How Does Villager Participation Influence the Efficiency of Improvements to the Rural Human Settlement Environment?

The governance of rural human settlements has long relied on a government-led model, leading to the dilemma of high costs and low effectiveness. Although farmer participation is regarded as crucial for improving governance efficiency, its specific pathways of influence remain unclear. This study constructed a theoretical framework to analyze how farmer participation affects the efficiency of village-level human settlement governance. Based on survey data from 1401 farmers and 192 villages in Northwest Fujian Province, this study employed the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method to measure governance efficiency, used the Tobit model to explore the pathways of impacts from farmer participation, and established a mediation effect model to test the intermediary roles of democratic supervision and demand responsiveness. Key findings: (1) Farmer participation enhances the governance efficiency of rural human settlements through the logical chain of “empowerment” – “government-society interaction” – “common governance”. (2) Democratic supervision and demand responsiveness exhibit significant mediation effects, indicating that farmer participation improves governance efficiency by activating these mechanisms. Policy implications: Farmer participation, reinforced by democratic supervision and demand-responsive mechanisms, serves as an endogenous driver for enhancing governance efficiency. Policy design should focus on institutionalizing participatory channels, optimizing closed-loop demand-response systems, and strengthening the environmental protection capacities of farmers. Future research should be extended to regional comparisons and dynamic effect analyses to validate the universality of these mechanisms.