State-society relations in China
In systems that seem to offer limited opportunities for grassroots participation, citizen initiatives can coalesce into organizational forms allowing local groups to impact policy and local governance.
China’s Grassroots NGOs and the Local State
This project involved a structured study of state-NGO relations in Ningxia, Yunnan and Hebei, employing political ethnography and a case-oriented comparative approach across six subnational units. Findings draw on data from 122 interviews with local officials and grassroots NGOs, original survey data, extensive field observations carried out between 2009 and 2012; a review of NGO materials, bureaucratic documents and participation in NGO workshops and conferences. Research focused on a little understood segment of China's growing civil society--small, indigenous grassroots groups carrying out development projects in mostly rural and semi-urban settings.
The study uncovers a distinctive type of state-NGO relationship— termed reciprocal engagement—and explains variation in reciprocal outcomes. It also explores the effects of such engagement, finding that even grassroots NGOs can impact policy when citizens, nonprofit groups and government actors model policy innovations.
Relevant publications:
Knowledge Generation and Policy
Grassroots NGOs impact policy when citizens, nonprofit groups and government actors collectively generate knowledge.
In an era of unprecedented access to information and multiplying means of communication, what role does knowledge have in the policy making process, particularly knowledge generated by citizen groups and grassroots organizations? Emerging research that explores these questions often centers on knowledge communities as carriers of knowledge to policy. In particular, two models--epistemic communities and communities of practice—attempt to account for knowledge generation by and with social actors.
The project studies cases of emerging knowledge communities comprised of combinations of NGO staff, villagers, academics and officials interacting around specific policy issues, generating knowledge and spurring policy innovations. Each case illustrates the expansion of key theoretical constructs within the literature on knowledge communities. One case highlights the porous nature of sectoral boundaries in China and the resultant cross-sector communities that influence policy. Another suggests an expansion of the types of expertise constituting knowledge communities to include non-scientific sources of authority and reliable information about conditions at the grassroots. Yet another invites a broadening of knowledge production beyond ‘crafted policy documents’ to encompass the generation of knowledge in a variety of forms and by a range of actors.
The project identifies mechanisms by which knowledge intersects with power structures and is then diffused. These findings on how grassroots actors are able to influence policy through knowledge communities are relevant to authoritarian systems perceived to lack the traditional channels for political participation, but also to political contexts in which channels for articulating the will of the people are not functioning as intended.
Relevant publications:
Ethnic Minority Regions and the State
An inquiry into the nexus between education and development in ethnic minority regions
This project represented a unique opportunity to spearhead a four-year collaborative action-research project on behalf of China’s leading government policy think-tank, the State Council Development Research Center. Research involved assembling a team to carry out participant observation and action research projects in several Chinese provinces between 2012 and 2016, and provided a birds-eye view of the policy process. The project explored another form of state- society interaction, one that has proved to be a significant challenge in China’s development process: the interaction between state policy and ethnic populations in minority regions. The study shed light on various aspects of this interaction, exploring how individuals within minority communities and official agencies engaged in activities to promote the socioeconomic development of minority regions, whether as volunteers, rural cadres, teachers or entrepreneurs. In collaboration with research institutes and universities in minority regions, a subproject investigated career prospects for youth in minority areas.
Relevant publications:
Xingzou fuwu zhidao, jianzheng nengli tuibian: Yunnan shaoshu minzu diqu jiaoyu he fazhan xingdong yanjiu (Walking the path of service, witnessing the transformation of ability: Action-research on education and development in Yunnan’s ethnic minority regions), edited by Pu Lichun and May Farid. China Ethnic Publishing House.