| Publication |
2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This study hypothesizes that the Chinese state uses NGOs as objects of consultation for improving its policymaking in the same way it consults mass organizations, democratic parties, and official professional associations to obtain specialist information. This model of consultation is based on the mass-line model and on its application within democratic centralist administrative hierarchies. The investigation shows that, apart from their main social or environmental tasks, Chinese NGOs indeed inform the state, many of them with policy formulation in mind. It also shows that the Chinese state uses democratic centralist vocabulary to describe the tasks that it assumes NGOs should undertake. However, apart from the mass-line type of consultation, both NGOs and the state have other conceptions about the proper roles for NGOs. The state now promotes the idea of civil society as an independent service provider, while NGOs seek an even larger sphere of social autonomy and self-organization.
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