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

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. •Focusing on experiences of frontline community workers during COVID-19, this research revisits the knowledge of collaborative neighborhood governance.•This research highlights the positive role of hierarchical steering during crisis response situations.•Active citizen participation is key to the success in crisis responses.•Citizen participation is more salient for suburban neighborhoods than other locations to foster an effective neighborhood collaboration.•Community workers report greater effectiveness in neighborhood collaboration against the pandemic if governments set up clear policy priorities.