Abstract: To improve the effectiveness of dairy product safety governance, it is necessary to explore the development and mechanism of dairy product safety governance in China from a policy perspective. The texts of policies concerning dairy products from 2002 to 2021 were quantified by the grounded theory to form a dairy product safety assurance system including governance elements and behaviors. Then, based on the quantitative results and social network analysis, the evolutionary process and mechanism of dairy product safety governancein China were dissected. It was found that China’s dairy safety governance has gone through an evolutionary process from mandatory government supervision, emergency governance, government-led and enterprise-assisted governance to social co-governance. The whole evolution process reflects the country’s focus on the governance behaviors and modes, and reveals the mechanism of the comprehensive governance of dairy product safety. The governance actors work together on the governance elements through the interactions of the governance behaviors, and the governance role is reflected in the safety of dairy products through the governance elements, thus guaranteeing the quality and safety of dairy products.

Key words: dairy product safety; evolutionary analysis; policy text; grounded theory; social network