Migrants Threat, Economic Deprivation or Governance Failure? Social Cohesion Comparison across 60 Communities in Shanghai, China

Theoretical and empirical research on social cohesion, especially its relation to racial/ethnic/immigration diversity, has been a hot issue since the 21^st century. The inquiry is also applicable to today’s urban China, however, relevant study is very scarce and descriptive. Using a unique survey data including individual and administrative variables across 60 communities in Shanghai, this paper first examines whether and how social cohesion is affected by three theoretically important community factors in Chinese socio-institutional context. It finds that economic deprivation, rather than the influx of migrants, significantly weakens social cohesion, while governance performance compensates this negative effect and plays the most important role in all determining factors. The empirical results are robust and consistent in aggregate-level and multi-level data analysis.