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ID:
136995
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyses the legitimation strategies of Chinese labour non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Given the relative newness of NGOs as an organizational form in China and the precarious space they operate in, their survival and development are not primarily a question of establishing autonomy and avoiding state control, as emphasized in the literature on Chinese associations, but rather a question of being perceived as legitimate social actors. This article conceptualizes legitimation as a form of communication in which NGOs articulate discursive elements in specific ways in order to legitimize their identity and voice. Drawing on interviews with 15 labour NGOs working with migrant workers, the article identifies three aspects of NGOs’ legitimation work. First, the NGOs construct their identity and work as social and not political in nature, thus underscoring that they are non-governmental and not anti-governmental organizations. Second, the NGOs give voice to, or represent, migrant workers and their interests by engaging in different forms of advocacy. Third, the NGOs legitimize their voice by referring to their proximity to workers at the grass roots and their specialist knowledge about migrant workers’ living and working conditions. In conclusion, the article argues that issues of power and discourse should be brought into the study of NGOs’ legitimation work.
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| 2 |
ID:
163483
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| Summary/Abstract |
cholarship on Chinese civil society has produced rich empirical studies, but there have been few attempts to theorize the empirical knowledge acquired. Moreover, the question of how to conceptualize the political agency of civil society in a non-democratic context has received limited systematic attention. In this conceptual article, we draw on a discursive approach to politics to analyse the political agency of Chinese civil society. Our analysis is based on synthesizing insights gained through three separate research projects. We propose a conceptual framework which focuses on how civil society actors position themselves within a structured political space, how they represent social groups and issues through advocacy, how they care for these groups, and how they engage in processes of identity formation. Taken together, these four modalities constitute a framework for analysing the different political dimensions of civil society agency.
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