1. Introduction

Happiness, as the fundamental goal and common value pursuit of all humanity, is the inherent meaning of "realizing the free and comprehensive development of individuals." Based on the universality of happiness, the state has increasingly focused on the quantification and visualization of well-being, striving to enhance the effectiveness of happiness through a series of initiatives. Guided by the concept of striving for happiness, the community, as the core unit of primary-level governance, focuses on building shared well-being. It aims to "improve the primary-level governance system combining Party organization leadership with autonomy, rule of law, and moral governance, and strengthen Party building leadership in primary-level governance" [1]. Following this practical logic, Zhejiang has consistently anchored the goal of "people's happiness," with a high sense of consciousness to "bravely climb peaks and take the lead," adhering to and developing the new-era “Fengqiao experience.” This has given rise to exemplary models such as Wenzhou’s “Shared Society · Happy Neighborhood” and Hangzhou’s “Trinity” building community governance model, demonstrating remarkable achievements in constructing happy community collectives.

However, during the transition from "management" to "good governance," community governance has fallen into a complex dilemma characterized by bureaucratic path dependence coexisting with the weakening of multi-stakeholder co-governance. At the governance subject level, administrative power–dominated "rigid control" squeezes the space for residents’ autonomy, resulting in blurred rights and responsibilities of governance actors and formalized participation. At the resource allocation level, community public service supply is caught in a mismatch between “standardization and differentiation,” exacerbating marginalization of vulnerable groups and eroding publicness. At the conflict resolution level, the increasing complexity of interest competition and the lagging traditional consultation mechanisms have created a "resilience deficit," whereby primary-level conflicts evolve into systemic risks. The essence of this dilemma is a crisis of institutional disembedding from community contexts during the modernization of governance transformation.

Based on this, this paper takes "Shared Society · Happy Neighborhood" as a reference to analyze the positioning of political Party building, organizational Party building, and ideological Party building in community governance. It explores the "Party building + brand" tri-governance co-governance model, the "1+N=1" multi-stakeholder co-construction mechanism, and the "five-in-one" happy sharing logic. It synthesizes governance experiences of primary-level Party building leading the construction of happy community collectives, aiming to innovate primary-level governance models, promote clustered development of happy communities, and build community governance collectives, happy community collectives, and harmonious social collectives. On this basis, it emphasizes the interactive mechanisms between Party building leadership, fiscal support, social stability, and people’s happiness as elements of national strength construction. The paper also focuses on exploring a model of consultation, co-construction, and sharing for country-specific, regional, and human happiness collectives under the perspective of global governance collectives, thus helping to realize the free and comprehensive development of individuals.

2. The development connotation of happy community collective construction

2.1. From residence to happiness: the evolution of community happiness

Traditional acquaintance societies are characterized by the mutual embedding and integration of human and social relations, which interpret the community’s regionality and emotional cohesion traits [2]. Under this context, the formation and vitality of communities depend on interaction and connection among individuals, while individual identity and sense of belonging must be realized through their affiliated groups, demonstrating the dialectical unity between social structure and individual agency. However, with urbanization and the reform of urban housing systems, high-rise commercial housing clusters have gradually become the basic units of residential communities, inadvertently driving communities towards individualization, compartmentalization, and unfamiliarity, strengthening housing’s residential attributes while weakening its social nature.

To enhance community cohesion, in 2004 China renamed “Residents’ Committees” as “Community Residents’ Committees” to strengthen the connection between communities and individuals; in 2005, the Ministry of Civil Affairs proposed the construction of “harmonious communities,” aiming to build socially orderly, well-serviced, civilized, and harmonious social collectives. Guided by livability construction, the 2018 “Urban Residential Area Planning and Design Standards” introduced urban residential zones divided into 15-minute, 10-minute, and 5-minute living circles respectively. On this basis, national strategies such as “strengthening the renovation of old urban residential areas and community construction” and “implementing urban renewal actions” have put forward higher requirements for community renewal and sustainable planning.

Existing practices in civilized communities, harmonious communities, and livable communities demonstrate that people’s happiness has gradually become the core of community governance, driving the shaping of a new primary-level development model — the happy community. This refers to a regional collective that is reasonably planned, well equipped, environmentally pleasant, orderly managed, well serviced, culturally distinctive, with high community participation, high resident satisfaction, and a strong sense of belonging [3]. The construction of happy communities takes individual happiness as the foundation, advocates multi-stakeholder participation, strengthens the bonds of co-governance and sharing, and promotes people-centered high-quality development.

2.2. From happiness to governance: the realization of true well-being in communities

Emotional governance, as a complementary approach to institutional and technical governance, is an endogenous governance tool within the Chinese characteristic governance structure [4]. Integrating emotions into community governance not only serves as a flexible alleviation of the administrative pressure of subdistrict offices extended to communities but also manifests the grassroots autonomy preset of a people-centered state, strengthening the connection between community cadres and residents. Studies on emotional dominance, emotional expression, embedded emotional coordination, and the new-era “Fengqiao experience” confirm that community emotional governance aligns with the national trend of socialization. It can awaken citizens’ active participation through non-institutional means and relational networks, thereby empowering people’s happiness to be truly perceptible in governance.

Amid the deepening development of emotional governance, community workers, as talent support for primary-level governance, continuously reinforce the service-for-the-people philosophy, "being emotionally close to the residents and practically serving them" [5]. Through harmonious service-oriented cadre-resident relationships as a medium, community workers accumulate residents’ recognition of community work, thereby enhancing active participation in happy community governance. Based on differentiated relational networks, communities guided by substantive happiness continually shape new models of happy communities under emotional governance. These models rely on Party building leadership and use institutionalized participation, emotional connection, and resource integration as carriers. Through the appreciation of social capital, they break through the one-sided narratives of traditional “happiness,” constructing a dynamic system of interembedding “governance and well-being,” reflecting the high integration of governance effectiveness and emotional value, thereby implementing people’s livelihood and well-being. This community model strengthens the paradigm shift of primary-level Party building from instrumental rationality to value rationality, empowering community governance to upgrade from "resource-input happiness" to "governance-endogenous happiness," laying an identity foundation for primary-level Party building to lead the construction of happy community collectives.

2.3. From governance to symbiosis: the inclusive transformation of communities

The construction of social governance collectives, as an intrinsic requirement for advancing Chinese-style modernization, is a responsibility collective formed by multiple stakeholders based on emotional identification, reciprocal actions, mutual dependence for survival, and value co-creation [6]. Promoting high-quality, inclusive public services to the primary-level and into communities to better meet the people’s aspiration for a better life [7] means that community governance is moving from a responsibility model toward a sharing trend, from which the primary-level form of happy community collectives derives. From co-governance to governance collectives, happy community collectives center on shared happiness, innovating Party building–enhanced governance discourse based on happy community construction, consolidating belief in participation through Party building brands, activating endogenous governance momentum through inclusive sharing, and improving governance happiness indexes through community joint construction.

Based on the advancement, demonstration, and universality of Wenzhou’s “Shared Society · Happy Neighborhood” model, the happy community collective can be distilled as follows: guided by the goal of people’s happiness and relying on branded Party building platforms, it leverages community connections within residential areas of the jurisdiction through grid-based convenient public announcements, diversified shared services, and beneficiary site construction to gather multifaceted strengths. It encourages key actors such as residential community members, community Party organizations, district enterprises, and social workers to build happy units through joint consultation, co-construction, and sharing. On this basis, communities seek cooperation within and beyond district, municipal, and provincial levels through primary-level Party building joint construction, linking units into chains and lines into surfaces, thereby creating happy collectives that win public support, empower Party building quality upgrades, shape and promote replicable models of social happy collective construction, extend the autonomy chain of “common prosperity–happiness–well-being–intelligent governance–security,” and advance the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.

As an innovative practice of primary-level governance, the construction model of happy community collectives led by primary-level Party building has the following core characteristics. First, in governance philosophy, it reflects distinct inclusiveness and happiness orientation, emphasizing that Party members on duty lead by serving the people, committed to enhancing community residents’ sense of acquisition, happiness, and security. Second, in governance structure, it balances stability and adaptability, focusing on the standardization and sustainability of Party building–led brand frameworks while dynamically adjusting governance strategies based on community needs. Third, in governance subjects, it presents a “Party building +” proactive tendency under a one-core multi-diversity structure, where primary-level Party organizations coordinate multiple forces including community residents and social organizations to activate active participation and synergistic effectiveness. Fourth, in governance methods, it manifests integration and flexibility, achieving diversified and precise governance means through Party building penetration, resource integration, and beneficiary activities. This model provides an important reference for the modernization of primary-level governance led by Party building in the new era.

3. The logic of primary-level party building leading the construction of happy community collectives

3.1. Political party building leading the co-construction of happy community collectives

A healthy interaction between the state and society is the premise for constructing happy community collectives. Facing the trend of downward decentralization in the national governance structure, the Communist Party of China strengthens political leadership by relying on “embedded connections,” whereby primary-level Party organizations are embedded within the state power structure and embed their organizational networks into society. This enhances the influence of primary-level political parties on society and promotes the connection and interaction between the state and society [8]. Within community domains, “embedded connections” as a new form of political leadership can combine with Party building brand construction, leveraging brand effects to reinforce the emotional bonds between primary-level Party building and people’s livelihood construction, ensuring the realization of community autonomy under proactive state intervention, and promoting the implementation of the values of co-construction and sharing.

People’s happiness is the core value pursuit in the construction of happy community collectives, essentially realized through Party building leadership to achieve the coordinated improvement of community residents’ multidimensional well-being—including material, spiritual, and social capital. As the core of primary-level Party building, political leadership undertakes responsibilities including “propagating the Party’s principles, implementing the Party’s decisions, leading primary-level governance, uniting and mobilizing the masses, and promoting reform and development.” It constructs a red community governance network through “embedded connections” and utilizes branded Party building to create emblematic beneficiary projects that concretize the abstract concept of “happiness” into perceptible and participatory community practices. Within this logic, routine services serve as the foundation; grid-based Party building and the visibility of Party members ensure political orientation at the primary level. By embedding a proactive politics into happy lives, it substantially enhances residents’ sense of gain, identity, and belonging, facilitates the transformation of residents from passive recipients to co-builders, and activates the endogenous momentum for co-constructing happy community collectives.

3.2. Organizational party building leading the co-governance of happy community collectives

Since the 1990s, globalization has accelerated, and the international community has become increasingly complex, dynamic, and diverse. Addressing the deficiencies of single-actor governance models, Bob Jessop proposed the theory of meta-governance, emphasizing power balance and collaborative governance within governance systems. While reaffirming government responsibility, it respects the value of multiple governance actors, reflecting a rational regulation of decentralized and de-authoritized governance models. Based on this, in the context of Chinese characteristic governance, organizational leadership has become the foundational guarantee for primary-level Party building leading the construction of happy community collectives. Centered on primary-level Party organizations and relying on a bidirectional “top-down and bottom-up” interaction, it aggregates multi-dimensional actors, effectively linking state coordination with primary-level autonomy; grounded in an ecology of vertical and horizontal collaborative governance, it strengthens community multi-stakeholder co-governance guided by shared well-being, advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.

The theory of state-society interaction emphasizes that the state and society are not simply a binary opposition but exist in a dual, interactive relationship of mutual constraint and cooperation, mutually shaping each other. Based on this, community organizational Party building, as it encompasses the dual elements of “Party building” and “organization,” becomes the minimal convergence point for implementing central overall plans and improving local characteristic autonomy, demonstrating the organic interaction between state and society [9]. From a top-down perspective, as the unit platform for government public service supply [10], the community essentially extends the “dual-wheel drive” of administration and autonomy into a social governance site. Under the trend of state socialization, relevant government departments can focus on community autonomy characteristics, while vertically allocating governance authority to various actors, they empower administrative quality enhancement through Party building leadership, public service provision, and fiscal support, promoting active participation of governance subjects with tangible benefits and ensuring the improvement of organizational Party building. From a bottom-up perspective, community governance centers on primary-level Party organizations. Through vertical penetration and horizontal linkage, it constructs a multi-dimensional collaborative governance network of “Party organizations–community organizations–resident autonomous organizations.” While facilitating smooth public opinion expression, it strengthens Party building organizational leadership, promotes the integration and collaboration of governance resources, and provides a solid organizational guarantee for the construction of happy community collectives.

3.3. Ideological party building leading the sharing of happy community collectives

The Party’s ideological construction is the endogenous driving force for the sustainable development of happy community collectives and the ideological foundation for solidly advancing Chinese-style modernization. Currently, faced with governance dilemmas of disembedding such as supply-demand mismatches and formalized participation, community governance needs to break through the traditional “principal-agent” bureaucratic Party building leadership model, adhering to governance principles of adapting measures to circumstances, places, and times, consolidating the ideological core of Party building characteristics, enhancing consensus on subjective value under ideological Party building, and leading communities from “co-governance” toward “sharing.”

Reviewing existing practices of Party building leading community governance, the current stage has preliminarily formed the subject structure of “one core, multiple actors” in urban community governance in China, with community Party organizations as the leadership core [11]. However, pain points such as insufficient cohesion and lack of radiative influence remain, affecting the happiness effectiveness of primary-level governance. People-centeredness, as an important element of primary-level Party building, possesses emotional characteristics that link community Party organizations, residents, and other diverse governance actors. Ideological Party building leadership can take community spatial differentiation as a premise, innovate characteristic Party building brands based on commercial, resettlement, and aging community types, use the tri-governance coexisting culture of communities as a medium, and employ beneficiary projects as carriers to promote community Party building values. Within specific contexts and operating mechanisms, it strengthens the embedded core position of ideological Party building leadership, deepens “happiness+” one-core multi-actor identity, and empowers the deep development of multi-shared happy community collectives under Party building leadership.

4. The practical mechanism of primary-level party building leading the construction of happy community collectives

4.1. Co-governance mechanism of brand party building leading happy community collectives construction

Community Party organizations, as the primary-level units connecting the Party with the masses, serve as the organizational carriers guiding community co-construction, co-governance, and sharing. With the purpose of people’s happiness, the “Party Building + Brand” co-governance mechanism insists on being driven by the red engine in content, frames itself within urban Party building brands, and focuses on the integration of the three governances—autonomy, rule of law, and moral governance. It creates project-based community governance brands among diverse governance actors and uses the brand effect to feedback into the construction of happy collectives, strengthening the interactive chain between Party building brands and livelihood construction, enhancing community cohesion, innovation, and happiness, thereby consolidating a solid fortress for primary-level governance.

4.1.1. Consolidating the co-governance foundation through the party building system

The construction of primary-level Party organizations and the exertion of their role as battle fortresses are key to advancing the modernization of the primary-level governance system and governance capacity to a new stage [12]. As the battle fortress at the primary level, community Party committees serve as the leadership core of various organizations and work within the community, committed to improving Party building through political orientation, ideological cohesion, and organizational efforts, thereby leading the construction of happy community collectives. Based on the strategic position of primary-level Party building, community Party committees are subordinate to superior Party organizations at the district and municipal levels and oversee residential grid Party organizations, residents’ committees, and other institutions, serving a diverse population with a certain degree of autonomy. Therefore, to effectively leverage the foundational functions of communities, relevant community departments must uphold Party building leadership, adaptively apply Party building brand development experience and synergistic effects based on their characteristics, and improve the construction of a branded Party organization system. On this basis, a sound Party building brand education model should be established, integrating organizational leadership throughout the entire primary-level governance chain, improving community happiness indices, and consolidating the co-governance foundation of “autonomy + moral governance + rule of law.”

First, improve the branded Party organization structure. Vertically, relying on Party building bases and guided by regional Party building brand models such as “Oujiang Red” and “Pomegranate Red,” coordinate leadership among provincial, municipal, and district Party organizations. Thoroughly implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on community work, aiming to make the community Party organization the key link, effectively connecting township (subdistrict) Party committees and Party branches across various industries within the jurisdiction, achieving vertical coordination and shaping branded community Party organizations that feature both regional characteristics and Party building connotations. On this basis, adhere to the shift from “Party branches established within communities” to “Party branches connected with daily life” [13], deconstruct residents’ needs through grid governance mechanisms, take the lead in coordinating community Party organizations, grid Party branches, building Party groups, and other functional Party organizations, and improve the four-level organizational system of “community–residential complex–grid–unit,” realizing the principle of “one branch per residential complex, one happiness per community.” Horizontally, utilize brand connotations to link Party building units, strengthen the bonds between community Party organizations, residents’ committees, and Party branches in jurisdictional industries, and use brand extension as a framework to integrate core elements of Party building brands—such as logos, concepts, and connotations—into the joint construction of happy communities. Establish and improve a supporting mechanism for region-wide branded liaison work. Through brand-based ideological cohesion and force consolidation, form an organizational structure that promotes primary-level governance through vertical connectivity and horizontal coordination, thereby consolidating the foundation of happy community collective construction.

Second, improve branded Party member team building. In the education system, Party member team building, as the core of community development and primary-level Party building, can draw on educational experiences refined in Party building brand projects. Taking registration and visibility as opportunities, deepen the Party members’ “double registration, double service, double evaluation” work mechanism, focus on urgent problems of the masses, and strengthen employed Party members’ consciousness, commitment, and happiness in serving the people during routine contact. Regarding personnel allocation, appoint retired Party members with strong qualifications as secretaries of residential Party organizations, rely on the grid Party member household linkage system, encourage key Party members to identify themselves through grid inspection meetings and grid convenience bulletin boards to play exemplary leadership roles. The aim is to strengthen the Party-government image through harmonious cadre-mass and Party-mass relations, improve the team of community Party building instructors in the process of organizational innovation and happiness co-construction, deepen the brand core, form replicable and promotable community Party building organizational models, consolidate talent reserves for the integration of the three governances, and empower the construction of happy community collectives.

4.1.2. Service optimization facilitating enhanced co-governance efficiency

People-centeredness and happiness are the core characteristics of happy community collectives. Under this orientation, effective “co-governance” that highlights the governance achievements of happy communities must take residents’ needs as the starting point, accelerate the construction of service-oriented community Party organizations, refine the “Party Building Brand + Happy Community” linkage within livelihood-benefiting projects, deepen the “precision happiness + co-construction and sharing” guidance under the integration of autonomy, rule of law, and moral governance, and build a “people-building framework + community characteristics” brand through coordinated development. This aims to innovatively leverage the endogenous development momentum of Party building to feedback into primary-level governance, improve residents’ sense of participation, acquisition, belonging, happiness, and recognition, thereby strengthening residents’ participation in community governance, empowering the construction of the “Happy Community – Society – National Collective,” and promoting steady and far-reaching advancement of Chinese-style modernization.

First, strengthen micro-governance and micro-autonomy. Using grid deliberation councils and building supervision hotlines as platforms, smooth multiple stakeholder feedback channels, continuously update community governance task lists, and concentrate efforts on handling key minor issues such as micro traffic circulation and site micro-renovations, enhancing the centripetal force and cohesion of primary-level autonomous units. Taking micro-events within community spaces as entry points and relying on the service matrix of the Party-mass service center, implement normalized “annual planned, monthly arranged, weekly activity” requirements, carrying out a series of livelihood-benefiting Party-mass connecting theme activities regularly to enhance residents’ sense of participation and happiness. Centering on standardized owners’ committees and property service enterprises, integrate resources from municipal and county-level departments to establish Party committees within the property management sector. In major matters such as aging community renovations, deepen the “three reviews, two disclosures, one filing” system [14], enforce an autonomous deliberation chain of “owners’ committee discussion – Party committee review – owners’ decision,” ensure transparency of deliberation processes and implementation, report construction results for community impartial filing, and refine experience in building livelihood-benefiting happiness brands to feedback into the sustainable development of happy community collectives.

Second, improve Party building–led legal protection of happiness. Centered on legal education guidance, the community Party-mass service center collaborates with street judicial offices, municipal and district grassroots courts, and local law firms to use promotional banners and legal education manuals combined with real cases to decode legal language for audiences and explain commonly used articles of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China. The goal is to focus on the community as the center and expand outward, continuously raising residents’ legal awareness and self-protection capabilities, preventing telecom fraud, cult propagation, and drug abuse, and creating a positive atmosphere where all people learn, understand, respect, abide by, and apply the law. At the level of legal practice, based on livelihood brands as extension points and focused on the categories of local actors, demand segmentation, and governance pain points, strengthen the “Party member volunteers + grid mediators + legal workers” team building. Precisely develop diverse legal consultation and assistance services related to labor, family, and other fields, refine the legal sub-brand core in activity-driven projects, and demonstrate vigorous Party building vitality within projectized brands, thus promoting legal quality upgrades at the primary level and safeguarding the construction of happy community collectives.

Third, improve the “culture–regulation–morality” linkage. Community cultural construction consolidates residents’ shared moral ideals and value pursuits, creating favorable conditions for shaping the community’s moral image and promoting comprehensive community development [15]. Guided by cultivating morality and forging the soul, and aimed at cohesion and concentration of strength, community Party organizations take the lead in excavating regional cultural characteristics, establishing a series of civilization practice stations and cultural halls. Around the theme of all-age friendliness and using cultural sites as media, they carry out characteristic moral education activities such as sending operas to rural areas and neighborhood festivals, promoting values, norms, and symbolic systems, and innovating cultural moral education brands. On this basis, using high-quality brands as links, focusing on the effectiveness of moral governance, customized community governance promotion regulations are created to ensure resident satisfaction and co-construction and co-governance. With hard constraints reinforcing soft moral governance, this consolidates public sentiment, increases consensus, and builds a harmonious and beautiful ecological circle of happy community collectives.

4.1.3. Brand innovation creating a model for co-governance

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized strengthening Party building to lead primary-level governance. Seizing the momentum of activity-driven Party building, communities follow the “activity–project–brand” development logic to continuously incubate high-quality Party building brands. In shaping the core, they reinforce distinctive features of Party work; in livelihood construction, they optimize the image of community Party members, activating strong endogenous development momentum. Taking Party building brands as the foundation, community Party organizations gather red attraction, precisely survey residents’ needs, deeply develop a series of projects on autonomy, moral governance, and rule of law, create livelihood brand systems, and embed happiness concretely into the community quality improvement practice chain, achieving the coordinated enhancement of governance effectiveness and residents’ sense of recognition.

First, incubate high-quality Party building brands. Structurally, community Party organizations lead and use existing Party building brands as a medium, integrating multiple actors including Party-mass service centers, “three new” organizations in the jurisdiction, and residents, striving to build a “one committee, two councils, multiple points” street-level Party building matrix. That is, with the community Party committee taking charge under guidance from higher authorities such as the district Party organization department, relying on residents’ committees and building committees, a grid convenience point is constructed at the unit level to strengthen a multi-actor, three-dimensional, and layered happy community Party building base system. Functionally, guided by branch life integration and community happiness, platforms such as “Shared Enjoyment Meetings,” “Neighbor Gathering Spaces,” and “Enterprise Building Committees” are established for negotiation and deliberation. Differentiated by building, grid, residential complex, and community subject needs, idle space resources are revitalized and pushed downward. The “disclosure–supervision–consultation–co-construction” chain is deepened within livelihood projects, enhancing residents’ participation and happiness in red community co-welfare, continuously consolidating brand recognition, empowering refined and livelihood-oriented Party building brand development, and demonstrating governance effectiveness in happy community collectives.

Second, innovate “Party Building +” derivative brands. Relying on high-quality Party building products, deepen projects such as “Party Building + Tourism,” “Party Building + Legal Popularization,” and “Party Building + Culture.” Use red leadership to leverage Party building iterative upgrades, activate community vitality through cultural strength to enhance industrial capacity, and strengthen endogenous development momentum of livelihood brands based on the integration of autonomy, rule of law, and moral governance. For example, guided by industrial common prosperity, excavate community cultural contexts and deepen the “Party Building + Industry + Resident Shareholding” model. Through dividend distribution, contract signing, and private housing transfers, revitalize social productive elements, effectively open an organic channel for transforming cultural education into co-construction and sharing, form demonstration practices that radiate and shape common welfare clusters, and promote the ecological development of happy community collectives.

4.2. The “1+N=1” co-construction mechanism for building happy community collectives

4.2.1. Party building and co-welfare goal collective construction

The accelerated mobility of residents and reduced frequency of social interactions in modern urban communities have led to resident apathy toward community public affairs [16]. This loss of resident agency represents a significant practical challenge facing community governance, [17] hindering the sustainable development of community governance collectives. Under the governance dilemma marked by absent participation, Party building leadership and happy co-governance, as the core of happy community collective construction, can effectively coordinate stakeholder participation, consolidate public recognition, and cultivate governance agency. Based on this, the normalized operation of happy community collectives requires strengthening the “1+N=1” multi-stakeholder co-construction mechanism. This mechanism centers on primary-level Party building and creates a new community governance pattern of multi-stakeholder collaborative co-governance through organizational integration, resource integration, and interest integration.

Happy community collective construction is centered on residents’ welfare, reinforcing the link between Party building and happiness. As the fundamental urban unit, communities possess characteristics of aggregated architectural spaces and high-density residential environments, shaping a complex neighborhood pattern characterized by “low social connectivity, high living connectivity, and high relational vulnerability.” [18] To cultivate governance agency, happy community collective construction emphasizes Party building leadership, leverages the pioneering and exemplary role of Party member backbones, improves the construction of on-duty Party member volunteers and grid coordinators, ensuring the advancement of community governance; through mechanisms such as the “dual registration” system and Red Deliberation Halls, it strengthens residents’ rights to information and participation within branch residential units and branch life integration, highlights the link between Party building and livelihood, and enhances Party building brand cohesion and happiness.

4.2.2. Construction of the happy shared governance community

The core characteristics of mission-driven political parties endow Party building units with strong integrative and leadership capabilities. In community governance, primary-level Party organizations can rely on their value systems, party authority, and organizational frameworks to exert party leadership functions that integrate socially dispersed, diverse, and heterogeneous elements, [19] thereby aggregating active community governance participation, ensuring effective resource supply, and focusing on building a happy community collective centered on residents’ welfare. Facing the current governance dilemmas of insufficient stakeholder collaboration and lack of social capital, the construction of the happy community collective is based on collaborative governance theory. It precisely identifies the needs of diverse stakeholders, forming governance centripetal force through interest integration, resource aggregation, and value cohesion, thus realizing the co-governance and co-sharing of a happy living circle under the leadership of primary-level Party building.

First, demand-oriented integration of diverse interests. The expression and coordination of stakeholder interests are key to optimizing governance resource allocation and ensuring sustainable and effective community governance. Guided by shared happiness, mechanisms for expressing community governance stakeholder demands are improved to deconstruct, reorganize, and integrate heterogeneous interests, actively seeking points of interest convergence to alleviate community conflicts. Based on clarified stakeholder roles, the community Party organization acts as the core, gathering representatives from residents, property management, enterprises, and others to establish a co-welfare deliberation alliance. Through “consultation–discussion–decision” processes, governance stakeholder interest connections are consolidated, and through “division–union–integration,” the centripetal force for happy community co-construction is strengthened.

Second, multi-party resource quality improvement and collaborative governance. Urban community resources exhibit a distribution pattern of “public within private, private within public, and public-private mixing,” with ownership scattered among different governance stakeholders. Resource integration and sharing are necessary to maximize community resource efficiency [20]. In governance practice, to further address resource fragmentation, community workers must accelerate the identification of local resource characteristics, focus on urgent and difficult resident needs, and precisely select support from higher levels, volunteer recruitment, market cooperation, and internal crowdfunding. Under Party building leadership, linkage platforms are maintained to carry out co-creation projects, showcasing a “resource revitalization + conflict resolution + co-construction and sharing” mechanism, constructing models such as school-community linkage and age-friendly communities. For example, addressing the issue of children left behind during holidays, the community Party organization leads with resident participation to revitalize idle spaces such as elevated floors and unused rooms in residential complexes. They establish Red Study Halls, Shared Book Clubs, and self-study channels, complemented by health stations and neighborhood dining halls as care platforms. This precisely responds to stakeholder needs, improves the community happiness index, and creates a harmonious, beautiful new governance pattern for happy community collectives.

Third, public value empowerment sustains joint construction. Value recognition is a strong endogenous driver for the construction of happy community collectives. Under the leadership of primary-level Party building, community Party organizations use red brand subprojects as carriers to build high-standard ideological leadership bases including Party building publicity, cultural corridors, leisure and entertainment, medical care, and elderly services. These demonstrate the governance philosophy of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing, shaping community values such as dedication, mutual assistance, and integrity, and promoting moral cultivation. On this basis, by guiding resident participation in governance practices, residents’ recognition of public values is deepened, enhancing community identity and sense of belonging, thereby consolidating the core of happiness. To empower sustainable livelihood, community Party organizations also take Party building joint construction as an opportunity, with happiness values as the core, to unite complementary and compatible communities, coordinate governance resources, build collaborative mechanisms, promote cluster development of happy communities, and create community governance collectives, happy community collectives, and beautiful social collectives.

4.3. The shared mechanism of the “five-in-one” happy community collective construction

4.3.1. Service support system drives high-standard happy unit construction

Since the Ministry of Civil Affairs proposed building harmonious communities in 2005, the concept of “community” has gradually shifted from a professional term to a socialized concept, emphasizing close interaction, mutual care, and a network of interpersonal relationships among residents, highlighting the centripetal force and cohesion of local populations. Within this social context, happiness, as an ideal state, has transformed from an abstract emotional experience of a good life into a concrete benchmark for measuring the effectiveness of community governance. Based on this, to implement the happiness-oriented approach of Chinese-style modernization, communities must strengthen the people-centered nature of services, shaping an interactive logic of “individual happiness–collective happiness” under Party building leadership. Through livelihood projects, communities promote precise and shared public governance, manifesting the value of shared well-being and shared beauty, empowering the construction of a “five-in-one” community co-governance happiness ecosystem.

First, uphold the unity of striving for happiness and enjoying happiness. The enhancement of community happiness depends on the qualitative upgrading of democratic life and multi-stakeholder participation within the community. The people are the strivers of a happy life, able to participate in community public governance through volunteer services, public opinion expression, supervisory decision-making, and other forms, thereby significantly enhancing their sense of efficacy and happiness. In the construction of the happy community collective, residents also experience tangible benefits from livelihood projects such as the renovation of old residential areas and shared canteens, which strengthens their sense of community governance recognition and feeds back into the sustainable development of the happy collective.

Second, uphold the unity of individual happiness and collective happiness. The governance evaluation system safeguards the inclusive development of the happy community collective. Guided by people’s welfare, the system defines well-managed order, complete services, democratic autonomy, good public security, intelligent low-carbon solutions, cultural prosperity, harmony and friendship, and resident satisfaction, thereby improving the happiness community indicator system. Accordingly, the construction of the happy community collective focuses on shared well-being, taking individual happiness as the foundation, consolidating unity through Party building brands, expanding happiness circles through livelihood projects, striving to build a happy life within the collective, and empowering the advancement of Chinese-style modernization.

4.3.2. Construction of the “Wealth-Happiness-Beauty-Intelligence-Security” five-in-one ecological community

Great happiness, as the common pursuit of all humanity, contains five core values: common wealth, happiness, beauty, intelligent governance, and security. To address the problem of governance subject participation deficiency in an “anonymous society,” community governance needs to focus on happiness construction as the core, beautify the Party building image through coordinated development of “Wealth-Happiness-Beauty-Intelligence-Security,” gather subject participation, and promote the rooting and sprouting of great happiness. Therefore, the practice of happy community collectives often starts with economic common wealth as an entry point, integrates multiple stakeholder interests, insists on resident subject participation under Party building leadership, appropriately incorporates market mechanisms, and innovatively applies digital intelligence technology to build a happiness living circle that provides medical assistance, meal assistance, disability assistance, emergency aid, and poverty relief, thereby activating grassroots governance vitality. On this foundation, it consolidates the “Party building + livelihood” brand core, promotes community public value, and with moral governance as the medium, builds a beautiful moral education system, a comprehensive security system, and a happy community. Furthermore, relying on Party building alliances, through Party building leadership, livelihood implementation, community sharing, full participation, and refined management, cross-regional cooperation jointly builds high-quality common wealth units, high-standard service happiness units, high-quality life beauty units, highly efficient intelligent governance units, and high-level secure peace units, providing a practical model for promoting the “Five-in-One” happiness ecological community.

5. Development prospects for grassroots party building leading the construction of happy community collectives

5.1. Sustainable co-construction of happy community collectives empowered by characteristic party building

As the core unit of grassroots governance, the community is the smallest intersection point between the national governance system and the social governance system. Based on the community’s connective nature and starting from the logical question of “for whom,” the construction of happy community collectives relies on grassroots Party building, placing happiness within the historical materialist field of the “real individual” [21] Feng Gang, Hu Zhonghao. Theoretical Analysis of the Chinese Communist Party’s View on People’s Happiness in the New Era. Thought Front, 2025, 51(01):5-13.], concretizing it into a practical governance model closely linked to communal life, and elevating it into the social expectation of people being masters of their own affairs. Under the developmental trend of standardized grassroots governance models, community happiness indices have leapfrogged from low to medium-high levels. However, this has led to challenges such as serious homogenization and insufficient endogenous motivation for shared wellbeing, which affect the sustainable development of happy community collectives.

Looking ahead, to empower the long-term development of happy community collectives, communities need to strengthen the people-centered orientation of Party building, leverage the visibility of grid-based Party members, identify heterogeneous interests among multiple stakeholders, and use the four-level collaborative Party building system of “street – community – grid – micro-grid” to form concentric circles of demand, achieving the segmentation of core needs to meet individual requirements. Taking thematic Party Days and Party member task lists as opportunities, communities should accelerate the mapping of characteristic resource profiles, bring together overseas Chinese and respected local Party members, encourage them to play a pioneering and exemplary role, and incubate characteristic governance teams for shared wellbeing within the Party building brand framework. Strengthening the belief in “those who are happy first lead those who are happy later,” under the leadership of community Party organizations, care should be extended to new economic organizations, new social organizations, and new employment groups through targeted and inclusive service activities. Embedding the concept of co-construction and sharing deeply into governance contexts helps shape differentiated happiness advantages. Relying on public value, efforts should be made to strengthen cohesive in-service Party member volunteer teams, consolidate deep subject participation in community governance, and promote the construction of interwoven happy community collectives such as “Oujiang Red” and “Pomegranate Red.” This fosters multi-community and multi-ethnic interactions, exchanges, and integration, continuously forging a strong consciousness of the Chinese national community, thereby empowering quality upgrades in the construction of Chinese-style modernization.

5.2. Digital-intelligent party building empowering the co-governance and shared wellbeing of happy community collectives

Empirical data on public participation shows that 65.4% of residents agree with the idea that “community building is everyone’s responsibility” regarding community meetings, rules, and democratic elections, while 48.3% have never participated in community management activities. This indicates that residents have a positive attitude toward community public affairs but their actual participation is limited [22]. Under the influence of private individualism, some citizens may psychologically reject community activities due to lack of interest, leading to internal indifference, neglect, or bias toward co-governance, which externally manifests as avoidance of political responsibility and disengagement—negative forms of participation. In the digital-intelligent era, to improve citizen active participation of subjects, communities can adopt digital-intelligent Party building as a deployment guide, emphasizing technology application and data empowerment to promote integrated, interconnected, and coordinated community affairs management led by Party building, comprehensively enhancing community governance effectiveness. Using community governance satisfaction rates as evaluation criteria, greater importance is placed on the positive interaction between government and citizens within digital-intelligent Party building, strengthening practical governance benefits based on soliciting public opinion, and activating the strong endogenous driving force of Party building leading grassroots governance.

Based on the Opinions on Deepening the Construction of Smart Communities, by 2025 a smart community service platform characterized by grid-based management, refined services, informatization support, and open sharing will be basically established, initially forming a new type of digital community featuring smart sharing and harmonious co-governance [23]. In the future, happy community collectives can use “intelligent governance + shared wellbeing” as the key approach, centering on digital-intelligent Party building, horizontally integrating intelligent functional zones such as Party-citizen services, thematic Party Days, and policy publicity, and vertically relying on digital corridor screens and smart Party building platforms to strengthen the four-level Party building collaborative system of “street – community – grid – micro-grid,” deeply integrating “Party building red” with “Internet blue.” On this basis, guided by the happiness orientation, the Party building chain will connect service chains and talent chains, promoting the construction of red smart security, smart homes, and smart governance, extending cross-temporal and spatial services such as online payments, intelligent express delivery, and appointment-based home services. These developments enhance the convenience of residents’ lives and community governance efficiency through fingertip processing, online handling, and local accessibility, empowering the upgrading of community happiness quality. Focusing on the intelligent community happiness construction, this approach implements a new mechanism under Party building leadership for “public opinion collection – intelligent consultation – collaborative co-governance,” broadening and deepening social participation, and promoting the shaping of a new governance pattern for happy community collectives characterized by “smooth Party building channels for public opinion and diversified co-governance and sharing.”

5.3. Party building joint construction empowering the shared extension of happy community collective construction

Amid the trend of governance resource decentralization, there are approximately 2.7 million various community social organizations nationwide, engaged in charity assistance, life services, community affairs, dispute mediation, cultural and sports activities, etc [24]., significantly enhancing the happiness of the masses in their daily lives. However, within the framework of Party building brands, some communities merely copy governance experiences from other regions, resulting in serious homogenization and formalism, which makes it difficult to activate the motivation of residents’ active participation of subjects and create a co-wellbeing ecosystem. To address this predicament, communities need to rely on joint meetings and shared construction of platforms, extending the Party building chain into a joint construction chain, focusing on the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the happiness of the people to seek cross-regional cooperation, and deepening the empowerment of Party building alliances for the sustained development of happy community collectives.

In the future, adhering to the principle of “improving the social governance system of co-construction, co-governance, and shared benefits” [25], communities will focus on Party building joint construction and brand joint construction, relying on local characteristics, and through Party building alliances aggregate resources such as medical institutions, law firms, and local shops across regions, building a vertically linked and horizontally interactive joint construction system. On this basis, red boutique projects will be used as carriers to gather and promote core Party building brand elements, shaping a multi-district, all-age co-wellbeing joint construction network under Party building leadership. This will deepen the cluster construction of complementary and compatible happy community collectives, building a multi-dimensional happiness ecosystem characterized by “joint construction leadership, complementary advantages, and benefits to the people,” thus promoting the benevolent development of Chinese-style modernization.