Abstract: Community governance often encounters challenges such as fragmentation and the differentiation of subjects, which have significantly impede to the development of a cohesive community within primary-level social governance. The proposition of the “Wu She Liandong (linkages between community organizations)” mechanism has offered new avenues for resolving such problems. However, in practice, the phenomenon of “linked yet inactive” among community organizations persists in grassroots social governance, making it difficult for collaborative governance among multiple subjects to operate effectively. This article aims to understand the underlying mechanisms that contribute to this phenomenon. Adopting the grassroots social governance ecology and the grassroots social governance community as theoretical perspectives, through on-site investigations in X Street, Shanghai, this article discovers that the profound mechanism that molds the “Wu She Liandong Being Linked Yet Inactive” lies in the deficiency of ecological construction in grassroots social governance. Specifically, the organizational ecology, public welfare ecology, service ecology, and participation ecology in community governance have not been fostered, thereby failing the five sectors to form an organically integrated relationship, which restricts the modernization process and the exertion of the efficacy of grassroots social governance.

Key words: fragmented governance, linkage of five elements in the community, linked yet inactive, ecological deficiency, social governance community