriers within the political hierarchy but must also navigate the divisions between tiao and kuai.
During the fieldwork, one grassroots official confided that the community authorities felt alienated from the district governments:
Indeed, communicating and coordinating with higher-level departments is the biggest headache in our community. Last year, we received a case involving an illegal kindergarten, which needed to be dealt with by the district-level education bureau. After we requested assistance from the district-level education bureau, the officials did reply, but they required us to handle the case by ourselves. We had no choice but to use our personal connections to put pressure on the kindergarten many times and finally resolve the case.Footnote 45
Similarly, subdistrict-level officials admitted that there were many hurdles to securing the support of district-level functional departments:
At the subdistrict level, coordination and cooperation between different departments within the subdistrict government are relatively smooth. For example, when I ask the urban construction office to handle conflicts and disputes, I speak directly to office leaders if problems cannot be resolved. If the office leaders fail again, I can even talk to the secretary of the subdistrict Party committee. He or she will help to coordinate these departments at our subdistrict level. However, once petition cases involve upper-level functional departments and we need to coordinate with them, it becomes very challenging.Footnote 46
Although the party-state has sought to empower grassroots authorities to mobilize the support of district-level government agencies through the “whistle-blowing” mechanism, this effort has been, to some extent, ineffective and there remains widespread resistance from functional departments. An investigation into the operation of the “whistle-blowing” mechanism in a district in Beijing, where the local party-state pioneered this institutional reform, revealed that the personnel dispatched by district-level functional departments to engage in dispute resolution are usually ordinary staff members rather than competent leaders who can make decisions or professional bureaucrats who are familiar with government affairs. This has led to the “presence of individuals without power” (rendao quanbudao 人到权不到) and the “presence of individuals without contribution” (churen buchuli 出人不出力).Footnote 47 Similarly, a government investigation team reporting on the situation in Changsha, Hunan, found that some subdistricts (communities) and district-level functional departments are reluctant to “blow the whistle” owing to the pro-forma practices of this institutional arrangement.Footnote 48 During fieldwork interviews, grassroots officials also complained about similar problems. One subdistrict official revealed that:
We blew the whistle, and the functional department did respond. However, I think that the effectiveness of such department engagement is a little compromised. The person sent by the functional departments didn’t understand professional affairs. They had just dispatched a random person to take a picture and to show that their department had participated. Why do we need to collaborate with someone from the functional department? This is mainly because the case involves the professional responsibilities of their functional department; we are not experts and need their professional advice. What’s the point of you coming in here with no solution? Some departments only nominally participate [in dispute resolution]; in fact, they are not involved.Footnote 49
The limited effectiveness of “whistle blowing” and weak bureaucratic coordination can be attributed to several factors. First is the party-state’s emphasis on the downward shift policy. This means that ultimate responsibility (doudi zeren 兜底责任) for contention management rests with the grassroots authorities, which reduces the incentive for district-level functional departments to help grassroots officials address citizen complaints. According to the “primary responsibility” system (shouban zerenzhi 首办责任制), the government unit that is initially assigned a contention case is held accountable for its outcome. Since more popular grievances are filed at the grassroots level, subdistrict and community authorities increasingly serve as the first point of call and bear the brunt of the evaluation pressure under the cadre responsibility system; district functional departments are only responsible for assisting in daily contention governance, unless they are pressured by political leaders and higher political authorities to intervene when disputes are escalated. Some district-level functional departments frankly stated that they would not take responsibility for conflict and dispute cases that had been assigned to the community office.Footnote 50 A community cadre explained how the evaluation process created differing incentive structures for grassroots authorities and higher-level functional departments:
Although district functional departments participate in resolving conflicts, the assessment task mainly falls on the community authorities. In this way, the incentives are different. Some functional departments do take part in the mediation. However, even if the mediation is not successful, it does not affect them; they just are off work at the time. The performance assessment system does not include functional departments, which is the key sticking point.Footnote 51
Moreover, under the downward delegation framework, district-level governments and functional departments often exert more pressure on grassroots governments through oversight and accountability. In recent years, several official media outlets have reported that many district-level functional departments are transferring their responsibilities to grassroots governments and holding them accountable for petition work and other policy areas in the name of the “downward shift in governance focus.” These official reports suggest that district-level governments use a series of oversight and accountability tools, such as signing letters of responsibility, upgrading performance assessments and implementing punishments, to pressure grassroots governments.Footnote 52 One community official shared a similar complaint:
Once, we encountered a conflict dispute case that was difficult to address, as the community [office] lacks law-enforcement authority. We then requested help from the functional agency at the district level and hoped that they could deploy law-enforcement measures to solve the problem. However, instead of any help, the district-level department issued a supervision letter, urging us to rectify the situation within a specified timeframe and report back on progress.Footnote 53
In interviews, grassroots officials explained that if they failed to resolve contention cases and maintain social stability, points would be deducted from their performance assessments or they might be punished – for example, by being criticized in circulated notices (tongbao piping 通报批评) or disciplined (chufen 处分). Some performance metrics, such as the number of “non-normal petitions” being passed to higher-level governments, serve as “hard targets” in cadre evaluations.
The second factor contributing to the ineffectiveness of “whistle blowing” and poor interdepartmental coordination is the weak position of grassroots authorities within the political hierarchy. Their low ranking prevents them from exerting pressure on district-level functional departments to cooperate in the resolution of citizen grievances. Grassroots authorities must take on all of the administrative tasks delegated to them by upper-level governments and functional departments. More importantly, district-level functional departments are required to strengthen their monitoring of grassroots authorities and evaluate their performance in completing assigned tasks under the cadre evaluation system. This has a significant impact on grassroots officials’ compensation and promotion and weakens their bargaining position when it comes to mobilizing district-level functional departments, despite the various evaluation criteria for the cooperative performance of functional units. In D district, assessment indicators focus primarily on whether district functional departments have taken part in conflict resolution and whether their involvement is timely; however their participation trends to be formalistic rather than substantive in nature. In Beijing, subdistrict officials are given more power to assess the cooperation of district-level departments, and the evaluation results can be included in functional agencies’ performance assessments.Footnote 54 Despite these institutional arrangements, a Beijing official research report in 2019 and a researcher’s questionnaire survey of subdistrict officials both revealed that district functional departments still tend to shirk their responsibilities.Footnote 55 The ineffectiveness of evaluation arrangements for district-level functional departments could be attributed to the weak political status of grassroots authorities and the increased top-down oversight. According to one subdistrict official:
There is a needle below a thousand threads, and the evaluation of each thread can be tailored to our subdistricts and communities. As grassroots authorities, we are the ones being assessed and held accountable; how dare we give them orders?Footnote 56
Grassroots officials shared similar concerns when talking about why they cannot mobilize district-level functional agencies: “We cannot do anything about it. Assessment and approval powers are centralized in the tiaotiao [functional departments], so we still have to maintain a good relationship with them.”Footnote 57 The solution may involve further reducing district authorities’ evaluations of grassroots governments while enhancing grassroots officials’ assessment power over district functional departments. However, this approach is likely to come at the cost of loosening control over lower-level officials, highlighting the inherent tension within the centralized system.
A third factor is the vagueness of jurisdictional and administrative responsibilities in some cases, which means that it can be difficult to target and blame the relevant functional departments, even if grassroots authorities did have the opportunity to discipline district-level agencies. As mentioned above, the increasing complexity of social conflicts and the absence of synchronized national regulatory policies often result in the ambiguous assignment of responsibility in specific contention and petition cases. When grassroots authorities mobilize capable government agencies to engage in conflict resolution, district-level functional departments often shirk their responsibilities. One interviewee gave me an example:
After three years of the epidemic and changes in national policies, numerous education and training institutions closed, leading to a significant surge in consumer disputes. However, there is a relative lack of standard principles and procedures for resolving these disputes. Most teaching and training institutions merely require a business licence to operate, without the need for registration with the educational bureau. When problems and disputes arise, educational bureau officials often claim that they address only complaints related to those teaching institutions registered under the educational bureau, and this kind of contention case should be directed to the market regulation bureau. However, market regulation bureau officials also suggest that they are only responsible for issuing business licences, and education-related disputes should be referred to the educational bureau, as it serves as the competent industry regulatory authority (hangye zhuguan bumen 行业主管部门). Ultimately, all responsibility falls on our grassroots authorities.Footnote 58
Finally, in addition to the abovementioned incentive structure factors, the tension between the limited number of professional bureaucrats and the large caseload of public grievances has also contributed to bureaucratic friction. While previous studies have suggested that the local party-state can recruit professional groups, social organizations and citizen volunteers to assist with stability maintenance tasks in the absence of adequate personnel resources,Footnote 59 the interviewees highlighted the essential role of professional bureaucrats in resolving public grievances and responding to citizen demands. One subdistrict official noted:
Some dispute cases demand a high level of professionalism, and the mediators from the subdistricts or communities who possess some legal knowledge cannot mediate and resolve them. When the cases involve regulations that pertain to certain specific functional departments, it is essential that professional bureaucrats familiar with such practical operations participate in resolving them.Footnote 60
However, even when district functional departments are willing to assist grassroots authorities in resolving citizens’ grievances, they can find themselves overwhelmed by the numerous requests from grassroots authorities. District-level functional units believe that they have to prioritize their own crucial administrative responsibilities, and that it is unrealistic to allocate significant personnel and resources to resolving contention cases:
All the communities are blowing whistles, but our department cannot handle all of them. Every community wants leaders who can make decisions and professional bureaucrats who are familiar with government affairs to address issues on-site, but there are only a few people in one division of our department. It is impossible for the entire department to go to the community office to mediate contention cases and resolve conflicts and disputes.Footnote 61
While empirical evidence indicates bureaucratic incoordination, this research does not claim that the local party-state lacks coordination mechanisms or systematic cross-departmental cooperation. In fact, the institutional arrangements for cross-departmental and cross-level coordination established under the previous administration continue to exist and function effectively. However, grassroots officials suggest that these coordination channels need to be used selectively and judiciously for the most important contention cases.Footnote 62 Moreover, the ability of grassroots governments to coordinate with district-level governments and functional departments may vary depending on the type of case and timing. Grassroots authorities face fewer barriers to mobilizing district-level functional units during sensitive periods and when handling collective and abnormal petition cases, owing to the heightened political pressure on higher-level authorities.Footnote 63 From the perspective of higher-level governments, allocating attention and resources to addressing the most important cases is a reasonable and less costly strategy, given the vast caseload of popular grievances. However, as discussed in the next section, poor interdepartmental coordination and low substantive government responsiveness when addressing routine cases can also have important political consequences.
The Potential Political Implications of Inefficient Bureaucratic Coordination and Poor Governmental Responsiveness
One possible negative consequence is the burden placed on grassroots officials. When local authorities lack the necessary authority and resources to resolve issues substantively, and they face constraints when employing repressive strategies to deter citizens, they have to rely on persuasion and mediation to resolve disputes. However, frontline bureaucrats often find this approach time-consuming and challenging. As one community official complained:
The industry oversight agency possesses the authority to enforce laws and enjoys apparent advantages in addressing problems, while our community authority can rely only on persuasion through verbal means, trading time for space to gradually achieve results. For instance, in one labour dispute case we were presented with, we engaged in mediation for most of the day but were ignored by the employer. However, representatives from the labour department came and simply directed the employer to pay wages with one sentence, and the employer immediately agreed. You can see there’s a big difference in efficiency and effectiveness.Footnote 64
When social grievances cannot be adequately addressed, grassroots bureaucrats often incur extra costs when attempting to reassure disgruntled citizens. Existing literature indicates that frontline bureaucrats employ strategies such as performative governance, emotional control and affective care to appease complainants when they are unable to meet citizens’ demands.Footnote 65 In interviews, grassroots officials also mentioned that they tried to placate aggrieved citizens by demonstrating more care and kindness. In some cases, these strategies may be effective. However, for them to work, grassroots officials must invest significant time and human resources. Such strategies are impractical when dealing with huge caseloads. Almost every interviewed grassroots official complained about the huge increase in workload and their inability to cope.
Additionally, low substantive responsiveness at the grassroots level can hinder the effective management of routine disputes at the outset and result in the escalation of grievances. When grassroots authorities are unable to address problems, it can intensify citizens’ dissatisfaction with the government-provided complaint channels. Despite the efforts of grassroots government officials to explain that their inability to resolve complaints stems from jurisdictional limitations rather than their own inertia, citizens tend to perceive governmental departments as cohesive entities and often attribute the lack of an adequate response to grassroots governments evading their responsibilities and reneging on political commitments. As one community official observed:
Currently, citizens have a strong awareness of rights protections, but they lack an accurate understanding of our community office’s functions and the fact that various government departments have different labour divisions. When citizens come to the community [office] to lodge complaints, they do not want to hear from you about which department is in charge of their issue, and they also do not want to hear from you about why the community office does not have the corresponding authority to resolve their grievances. They only care about one thing: when they can get their money back. If they don’t get their money, they criticize the government for not caring for them.Footnote 66
Other grassroots officials shared similar experiences of citizen cynicism:
The digital platform assigned us a petition case about unreasonable charging. We then provided feedback to the citizen and suggested that his case pertained to market supervision issues, which meant that we couldn’t give him a clear answer. We also gave him the number of the market regulation bureau and let him call the bureau. After listening to our response, his tone suddenly became harsh, and he said, “So, you guys are just going to ignore my complaint?” Actually, it’s not that we are reluctant to address his problem; it’s just that it falls outside of our jurisdiction.Footnote 67
Research has shown that petitioners may not necessarily withdraw from official complaint channels or lose faith in participatory institutions and the government in the short term, even if their initial encounters with the grassroots authorities leave them feeling disappointed and unsatisfied.Footnote 68 Paradoxically, the government’s commitment to addressing public concerns, combined with their initial negative experiences, can raise petitioners’ expectations of receiving a more substantial response in subsequent stages.Footnote 69 This increased expectation can encourage veteran petitioners to devise innovative tactics and employ boundary-pushing strategies to gain the attention of the higher-level authorities.Footnote 70 During the fieldwork interviews, grassroots officials acknowledged that a poor response could lead to the escalation of routine grievances:
Like the previous real estate dispute case we encountered, we also used the whistling-blowing mechanism. The department did respond but only sent a temporary employee without any decision-making authority, which did not help to resolve the problem. The problem could not be solved, and the case was eventually escalated to the city and provincial governments.Footnote 71
Now, the community [office] seems to be a catch-all for all problems, bearing the burden of responsibility for everything. However, the community authorities lack the necessary authority and ability. Functional departments will participate if we use the whistle mechanism, but they do not fully uphold their responsibilities and just leave the task to the community authority. If the problem cannot be solved, what will happen? Complainants are very likely to lodge collective petitions and create some group-based disturbances.Footnote 72
Aggrieved citizens’ upward troublemaking activities often create a dilemma for higher-level authorities.Footnote 73 When downward governance practices fail to adequately address routine grievances and prevent their escalation in the initial stages, higher-level authorities are confronted with more boundary-pushing bargaining from the aggrieved citizens. This situation complicates efforts to balance inclusion and control while also maintaining the legitimacy of state-sanctioned participatory institutions and the regime. If higher-level governments and functional departments are better coordinated in addressing such grievances and provide more substantive responses to complainants who employ boundary-pushing strategies, the variation in government reactions may serve to reinforce aggrieved citizens’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their troublemaking actions. As one interviewee noted:
If you ignore the grievance case, complainants will frequently lodge further petitions with the prefectural government and even with the central government in Beijing. Once aggrieved citizens bring their cases to high-level government attention, local authorities become more responsive to their demands. Sometimes, local governments even make additional concessions in exchange for citizens’ silence. As time goes by, people tend to believe that staging troublemaking petition activities is more effective and petitioning Beijing is more useful, and no one will follow the legalized channels to voice their grievances.Footnote 74
If, on the other hand, the higher-level government continues to refuse to address aggrieved citizens’ demands, it may undermine state-sanctioned participatory institutions and regime legitimacy in the long term. Existing research has emphasized the key role played by participatory institutions in absorbing protesters, collecting information, monitoring local agents and bolstering legitimacy.Footnote 75 A quantitative study based on Weibo data shows that the government’s symbolic responses and its failure to respond substantively to petitioners can prompt dissatisfied citizens to withdraw from institutional channels and turn instead to social activists for support while publicizing the shortcomings of the state-sanctioned participatory institution. This shift not only undermines the intended functions of state-run deliberative institutions but also poses a threat to the stability of the CCP regime in the long run.Footnote 76 Research on veteran petitioners underscores the growing disillusionment among aggrieved citizens and the corresponding decline in the legitimacy of the regime over time. When these individuals find that their grievances are ignored by the central government during their visits to Beijing, their trust in both the central government and the regime as a whole diminishes.Footnote 77 While state authorities can adopt more repressive strategies to deter aggrieved citizens, these measures come with significant costs, including backlash from the public, disruptions to the functioning of state-run deliberative institutions, increased investment in surveillance infrastructure and damage to state legitimacy.
Conclusion
Drawing on fieldwork interviews, government reports and media coverage, this research demonstrates the two-sided effects of the Chinese party-state’s downward delegation initiatives to revitalize its nerve tips in daily contention governance, offering a more nuanced understanding of the consequences of decentralization efforts in stability maintenance within the centralized political system. This study also has several limitations. As a qualitative investigation, it cannot accurately estimate the extent to which the impacts of downward shift practices affect the efficiency of grievance resolution practices, the level of government responsiveness, or the dynamics of social contention. However, a coherent narrative drawn from the data can nevertheless illuminate the potential adverse impacts of downward shift practices. More research is needed to address questions such as: on average, to what degree have the efficiency of problem-solving declined and the level of government responsiveness fallen owing to downward shift practices? Additionally, how much has boundary-pushing behaviour increased since the introduction of the downward transfer model? Moreover, interviews with grassroots officials may be affected by social desirability bias. As the lowest-ranking members of the government hierarchy, grassroots officials often seek to foster a positive impression and gain attention from their higher-level authorities by emphasizing their work-related pressures. It is possible that they may exaggerate their workload, leading to an overestimation of the challenges and burdens they face.Footnote 78
Despite these limitations, this study contributes to several strands of literature on contentious politics, government responsiveness and stability maintenance in China. First, this article reveals the unintended adverse consequences of the state’s downward delegation efforts that seek to reinforce stability maintenance and specifies the conditions for such counterintuitive impacts. By focusing on the tension between local empowerment and top-down control in China’s centralized government system, the paper demonstrates how uneven downward delegation could undermine substantive government responsiveness by exacerbating the mismatch between responsibility and power at the grassroots level and triggering more bureaucratic coordination problems.
Second, this research complements current studies that focus primarily on state authorities’ strategic response behaviour by highlighting the underlying reasons behind such strategic scenes and government incapacity.Footnote 79 The lack of resources and empowerment to address citizens’ grievances, as well as the obstacles to mobilizing capable functional departments at the higher level, tend to make the strategic response behaviour of frontline bureaucrats reported by previous research prevalent and necessary, even though those strategies are not always effective. This paper also further underscores some critical bureaucratic prerequisites for developing substantial responsive capacities, such as regulatory powers, professional knowledge and control tools, thus further deepening the understanding of “the cost of government responsiveness.”Footnote 80
Third, this study also complicates the conventional notion that the Chinese party-state has tightened its grip on society and further reinforced stability maintenance under the downward shift campaign. While the party-state can expand the party-state’s engagement with and surveillance of society under downward shift practices, low-level substantive government responsiveness caused by unbalanced delegation may also contribute to the ineffectiveness of containing routine grievances and discouraging their escalation at the initial stage. When challenged by more boundary-pushing bargaining from aggrieved citizens, the party-state’s increasing turn to a more repressive approach might risk incurring more costs in the long run, including public backlash, the dysfunction of state-run participatory institutions and damage to regime legitimacy, all of which deserve more observation and research in the future.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741025101264.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments and suggestions. All errors remain my own. This article was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, “Research on the innovation of mechanisms for local justice organs to coordinate legal construction under the integration of Party and government” (No. QNMS202408).
Competing interests
None.
Huan HE is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Public Administration at South China University of Technology. He obtained his PhD degree in sociology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include contentious politics and legal governance.
