Abstract:

Urban community deliberative consultation， as a pivotal form of grassroots governance in China， stands as a vivid embodiment of consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics at the grassroots level and a concrete response to advancing the modernization of grassroots governance during the 15th Five-Year Plan Period. Drawing on the actor-network theory， a comprehensive analytical framework is constructed tailored to interpreting the operational mechanism of urban community deliberative consultation in China， and an empirical investigation is conducted with Community Z in City B as the case study. The actor-network of urban community deliberative consultation achieves close connections and dynamic interactions among its members through two mechanisms： “external integration” and “endogenous interaction”. At the external integration level， the network employs “goal incentive mechanism”， “decision coordination mechanism”， and “joint restraint mechanism” to effectively link government services with community needs， while at the endogenous interaction level， the network promotes the development of public spirit among its members through “learning and innovation mechanism”， “responsibility cultivation mechanism”， and “value co-creation mechanism”， forming a deep driving force for the development of deliberative consultation. Due to the continuous maintenance of residents’ basic rights by the urban community deliberative consultation system， it has fully leveraged the institutional advantages of whole-process people’s democracy.

Key words: community deliberative consultation, grassroots governance, consultative democracy, actor-network theory