Abstract: The documents compiled by the State Commission Office of Public Sectors Reform and Charter of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) clearly stipulate that “CPPCC organizations should not be established in towns (townships).” However, recent years have witnessed rapid expansion of the CPPCC organizations at town (street)-level with no institutional resources such as institutions and staffing, financial budget, etc., a typical non-institutional expansion of bureaucratic organizations. Based on the dual dimensions (2×2 matrix) of authority and political order, this study selects Nanjing, Guangzhou, Loudi and Shunde as representative cases to systematically investigate the specific practices and typical characteristics of the establishment of the town (street) CPPCC organizations. The research finds that the expansion follows the triple logic, that is, the development logic of improving the performance of duties and the right to speak through the localized management and institutional sinking of the members, the legalization logic of gaining legitimacy through political discourse and Party committees (city and county level), and the absorption logic of drawing non-institutional resources. At present, here come the problems of representativeness, legitimacy and sustainability that need to be solved urgently. How to make innovative explanations in theory and break through existing limitations in practice determines the healthy development and future trend of the town (street) CPPCC organizations.

Key words: hierarchical organization, non-institutional expansion, generating logic