Overview

Received wisdom suggests that social organizations (such as non-government organizations, NGOs) have the power to upend the political status quo. However, in many authoritarian contexts, such as China, NGO emergence has not resulted in this expected regime change. In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt shows how NGOs adapt to the changing interests of central and local governments, working in service of the state to address social problems. In doing so, the nature of NGO emergence in China effectively strengthens the state, rather than weakens it. This book offers a groundbreaking comparative analysis of Chinese social organizations across the country in three different issue areas: environmental protection, HIV/AIDS prevention, and gay and lesbian rights. It suggests a new way of thinking about state-society relations in authoritarian countries, one that is distinctly co-dependent in nature: governments require the assistance of NGOs to govern while NGOs need governments to extend political, economic and personal opportunities to exist.

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9781107454231

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""In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt describes the emergence of a new facet of modern Chinese civil society: the rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It shows that although the status of such groups is often contested, they have become an important factor within the way China is governed, and how the Chinese state is likely to rule in the future. Moreover, the author comes at this issue not within the narrow confines of an attachment to a single methodology, but rather through utilizing a mixed-methods approach to the subject matter. In this regard, the book is sure to stand out within the growing wave of scholarship on the role of NGOs both in authoritarian regimes in general, and in China more specifically."" Allen Carlson, Cornell University ""This book dissects three types of social organizations by issue area and shows how they survive by working with, rather than against, central and local governments. Its innovative comparative analysis offers a dispassionate and refreshing perspective on both the limits and creative adaptability of China’s many civic groups and their leaders. This is one of the most incisive books on this topic ever written."" Guobin Yang, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania ""This is an outstanding study, highly recommended for a wide variety of audiences. For China scholars, the book provides valuable and original primary data on various kinds of social organizations within the PRC; for specialists in comparative politics, it sheds new light on the persistence of authoritarian rule and the role of civil society; for students of social movements, it lays out a clear, useful and novel framework for understanding ""opportunity structures""; for new researchers, it includes a detailed discussion of data collection and research methodology; and for practitioners, it reveals important and often counter-intuitive information regarding the specific and nuanced ways in which foreign funding can have both good and ill effects. The book is a pleasure to read, from start to finish. It is carefully researched, exceptionally well-organized, convincingly argued, and written in clear and engaging prose."" Teresa Wright, Pacific Affairs

In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt describes the emergence of a new facet of modern Chinese civil society: the rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It shows that although the status of such groups is often contested, they have become an important factor within the way China is governed, and how the Chinese state is likely to rule in the future. Moreover, the author comes at this issue not within the narrow confines of an attachment to a single methodology, but rather through utilizing a mixed-methods approach to the subject matter. In this regard, the book is sure to stand out within the growing wave of scholarship on the role of NGOs both in authoritarian regimes in general, and in China more specifically. Allen Carlson, Cornell University This book dissects three types of social organizations by issue area and shows how they survive by working with, rather than against, central and local governments. Its innovative comparative analysis offers a dispassionate and refreshing perspective on both the limits and creative adaptability of China's many civic groups and their leaders. This is one of the most incisive books on this topic ever written. Guobin Yang, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania This is an outstanding study, highly recommended for a wide variety of audiences. For China scholars, the book provides valuable and original primary data on various kinds of social organizations within the PRC; for specialists in comparative politics, it sheds new light on the persistence of authoritarian rule and the role of civil society; for students of social movements, it lays out a clear, useful and novel framework for understanding opportunity structures ; for new researchers, it includes a detailed discussion of data collection and research methodology; and for practitioners, it reveals important and often counter-intuitive information regarding the specific and nuanced ways in which foreign funding can have both good and ill effects. The book is a pleasure to read, from start to finish. It is carefully researched, exceptionally well-organized, convincingly argued, and written in clear and engaging prose. Teresa Wright, Pacific Affairs

In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt describes the emergence of a new facet of modern Chinese civil society: the rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It shows that although the status of such groups is often contested, they have become an important factor within the way China is governed, and how the Chinese state is likely to rule in the future. Moreover, the author comes at this issue not within the narrow confines of an attachment to a single methodology, but rather through utilizing a mixed-methods approach to the subject matter. In this regard, the book is sure to stand out within the growing wave of scholarship on the role of NGOs both in authoritarian regimes in general, and in China more specifically. Allen Carlson, Cornell University This book dissects three types of social organizations by issue area and shows how they survive by working with, rather than against, central and local governments. Its innovative comparative analysis offers a dispassionate and refreshing perspective on both the limits and creative adaptability of China's many civic groups and their leaders. This is one of the most incisive books on this topic ever written. Guobin Yang, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania This is an outstanding study, highly recommended for a wide variety of audiences. For China scholars, the book provides valuable and original primary data on various kinds of social organizations within the PRC; for specialists in comparative politics, it sheds new light on the persistence of authoritarian rule and the role of civil society; for students of social movements, it lays out a clear, useful and novel framework for understanding opportunity structures ; for new researchers, it includes a detailed discussion of data collection and research methodology; and for practitioners, it reveals important and often counter-intuitive information regarding the specific and nuanced ways in which foreign funding can have both good and ill effects. The book is a pleasure to read, from start to finish. It is carefully researched, exceptionally well-organized, convincingly argued, and written in clear and engaging prose. Teresa Wright, Pacific Affairs

Author Information

Timothy Hildebrandt is Lecturer in Chinese Politics at King's College London. His research has been published in numerous journals, including The China Quarterly, the Journal of Contemporary China, the Review of International Studies, and Foreign Policy Analysis. He has also adapted his work for more general audiences, in forums such as the South China Morning Post, The Christian Science Monitor and the Chicago Tribune, and in several policy-oriented publications. He previously taught at the University of Southern California and held postdoctoral fellowships at USC's US-China Institute and the Center for Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville. Prior to receiving his PhD in political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he was on the staff at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, serving as managing editor of the Center's annual policy journal, China Environment Series.

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