| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
168016
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) system is a curious institution: often ridiculed as a decorative “flower vase” for the one-Party regime, or, at best, a networking club meant to appease elite groups, it does not attract much scholarly attention. The Communist Party leadership, however, clings adamantly to what it says is a “broadly representative” intermediary body helping with policy reform and United Front work. In this article, we investigate the validity of this original logic with the help of fresh empirical data. We look at the CPPCC’s institutional history, principles of member selection, delegates’ self-conceptualisation, and their modes of operation. Intermediation, it appears, has always been a blurry task for CPPCC members, resulting in a wide array of behavioural choices – from parroting of the Party line to attempts at proactive agenda setting. After more than two decades of relative openness to innovative bottom-up policy proposals, new rules of unified conduct now again stifle the consultative potential of the CPPCCs – but there seems to be some room for intermediary agency left, especially at the local level.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
ID:
168020
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The Ram Union is a non-profit social organisation established in 2003 in Zhejiang Province. Its transformation from a local entity into an international NGO tells us about the methods implemented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to accompany the development of popular associations or minjian, which appear to be external to the Party but which in fact are fully sponsored by it. Studying such organisations is a complex matter, as they appear to act in a benevolent and apolitical manner, while being completely integrated within the political and social apparatus of the Party-state (Youth League, volunteers, United Front, ministry of Civil Affairs, etc.). The historical trajectory of the Ram Union thus gives us insight into the CCP’s overlooked strategy of hybridisation, involving mass organisations that came out of the revolutionary period and charitable groups embodying modern Chinese society. This strategy is designed to occupy the social arena and forestall the emergence of an autonomous Chinese civil society in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or among the Chinese diaspora overseas.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|