Collaborative neighborhood governance and its effectiveness in community mitigation to COVID-19 pandemic: From the perspective of community workers in six Chinese cities

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a governance challenge for nations and cities across the world. While early observations have primarily focused on government actions, neighborhoods are at the frontline for coordinating grassroots level joint actions to fight against the pandemic. We draw from the collaborative governance theory and develop a theoretical framework for understanding the horizontal and hierarchical dynamics of collaborative neighborhood governance during crisis responses in urban China. Using a large-scale questionnaire survey of frontline community workers operated in six Chinese cities in February 2020, we conduct statistical analyses and find that the effectiveness of neighborhood collaboration in the pandemic control is predicted by both neighborhood social capital (i.e. civic engagement and citizen participation) and hierarchical steering by the government through setting policy priorities and providing support. Our research contributes to the international literature on neighborhood governance dynamics and provides policy lessons for improving neighborhood governance capacity in crisis response situations.