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Embedded Civil Society: NGO Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Authoritarian China

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Embedded Civil Society: NGO Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Authoritarian China Embedded Civil Society: NGO Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Authoritarian China by John Wei-Chung Tai B.A. in Political Science and History, June 1993, University of California, Los Angeles M.A. in East Asian Studies, May 1997, The George Washington University A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 20, 2012 Dissertation directed by Bruce J. Dickson Professor of Political Science and International Affairs The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that John Wei-Chung Tai has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of March 7, 2012. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. Embedded Civil Society: NGO Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Authoritarian China John Wei-Chung Tai Dissertation Research Committee: Bruce J. Dickson, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Dissertation Director Nathan J. Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Committee Member Gina M. S. Lambright, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2012 by John Wei-Chung Tai All rights reserved iii Acknowledgments Writing a dissertation is truly a collaborative effort. This dissertation would not have been possible without the contributions of many people. I want to first extend my heartfelt gratitude to the members of my dissertation research committee. Bruce Dickson, Nathan Brown, and Gina Lambright have patiently guided me through this process. Their excellent scholarships have motivated me to strive to do better. Their words have encouraged me to move on when I faced uncertainties. I could not have asked for better teachers and mentors. I especially want to thank Bruce for being an excellent teacher and advisor ever since I was a student at the Elliott School of International Affairs. I next want to thank the many Chinese NGO practitioners who have shared their struggles and triumphs with me. I have gained admiration for these trailblazers and through them I have gained a strong appreciation for the importance of leadership. In addition, I want to thank my colleagues in China who did so much to make this project possible. My colleagues in Beijing, notably Yuan Yinghua, Wendy Kang, He Ping, Michael Zhao, and Yang Jingyong have been instrumental in getting my research started with interview referrals. I especially want to thank Wang Kan, whose connections in and knowledge about China’s NGO world proved to be invaluable. I also want to thank my Shanghai colleagues, notably Catherine Sim and Jianling Liao, for their generosity in reading parts of the manuscript and for their encouragement. iv Along the way, I have had the support of wonderful friends. As I had been “with” him at the beginning of his Ph.D. journey many years ago, Nick Khoo has been “present since the creation” of this dissertation. His academic journey has been an inspiration to me. And I was more than happy to know that his first book was published as I was finalizing this dissertation. I also want to thank my fellow Ph.D. students at The George Washington University, notably Yeh-Chung Lu and Jeff Becker. We had studied together for the comprehensive examinations and their persistence in achieving their respective degrees as well as their encouragement has helped me to focus on the task at hand. The love and support of my parents and those of my brother and his wife are greatly appreciated. My parents, in particular, have provided opportunities for me by choosing to immigrate to the United States. There are no words to describe my gratitude to them for their sacrifices. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law have provided, on an annual basis for four years, a fine winter retreat. My father-in-law has encouraged me with his words and his own scholarly accomplishments, and my mother-in-law has overseen the preparation of many fine cuisines. My sons, who came into my world during this long journey, have been truly divine gifts. But, in the end, I reserve my greatest love and gratitude for my wife, who agreed to my entreaties to begin this journey and who has stood by me through it all with her wonderful, patient, and optimistic spirit. There are no words for me to describe her importance except to say that this journey would not have been possible and would have been meaningless without her. v Abstract of Embedded Civil Society: NGO Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Authoritarian China In this dissertation, I have undertaken the first systematic effort to examine how grassroots NGO leaders in a nondemocracy have contributed to the ability of their respective organizations to meet organizational objectives. Using a case-study method, I undertook an in-depth examination of seven Chinese NGOs that operated in different issue areas, geographical locations, and at different stages of organizational development. I paid special attention to three commonly-identified socio-political characteristics of successful Chinese NGOs, i.e. state linkage, media connections, and international ties, and examined them as leadership qualities. Drawing from nearly 100 interviews, informal conversations, written correspondence, and participant observation sessions involving approximately 40 Chinese NGOs, I have found that the leaders of successful Chinese NGOs have developed personal affiliations with specific state organizations. In contrast, Communist Party membership has exercised less obvious effects. I have also found that the leader’s media connections have exerted positive effects on state linkages. The leader’s international ties, however, have exercised no direct effects on the NGO’s state linkages and, in fact, have been highly conditioned on the presence of the leader’s state affiliations and media connections. These findings confirm the importance of state linkage as a precondition for NGO effectiveness in nondemocracies. In this manner, they challenge the view that organizational autonomy vis-à-vis the state is an imperative for effective NGOs. These findings further challenge the perception that successful NGOs cannot be found in vi nondemocracies. An important implication of these findings is that the state can contribute positively to the development of nascent civil society in nondemocracies. In this sense, these findings challenge the civil society paradigm, which suggests that conflictual relations between the authoritarian state and civil society actors have been both inevitable and beneficial for civil society organizations. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………... iv Abstract………………………………………………………………………………... vi List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………. xi Chapter 1: Explaining NGO Effectiveness in Authoritarian States………….………….1 Section 1-1: Organizational Performance, NGOs, and Civil Society……………………2 Section 1-2: Origins of NGOs in Democracies and Nondemocracies………………….10 Section 1-3: Explaining NGO (In)effectiveness in Authoritarian Political Settings: Repressive State and the Organizational Autonomy Imperative………………………..15 Section 1-4: Institutional Conditions for NGO Effectiveness in Nondemocracies……...24 Section 1-5: NGO Leadership: Finding Space in a Nondemocratic System……………30 Section 1-6: Summary………………………………………………………………….37 Section 1-7: Organization of the Dissertation…………………………………………..39 Chapter 2: Leadership and Effective NGOs…………………………………………….41 Section 2-1: Embeddedness and Embedded Autonomy………………………………...44 Section 2-2: Qualities of an Embedded Leadership……………………………………..48 Section 2-3: Concept of Effective NGO………………………………………………...54 Section 2-4: State and NGOs in Authoritarian China…………………………………...61 Section 2-4-1: The Scope of the Dissertation: Distinguishing NGOs and GONGOs……67 Section 2-5: Research Design: Cases, Variables, and Sampling………………………...69 Section 2-5-1: Migrant Workers: Objects of Institutionalized Discrimination…………..71 Section 2-5-2: Core Cases: Background and Effectiveness……………………………...76 Section 2-5-3: Shadow Cases: Background and Effectiveness…………………………..86 viii Section 2-5-4: Operationalizing the Dependent Variable………………………………..88 Section 2-5-5: Operationalizing the Independent Variable………………………………91 Section 2-5-6: Sampling and Limitations of the Study…………………………………..93 Chapter 3: Political Elite, State Linkage, and Organizational Effectiveness……………..97 Section 3-1: Introduction………………………………………………………………...97 Section 3-2: Autonomy, Resource Dependency, and State Linkages ................................ 102 Section 3-3: State Affiliations and Effectiveness: Logic of the Hypothesis ...................... 107 Section 3-4-1: Tong Lihua and the Zhicheng Public Interest Law NGO........................... 113 Section 3-4-2: Xie Lihua and Rural Women ...................................................................... 122 Section 3-4-3: Wei Wei and the Little Bird Migrant Workers Mutual Support Hotline ... 130 Section 3-4-4: Ma Yang and the On Action International Cultural Center ....................... 135 Section 3-5: Corroboration from Additional Cases: Friends of Nature, Yirenping, and the Self-Empowerment Service Center for Disabled Persons .................................................. 139 Section 3-6: Summary ......................................................................................................... 146 Chapter 4: Media Connections,
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