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Pao Yue-kong Library, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong http://www.lib.polyu.edu.hk BETWEEN NATIONAL MOBILIZATION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A CASE STUDY OF RED CROSS MOVEMENT IN CHINA CHENG YUANJUN Ph.D The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 2015 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Department of Applied Social Sciences Between National Mobilization and Social Responsibility: A Case Study of Red Cross Movement in China by CHENG Yuanjun A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2012 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it reproduces no material previously published or written, nor material that has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text. ________ _______________________________ (Signed) ________Cheng Yuanjun___________________________ (Name of student) ABSTRACT This dissertation briefly discusses the survival and development of the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) as a case to reveal changes of fund-raising and resources mobilization, and uncovers some of? for autonomy between the government behavior and social behavior, and how the “Chinese Style” voluntaries emerged in the realm of public welfare activism. Founded in 1904 in Shanghai, form 1949 up to 2010, the RCSC had over 910000 local branches across China, and has become the largest non-profit humanitarian organization in mainland China, as well as the collective memory of Chinese society. Therefore, when “RCSC phenomenon” becomes a social fact, and real life experience to Chinese people in daily living, the investigation on the survival and development of “RCSC experience” is the focus of this study. “RCSC experience” is an inalienable part of “Chinese experiences”. Despite its precious “Chinese experiences” and its “Chinese characteristics”, this organization and characteristics of the RCSC have never been examined closely, thoroughly or systematically by scholars. This study mainly adopted a case study method, supplemented with 15 focused interviews, tracing the development of the RCSC from 1949 to 2010. The development of China Red Cross movement reveals the changing patterns of government mobilization after 1949 in Peoples Republication of China, from sustained national mobilization, engaging policy support, to increasingly public participation. The author charts those shifts in resource mobilization, reinvented organization, straightening out relationships, and map out expansion of humanitarian sphere. Evolution of strong reciprocity relationship between the RCSC and the government caught the consequences that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) take root in the RCSC to become China’s most enduring social welfare institution foundation, still operating today. Finally, the author demonstrates how the “Chinese Style” voluntaries emerged in the realm i of public welfare activism, and in the case of the RCSC, did so with strong reciprocity cooperation within the government. A universal precept in most of the existing western literature is that NGOs are often in fundamental conflict with the authoritarian system in which they operate; and such discordances are reflected both in their structures and functions. The Red Cross movement in China, however, did not emerge and grow as an anti- or counter- government power. From NPO survivability perspectives, relationship between Chinese government and the RCSC has been undergoing significant and profound readjustments from a reluctant partnership to policy tool, and gradually developing along the line of institutionalization. This investigation into the politics of humanitarianism reveals that the humanitarian problem cannot be solved solely in humanitarian way, isomorphism is a constraining process, and neutrality is not an apolitical characterizer. The RCSC and the government are always interactional, and constantly evolve together, thus forming a “symbiosis network”. The political trait of their interactional relationship and of its mobilizing pattern determines that the RCSC has to be affiliated to the government instead of being equal in their partnership. This relationship reflects the existing situation of all NGOs in China. This research work also contributes to current scholarship on the rise of “Chinese characteristics”. This study elaborates the social foundation of the RCSC, culture context of humanity, and institutional context of the RCSC in detail. Furthermore, it summarizes “Chinese Characteristics” of RCSC in terms of an “Anaclitic choice”, and forms Hybrids Organizational Patterns. These findings challenge assertions that China NGOs “would push irreversibly the Chinese society forward to the Civil Society”. One concern is that the RCSC might lose its distinctiveness in its constant assimilation with the government. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. SHAE Wan-chaw, for his instructive advice and useful suggestions on my thesis. I am deeply grateful of his help in the completion of this thesis. High tribute shall be paid to Dr. IP Fu-keung, who has given me constructive suggestions with his profound knowledge of social development. I am also deeply indebted to Dr. CHAN Kam-tong and Prof. Yu-Yuan Kuan( National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan) for helping me from the selection of an appropriate topic to the arrangement of the framework during the course of my working on this thesis. Then I sincerely show my acknowledgements to the following professors for their enlightening lectures: Dr. KU Hok-bun, Dr. TAM Yeuk-mui, Dr. CHAN Ching-hai, Dr. Hui LO Man-Chun, and Prof. TSUI Ming-sum, Prof. YIP Kam-shing, Prof. James LEE, Prof. YUEN TSANG Woon-ki. I express my earnest thanks to those who have given me great help when I was searching for data in Beijing, Hubei, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Taiwan. I believe that all of those mentioned above contribute to an improved final manuscript, and none is , of course, responsible for the remaining weakness. In addition, I am indebted to my family; the ongoing development of my thesis depends on their contributions as well. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 1. Development of NGOs in Mainland China ......................................................... 3 1.1 Historiography ................................................................................................................ 3 1.2 The RCSC and NGOs in China ...................................................................................... 7 1.3 “Chinese-styled” Development of Chinese NGOs ....................................................... 11 2. Aims of the Thesis ............................................................................................... 14 3. Overview of the Dissertation .............................................................................. 16 Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................... 18 1. How to Understand Chinese NGOs and its Development ............................... 18 1.1 Civil Society, Corporatism and Institutional Analysis .................................................. 18 1.2 “Chinese Characteristics” ............................................................................................. 21 2. Comparing Different Analytical Framework ................................................... 23 2.1 The Resource-dependence Perspective ........................................................................ 24 2.2 Neo-institutionalism Perspective .................................................................................. 25 2.3 Political Economy Perspectives ................................................................................... 28 2.4 The Inter-organizational Relational Perspective ........................................................... 30 2.5 Research on Nonprofit Enterprise and Strategic Plan .................................................. 39 2.6 Limitation of Existing Literatures ................................................................................ 42 3. Conceptual Framework of the Study ................................................................ 45 Chapter 3: Research Method ........................................................................... 48