“向下治理”:中国社会治理研究的情境转向

“Downward Governance”:The Contextual Turn of Social Governance Research in China

当前,并未局限在社会学领域的诸多学者在中国社会治理研究上取得丰富成果,但主要聚焦于价值阐发和理论探讨的社会治理研究,却在某种程度上因缺略了社会治理的实践根基以及与现实的贴合性而在总体上处于"悬浮状态"。基于导致该状态之原因的共同特征和社会治理所涉的基本关系面向,扭转或改变这种"悬浮状态"的正当取径,则在于推进社会治理研究在实践层面的情境转向,按照一种层次逻辑对社会治理关系面向的"重心"进行"下移",此即本文所称的"向下治理"。具体而言,即由"国家视域"转向"社会属性"、由"社会治理"转向"社区实践"、由"稳定偏好"转向"互动偏好"。这种视角向下的情境转向,不仅有可能因赋予社会治理研究以实在内容而逐渐摆脱"悬浮",而且亦可为社会治理的实践铺展及理论创新找到新的突破口。

The issue of social governance in China has attracted the attention of many researchers while many research results have also been generated in past two decades.However,the existing social governance research mainly focused on the theoretical exploration and value explanations,but the practical foundation of social governance and its integration with reality has been somewhat ignored.Therefore,the study about social governance is in"a state of suspension".Based on the relational aspects involved in social governance,the proper approach to change the"state of suspension"is to turn the direction of the relational aspects embedded in social governance from an upward level to a downward one according to a type of hierarchical logic,termed"downward governance"in this paper.Specifically,three contextual aspects are included in the"downward governance"transition:from state perspective to social attribute;from social governance to community practice;and from stability preference to interaction preference.The contextual turn of this approach would not only offer empirical content to the social governance research,thus gradually eliminating the abovementioned"state of suspension",but also may lead to a new breakthrough for the social governance practices and theoretical innovations in China.