The “Institutional Space” of Civil Society in China: The Legal Framework of Civil Society Organizations

Abstract

In order to adequately understand civil society in China, it is necessary to examine the different types of organizations that comprise civil society and the transformation of the legal system in which civil society organizations (CSOs) exist in China today. This article first presents a summary of the roles and relative positions of each type of CSO in the “institutional space” the Chinese government has allowed as it refers to the organizational “map” of Chinese civil society. Second, it shows how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with the aim of controlling and managing CSOs, established and maintained a strict control system from the formation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 until the end of the last century. Next, it further traces how the party-state, since becoming a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, has implemented systemic reforms regarding civil society in response to rapid changes in Chinese domestic society-yet one may interpret the series of legal reforms in recent years as a scheme for further incorporating civil society into the CCP's ruling system. It concludes by stressing the importance of keeping an eye on the “institutional space” for the future development of civil society in China.

Keywords:

• Civil society organizations
• the map of civil society
• institutional space
• legal system
• authoritarian system

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mei Huang

Mei HUANG is a research associate at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba. She is also a part-time lecturer at Yokohama City University. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Tsukuba in 2011. She has been analyzing survey data on civil society in China as a member of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) project, “A Comparative and Empirical Study of the Structural Changes in Politics and Transformations in Pressure Groups, Policy Networks, and Civil Society in Japan since 2009” (Group Leader: Tsujinaka Yutaka, Professor, University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences). Her research interests include interest group politics, civil society and local governance in China. Her recent publications include “Institutions” in Tsujinaka Yutaka, Li Jingpeng, and Kojima Kazuko, eds., Civil Society and Interest Groups in Contemporary China (Tokyo: Bokutakusha, 2014), 85–109, “The Relationship between Social Organizations, the CCP, and the Government: Social Organizations' Shrewd Strategy against the Party-State's ‘Embedded Regulation,’” Ibid., 143–161, “The Activities of Social Organizations in the Political Process of China,” Ibid., 181–198, and “Non-Governmental and Non-Commercial Enterprises: Based on the Survey of Chinese Civil Society Organizations (2009–2011),” Ibid., 199–216.