Civil Society in China

Abstract

<p>Civil society is often defined as citizen organizations that are non-state in origin and voluntary in nature. Although organizations like kinship/lineage and informal business associations existed throughout Chinese history, modern civil society in China began developing rapidly in the early 1990s, from only four hundred registered groups in 1986 to over 901,870 by the end of 2021. These groups consist of social associations (<em>shehui tuanti</em> 社会团体), philanthropic foundations (<em>jijinhui</em> 基金会), and social service organizations (<em>shehui fuwu jigou</em> 社会服务机构) mostly engaged in service delivery and community development. These civil society organizations (CSOs) are active in diverse fields, such as education, social services, culture, business services, agriculture and rural development, and environmental protection. There are also Chinese branches of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), known in China as overseas NGOs (ONGOs境外非政府组织), which consist of faith-based, humanitarian relief and development, private foundations, policy research think tanks, and professional associations working in diverse policy areas, such as environmental protection, poverty alleviation, and education, and with different stakeholders, including the government, businesses, and domestic NGOs. In the 1990s and early 2000s, these ONGOs, especially the grant-making foundations, played a vital role in developing local civil society in China. However, the implementation of the Overseas NGO Management Law may have significantly altered the dynamics between ONGOs and local civil society. The number of studies on civil society in China has been consistently increasing, with a notable acceleration in the 2010s. A large proportion of scholarly works on China’s civil society has focused on environmental NGOs (ENGOs). These studies primarily focused on civil society’s autonomy from the state, their governance, advocacy, and engagement in the authoritarian state. Another strand of literature focused on the management, strategies, survival, participation, and activism of NGOs. Scholars have also examined the development and adaptation of ONGOs and how they work with Chinese civil society organizations to promote domestic and global development. In addition to these focal themes, scholars have used different theoretical frameworks borrowed from the social movements and institutionalist literatures, such as political opportunity structures (POS), resource dependency theory, and institutional theories; and used mostly case-study research methodology, although large-N quantitative analysis and mixed-methods approaches are gaining in popularity. In the following, the literature on each topic will be summarized. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive summary of the relevant literature on civil society in China.<br></p>