Chinese Environmental NGO's Strategies and Their Relationship with Government

• Main Authors: Wang, Li-Chuan, 汪莉絹
• Other Authors: Chiu, Kun-Shuan
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/x24rm9

博士 === 國立政治大學 === 東亞研究所 === 101 === Since the start of the economic reforms in the late 1970s, profound changes in China’s society have taken place. The impressive upsurge of China’s non-government organizations (NGOs) in the last two decades is one of the most significant and meaningful events in the transformation. Since the first bottom-up citizen-organized organization Friends of Nature was established in 1994, environmental NGOs increased rapidly and became one of the most noticeable forces in China’s civil society. Several environmental campaigns which interfered in the public policy have been led by environmental NGOs, the campaign against Nujiang dam being the well-known one of these cases and an important milestone in the history of environmental activism in China. According to the investigation of All-China Environment Federation, China had 3539 environmental NGOs by 2008, the number of citizen-organized grassroots environmental NGOs had reached 508, and they spread out in all of the country. They are engaged in environmental education, nature conservation, policy advocacy and many other activities. The diverse environmental NGOs in China all aim to promote environmental consciousness, sustainable development and public participation. To achieve these goals, they have adopted a mixture of traditional and new collective repertoire. In addition, some scholars argue that under the control of the Chinese Communist government, Chinese environmental NGOs face immense constraints. Accordingly, they have developed different advocacy strategies and tactics from their western counterpart, which is called “non-confrontation”. That is, they have relatively mild attitudes toward government and refrain from confronting the authorities, in order to avoid being labeled as political activist. How have these environmental NGOs grown within China’s constraining political context? Do they contribute to the development of China’s burgeoning civil society? Why do they adopt the non-confrontational methods as a strategic choice towared government? These are meaningful questions. To understand the development and role of environmental NGOs in China, my research is focused on the relationship between government and environmental NGOs, especially how environmental NGOs interact with government to get more resources from the state and influence policy-making. The primary goal of this study is to analyze the specific strategies and tactics of Chinese environmental NGOs, to understand how they utilize their resources to advocate and influence public policy in China. This study will base on empirical research, interviewing several active environmental organizations in China and adopting the resources dependence perspective to examine the resource dependence and interactions between environmental NGOs and government, trying to capture the dynamic development and feature in the Chinese Environmental NGOs and State relationships. This study finds that, first, the relationship between environmental NGOs and government is asymmetrical resource interdependence, but their interactions are complex. Chinese environmental NGOs are independent organizations from the government, but they are required to go through a rigid dual registration system and depend on the state for their legitimate existence and survival. They tend to gain the support of government connections to get more resources, but also try to represent the interests of people and influence public policy. It shows that under the control of the Chinese Communist government, the environmental NGOs tend to take a pragmatic approach. Secondly, Chinese environmental NGOs have been able to establish and consolidate communication channels and support networks with each other. They build up connections within the green community by creating media salons, forums, and various forms of informal mechanisms to share information and experience. At the same time, Chinese environmental NGOs interact and provide support to each other by joint project implementation. In addition, this study indicates that the relatively high status of environmental NGO founders together with their personal and professional networks play important roles in environmental NGO growth. This study suggests that continued development of Chinese environmental NGOs will provide important evidence and insights to analyze and capture the development of China’s civil society.