社会如何拥抱市场？——商业机构介入城市小区治理的实证研究

Since the end of the 1990s, the privatization of housing provision and maintenance in China has complicated the governance of the residential space and resulted in countless social conflicts regarding property management. Homeowners, who are always suffering a great loss in their housing rights, are experimenting with every possible means to safeguard their property. It is against this background that commercial organizations, which works as business actors that participate in residential neighborhood governance by proving profit-making service such as consultation, are being employed by homeowners to empower themselves. Drawing on an empirical case study in Beijing and Shanghai, this research finds that the infringement of housing rights and the function of commercial organizations are the leading factors that account for homeowners’ acceptance of business actor. Serving as a property governance instrument, commercial organization is effective in preventing and defusing housing-related disputes, but this instrumental governance approach, at the same time, is suffering from its internal drawbacks and the inference from the state. The findings in this research prove that conflicts exist between the current governance structure of the residential space and the innovative market-oriented property governance approach in urban China.