Civil Society in China

Front matter

CIVIL SOCIETY IN CHIN

HOW SOCIETY SPEAKS TO THE STATE

Chinese civil society groups have achieved iconic policy advocacy successes in the areas of environmental protection, women’s rights, poverty alleviation, and public health. This book examines why some groups are successful in policy advocacy within the authoritarian context, while others fail.

Contents

List of figures

List of table

Preface and acknowledgements List of acronyms

Conclusion

Appendix Index

143 145

Figures

The mechanism of cultural resonance in social performance. Successful cultural resonance mechanism of case 1. Successful cultural resonance mechanism of case 2.

Failed cultural resonance of case 3 from 2005 to 2010. Successful cultural resonance of case 3 from 2011 to 2015. Successful cultural resonance mechanism of case 4 from Chinese medicine supporters.

Failed cultural resonance mechanism of case 4 from ENGOs. Successful cultural resonance mechanism of case 5. Successful cultural resonance mechanism of case 6. Successful cultural resonance mechanism of case 7 regarding advocacy.

Failed cultural resonance mechanism of case 7 regarding organizational survival.

Failed cultural resonance mechanism of case 8.

Table

3.1 The genealogy of the Chinese socio-cultural background 61

Preface and acknowledgements

Why another study about Chinese civil society when there is already an abundance of them? This book is different, not only because it is a sociological theorization conducted by a former staff member of a Chinese non-governmental organization (NGO), but also because the focus and the argument here are distinctive from conventional studies.

It is not easy to write about something one is so familiar with and feels so personally about. I officially started this project in 2014, but my “fieldwork” had begun long before. Between July 2011 and July 2012, I worked in an educational NGO in Guangzhou, a city in Southern China. This job not only gave me the chance to engage in voluntary teaching all around the country, but also introduced me to the concept of civil society—I was introduced to civil society activists, learned about the literature on civil society, and attended lectures and discussions on the topic. It is not too far from the truth to say this project had already started when I jotted down my thoughts on Chinese civil society during my voluntary teaching in a remote mountainous region as early as 2011.

The year of working at the Chinese NGO convinced me about the value of the third-sector, but also revealed to me the obstacles it faces and the limitations it has. It is not only the difficulty of financing, the unsatisfactory human resources, and the tedious registration procedure many have talked about, but also a legitimacy crisis—the ignorance and distrust emanating from mainstream society and officials. For example, it was common for someone to ask me what an NGO is, question why I ended up working in an NGO after having graduated from a prestigious university or even remind me of the “peaceful transformation agenda of the West.” Many have argued that the state and society’s lack of knowledge contributes to their distrust of this sector. Meanwhile, this legitimacy crisis has led to other obstacles; for example, one would not donate to an organization he or she doesn’t know or trust, so it is no wonder that NGOs, or civil society in general, face many practical obstacles in China.

I hope to discover a way for Chinese civil society to survive and thrive in such a hostile environment. The question I ask in this project is: “Why can some civil society groups be successful in policy advocacy?” I am

Preface and acknowledgements xi particularly interested in policy advocacy because the experience of working in a Chinese NGO showed me the hard truth—the impact of civil society is still too small. In that educational NGO, my colleague and I delivered books and offered reading courses to 15 primary schools in one year, which was a result achieved only by working more than 60 hours per week. Considering the number of children in impoverished regions who still need such services, we are still running too slowly even at full speed. How can we improve the situation more rapidly? In a country where society is small and the state looms large, the state must be involved. Thus, to advocate for policy and legislative change appears to be the most efficient way.

This book is written from an insider’s perspective, but it also is imbued with an outsider’s view because I have been studying outside of China since September 2012. With academic training in cultural sociology and political sociology in Europe, Asia, and Northern America, I returned to this topic as my doctoral project. I interviewed NGO practitioners in the summer of 2015 and worked in a renowned environmental NGO in Beijing in the spring of 2016. This fieldwork, together with my academic training, showed me that most previous research on Chinese civil society has focused on material and institutional factors—funding, organizational size, leadership-ties, among others—to explain the success or failure of NGOs, completely bypassing the meaning-making process. “Meaning” is the core of the strong program in cultural sociology; cultural sociologists have shown that meaning plays a vital role in politics and it has strong explanatory power.

In this book, I seek to demonstrate the power of meaning-making in civil society policy advocacy. I argue that whether civil society actors can achieve cultural resonance with their audiences in their performance explains the success or failure of their advocacy results. In other words, if civil society groups can appear more legitimate and trustworthy through using symbolic codes from the widely accepted meaning system, then they are more likely to succeed in their policy advocacy. This is not to advocate for Chinese civil society to give up its principles. Instead, it is to suggest an adjustment in terms of strategy while upholding principles. In the end, this is the kind of compromise civil society must often make in a nonreceptive political environment, regardless of the location and the regime type.

In the process of writing this dissertation, the situation of civil society in China has deteriorated. Many terms that could be discussed before have suddenly become “sensitive.” Even the core concept of the dissertation, civil society, has become an officially forbidden term. To finish this work and to suggest a way to carry on, has turned from a PhD project into a social mission. Many people have helped me along the way of completing my “mission.” Here, I would like to acknowledge my debt to at least a few. It goes without saying that responsibility for any errors is solely mine.

I would like to thank my Ph.D. supervisor, Prof. Steven Saxonberg and my consultant, Dr. Werner Binder, for their academic support. Prof. Steven Saxonberg, as an impressive scholar and supervisor, has offered intellectual xii Preface and acknowledgements guidance and detailed comments on every draft of my writing. Dr. Werner Binder has provided so much intellectual inspiration as an excellent consultant and a great friend, who has always known when to encourage and when to criticize. Both have accompanied me since the very beginning of this project, and I am so fortunate to have two intelligent and kind academic role models along the journey. Also, I would like to thank my proofreader and friend Dr. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, who not only did a brilliant proofreading job, but also provided valuable comments as a cultural sociologist. Besides, the seminars I attended with Prof. Ping-Chun Hsiung at the University of Toronto and the courses with Prof. Gu Zhonghua at National Chengchi University also shaped this project to a large extent. Moreover, I am grateful to have received two scholarships from the Department of Sociology at Masaryk University, to facilitate this project. The writing, editing, and publishing of the manuscript were supported by the European Regional Development Fund through the project ‘Sinophone Borderlands — Interaction at the Edges’ (no. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000791). The index is indebted to Diya Jiang’s help as an excellent research assistant. Without these supports, the project would not have been possible.

I offer my sincere thanks to the people who have helped me with my fieldwork. Three friends played an extremely important role here. Zhang Boju, the director of the environmental NGO in Beijing, allowed me to do fieldwork as an intern in the organization and offered great insights as both a political science graduate and an NGO leader. Guo Rui, a journalist and feminist, introduced me to many NGO practitioners working on women’s rights and beyond. Liang Haiguang, the director of the educational NGO in Guangzhou, brought me into the field in the first place and involved me in the development of this NGO for all these years. Also, many thanks and respect to those who agreed to be interviewed by me, though their names will be omitted here for the purpose of their well-being.

My deepest gratitude goes to my family. My parents have offered me enormous emotional support during this process, as they have always done excellently since I came into this world. My uncle gave me technical support while I was working on the second draft at home, and my grandma adjusted her daily routine to provide me a home office when I was in China. My husband, Dr. Richard Turcsanyi, has been not only a life partner but also a discussant in this process. Many good ideas emerged during our debates. Without my family’s steadfast love and patience, I could not have finished this work.

Acronyms

ACWF CPPCC CSO(s) CSG(s) CSI(s) ENGOG) EPIL GONGO() NPC NGO(s)

All China Women’s Federation

Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference

Civil society/civil sphere organization(s)

Civil society/civil sphere group(s)

Civil society/civil sphere initiative(s)

Environmental Non-governmental organization(s) Environmental Public Interest Litigation Government-organized non-governmental organization(s) National People’s Congress

Non-governmental organization(s)

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