Grassroots NGOs and their strategic alliances with the Chinese state : a case study in Guangzhou

Abstract

Previous studies have described the low level of collaboration between the government and the grassroots NGOs, as well as the difficulties in building and maintaining such collaboration. Grassroots NGOs had little chance to obtain resources of the government. However, the recent observation has challenged these impressions, as increasingly grassroots NGOs have applied for the official status and the funding of the government. This study hopes to explore how the grassroots NGOs adopt state-alliance strategy, and why. The data collected from six months of field research in a typical grassroots NGO located in Guangzhou, where firstly started the relevant institutional reform. The case study reveals both external and internal factors affecting such strategy.

The government wishes to involve more local grassroots organizations into its social management agenda by setting a series of institutional arrangements, including registration system, direct funding programme and other supportive institutions. In the process that the government shapes such institutional environment, there comes a resource structure that propels the grassroots NGOs to adopt strategic alliance with the government. Besides, other resource providers of grassroots NGOs, such as local foundations, sympathetic individuals and foreign funding, could only provide limited material support in a long term. The resource environment as a whole is favorable to urge the case organization to cooperate with the government.

However, the organization examines the external environment through its own lens of value system that formulated by three shared values elements: the emphasis on mission, organization independence and a gongyi identity. These three elements keep the organization a distance from the government because they respectively contradict against the government-like practices and mismatch the government’s expectations. Thus, despite the organization started to obtain the government’s resource due to the pressures of resource structure, it set up an upper line for the strategic alliance. Paired with the perception on institutional environment, this upper limit formulates a conceptual mechanism of “safe area”, in which organization is able to operate safely, without worrying about touching the bottom line of the government or being too close to it.

In sum, this study attempts to shed light on the negotiation between organizational value systems and the external institutional environments. Empirically, this study hopes to better understand the vulnerable but persevering Chinese grassroots NGOs, and their survival and development in the shifting China.