In the context of a risk society，the temporal recurrence and spatial diffusion of emergencies have broken the clear boundary between normal and emergency states，giving rise to a “transitional state” that lies between them. As a third governance model in a risk society，transitional state governance is theoretically grounded in the cognition of governance boundary fuzziness through holistic governance theory. Vertically，transitional state governance achieves the forward movement of the threshold for emergency state governance, advancing governance intervention from the emergency response phase to the early stage of risk evolution, thereby facilitating the transformation of public safety governance towards a preventive model. Horizontally，it promotes a paradigm shift in the recovery and reconstruction phase of emergency management，upgrading the recovery goal from “returning to the original state” to a “resilience leap”，and incorporating an exit mechanism into institutionalized emergency measures. By coordinating development and security，and integrating normal and emergency states，transitional state governance provides a new theoretical framework for building a whole-process，holistic risk governance system.