Hourglass Governance:The Generative Logic of Paradox in the Grassroots Governance——A Case Study of the Grassroots Market Regulation Department in City A
This paper focuses on the key point of institutional reform and discusses the paradox in the grass-roots governance.Through the case study on the institutional reform of the market regulation system in City A,it is found that the regulatory effectiveness of the grassroots market regulation departments has declined,and they have fallen into the overburdened governance dilemma,which is manifested as the heavy workload,the prominent overstepping of responsibilities,the increased risk of duty performance,the increase of ineffective work,and the lack of resource guarantee,etc.Its generating mechanism lies in the"task-resource"imbalance.On the one hand,the functional integration of market regulation departments is manifested as a physical aggre-gation process,and its functional boundaries are constantly expanding,leading to unlimited expansion of grass-roots functions.On the other hand,after the implementation of territorial management,the regulatory resources at the disposal of the grassroots market regulatory departments have declined,and the departments cannot meet the needs of governance in the context of functional expansion and multi-task.On this basis,a spatial structure model of three-level grass-roots governance is constructed,and it is found that the grass-roots market regula-tion department has transformed into an hourglass governance structure after the reform.This kind of unbal-anced governance structure causes excessive pressure at the grassroots level,which is externalized into work burden and cannot be self-corrected,resulting in the grassroots governance paradox.This paradox is not a u-nique phenomenon,but the external manifestation of the tension between unified system and effective gover-nance.
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