Homeowner self-governance constitutes a form of basic democracy, which means collective self-government without committing to conventional liberal values, and poses a tricky dilemma for the party-state. On the one hand, it can relieve the party-state of the burden of trying to govern hundreds of thousands of complex neighborhood problems that, if badly handled, could undermine the party’s legitimacy simply through incompetence. On the other hand, independent civic organizations may threaten the party leadership both within and beyond residential neighborhoods.

Homeowners in China do go beyond their neighborhoods and demand the right to participate in broader urban governance and the right of homeowners’ associations (“HoAs”) to associate with other HoAs citywide and even nationwide. Moreover, some homeowner activists even demand democratization in other arenas that are not directly related to property rights. I divide homeowners’ associational activities along two dimensions: physical boundaries of neighborhoods and virtual boundaries of property rights as an arena. The Chinese state is grudgingly willing to accommodate associational activities beyond the physical boundaries of neighborhoods but within the virtual boundaries of property rights. By contrast, the state is quite hostile to associational activities beyond the virtual boundaries of property rights and in more political arenas.

My fieldwork uncovers the differing dynamics of the homeowner self-governance movement in three cities: In Shanghai, 94 percent of condominium communities have established homeowners’ associations (HoAs), compared with 41 percent in Shenzhen and only 12 percent in Beijing. In this chapter, I present a framework with two variables, the risk to social stability and state capacity, to explain the different styles of authoritarianism in the three cities, and examine the role of the local state in the development of HoAs.

The extant literature on the liberal commons takes as granted secure property rights, freedom of association, and the rule of law, all of which have been the exception rather than the rule throughout human history, and therefore fails to explore the origin of the liberal commons (from an illiberal regime). Authoritarianism poses a fundamental challenge to, but also an opportunity to explore the origin of, the liberal commons. This chapter defines the authoritarian commons by examining the tension between authoritarianism and the liberal commons both theoretically and in the specific context of neighborhood governance in urban China.

Neighborhood democratization refers to homeowners’ efforts to create a liberal commons in an authoritarian state, or, more specifically, their wresting of control over their neighborhoods through democratic elections from management companies and developers, whose neighborhood dominance local governments often acquiesce in for a variety of reasons. This chapter defines neighborhood democratization, identifies its challenges, and argues that the success or failure of neighborhood democratization depends on how the party-state balances its demand for effective governance and the risk posed by homeowner mobilization and association.

This chapter, the result of extensive fieldwork primarily focusing on Shanghai and Wuhan, where the most significant lockdowns occurred, uncovers the unexamined role of Chinese homeowners and their associations in monitoring and resisting the party-state’s encroachments on individual rights during the COVID pandemic, a phenomenon I term “cooperating to resist.” This chapter demonstrates that the cooperation of Chinese homeowners, which was indispensable to the party-state’s ability to maintain its pandemic control measures, brought them the power to mobilize, resist, and contribute to an abrupt ending of China’s lockdown policy which the party-state’s top leadership had attached its legitimacy to.

Is the term “authoritarian commons” an oxymoron? No, it is not. It highlights the tension and interaction between homeowners and the authoritarian state. Total party-state control risks eroding party-state legitimacy simply through incompetence, whereas delegating service delivery to independent-minded middle-class residents can endanger party-state control. Overall homeowners appear to represent the best chance of democratizing urban governance in Chinese megacities. Homeowners’ associations have been a rare form through which Chinese citizens can get associated and have real elections recognized by law and respected by the government.

This chapter provides a legal explanation for the different homeowners’ association (“HoA”) rates in Shanghai (94 percent), Shenzhen (41 percent), and Beijing (12 percent). Despite China being a unified regime with national law that is supposed to apply across different parts of the country, the local rules applicable to HoA elections differ across the three cities. Beijing has consistently followed national law, whereas Shenzhen adopted its own legislative rules until the passage of the Civil Code in 2020, at which time local rules gave way to national law, and Shanghai has left the choice to individual neighborhoods, with its courts relying on the idea of autonomy in private law to justify local practices that contradict national law. Both the national rule adopted in Beijing and the city rule adopted in Shenzhen have imposed significant decision-making costs on the establishment of HoAs, as well as collective governance problems ranging from parking space allocation to building maintenance. By contrast, the Shanghai approach, that is, allowing homeowners to write their own voting rules into HoA constitutions to reduce decision-making costs and using the courts to safeguard procedures and minority interests, contributes to functioning neighborhood democracy in Shanghai.