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Public Trust as a Driver of State-Grassroots NGO Collaboration in China

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Abstract

While the moniker non-governmental organization (NGO) connotes distance from the state, it is widely recognized that civil society in a range of political contexts is in fact characterized by close ties across the public-private divide. Scholars of Chinese social organizations have noted that proximity between the state and NGOs is even more pronounced in the context of China. What is less clear is why this is so. Why do grassroots NGOs overwhelmingly pursue engagement with the state? This paper presents findings that enumerate a number of motivating forces that drive state-NGO collaboration, particularly with respect to small, grassroots NGOs that do not have preexisting ties to elites or to the state. Most notable among these is that NGOs seek engagement with state agencies primarily in order to secure public trust. Public trust is found to be key to the ability of such groups to run programs, mobilize citizens or raise funds. These findings therefore have implications for how we understand the critical role of public support and legitimation—in addition to state control—in the enabling of civil society under authoritarianism.

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Notes

  1. Two separate tables containing different descriptive variables are presented because the two rounds of fieldwork were undertaken with different aims and therefore dealt with distinct samples. Table 1 captures the narrowly defined core sample of grassroots NGOS in the first study, while the second round provides a broader snapshot of shifts in the sector from government, academic and a range of NGO perspectives.

  2. Interview Y134, NGO, director of external relations. Yunnan, May 2010.

  3. Interview N142, NGO, founder and director. Ningxia, June 2010.

  4. Interview Y158, NGO, director. Yunnan, July 2010.

  5. Interview N238, NGO, founder and director. Ningxia, June 2010.

  6. Interview Y132, NGO, founder and director. Yunnan, May 2010.

  7. Interview Y158.

  8. Interview H168, NGO, founder and director. Hebei, November 2010.

  9. Interview N236, NGO, founder and director. Ningxia, June 2010.

  10. Interview N142.

  11. The official term for NGOs that register as nonprofit organizations. Interview N273, NGO, founder and director. Ningxia, December 2010.

  12. Interview N142, NGO.

  13. Interview N143, NGO, director of external affairs. Ningxia, June 2010.

  14. Interview H263, NGO, deputy director. Hebei, August 2010.

  15. Interview Y131, NGO, founder and director. Yunnan, May 2010.

  16. Interview Y158.

  17. Interview Y155, NGO, Staff. Yunnan, July 2010.

  18. Interview N142.

  19. Interview Y158.

  20. Interview H165, NGO, founder and director. Hebei, August 2010.

  21. Two different terms are used to refer to something not being in accordance with the law, not legal (buhefa) and against the law (weifa). These two terms have slight different meanings, the latter usually referring to a more serious breach.

  22. For instance, we find that correlation between trust in NGO and trust in local government in 2015 is 0.293 at 0.1% significant level, whether or not controlling for age, gender, education or income etc.

  23. Interview BJ07, Government, staff. Beijing, September 2009.

  24. Interview H164, NGO, founder and director. Hebei, August 2010.

  25. Interview Y158.

  26. Interview Y131.

  27. Interview Y131.

  28. Interview N237, NGO, founder and director. Ningxia, June 2010.

  29. Interview Y229, NGO, founder and director. Yunnan, May 2010.

  30. Interview Y131.

  31. Interview N238.

  32. Interview Y134.

  33. Interview Y250, NGO, director of external relations. Yunnan, July 2010.

  34. Interview Y132, NGO, founder and director. Yunnan, May 2010.

  35. Interview H260, NGO, founder and director. Hebei, August 2010.

  36. Interview Y132.

  37. See https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/03/why-no-one-trusts-government-charities-in-china-anymore/273989/ and https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/world/asia/04china.html accessed June 15, 2020.

  38. See http://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn/news/chinas-online-fundraising-platforms-raised-over-1-8-billion-rmb-in-the-first-half-of-2019/ accessed June 15, 2020.

  39. Interview Y155.

  40. Interview Y229.

  41. Interview N142.

  42. Interview H259, NGO, founder and director. Hebei, August, 2010.

  43. Interview H165, NGO, founder and director. Hebei, August 2010.

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Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 71804046.

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Author notes

  1. May Farid and Chengcheng Song contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Welfare and Social Administration, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    May Farid

  2. School of Public Administration and Research Center for NGO & Society Innovation, East China Normal University, 3663 North Zhongshan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Chengcheng Song

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  1. May Farid
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Correspondence to Chengcheng Song.

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Farid, M., Song, C. Public Trust as a Driver of State-Grassroots NGO Collaboration in China. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 25, 591–613 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-020-09691-7

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