Abstract: The new era calls for a new pattern of social governance innovation. Since the Party’s 18th National Congress, along with the overall advancement of social governance, the drive for the local social governance innovation has been reduced, and the effectiveness and sustainability of social governance innovations have been insufficient, and the problems such as “fragmented innovation” and “convergent innovation” have become increasingly prominent. The innovation of social governance is now trapped in a dilemma, which is in urgent need of the attention of the related scholars and the problem-oriented researches. It has certain logic self-consistency to study social governance innovation with local government innovation as an intermediate variable with the help of the theory of life cycle and the theory of institutional changes. Therefore, the reconstruction of the paths for local social governance innovation can be promoted by the two dimensions of strengthening the governments’ innovation capability (compulsory institutional changes) and building a social governance structure of shared governance and shared enjoyment (inductive institutional changes). The creation of community innovation in G district is a typical case of social governance innovation. By analyzing the construction of the community in G districts, it can help us once again to review the logic of social governance innovation from the small to the big.

Key words: local government; social governance innovation; community creation; life cycle; institutional changes