“Top-Down Communitarianism”: The Purposes and Limitations of China’s Point System Governance

Across China, citizens are increasingly governed through point systems that quantify everyday behaviour. Using a mixed-methods design combining analysis of 122 state media reports with village-level fieldwork near Beijing, we ask what forms of conduct these systems define as ‘good’ and how they are implemented in practice. Despite variation in policy terminology and institutional sponsors, point systems converge on a shared moral core emphasising pro-social behaviour, family responsibility, and community participation. We conceptualise this strategy as ‘top-down communitarianism’: higher-level party-state actors set moral priorities while township, village, and neighbourhood organisations operationalise scoring within party-led structures. Fieldwork reveals that although participation is framed as co-governance, decision-making authority remains concentrated within existing power structures, scoring privileges visible compliance, and incentives struggle to sustain engagement.