Accountability and legitimacy of NGOs under authoritarianism: the case of China

Abstract

How non-governmental organisations (NGOs) craft accountability and legitimacy in authoritarian states is poorly understood. We put forward a framework of analysis for capturing the processes of making accountability and legitimacy. We introduce the ideas of first- and second-order accountability and stocks of accountability capital. In authoritarian regimes, building second-order accountability through the accumulation of stocks of accountability is crucial for NGOs’ survival and organisational development and as a path towards gaining first-order accountability. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork on child welfare NGOs in China from 2007 to 2017, we select three case studies with long operational trajectories to illustrate processes of crafting legitimacy and accountability. The research contributes empirically and theoretically to the understanding of accountability in NGOs in authoritarian states through the novel analytic framework and case study of China.

Keywords:

• Accountability
• legitimacy
• NGOs
• authoritarianism
• China
• child welfare

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Australian Research Council (ARC) for funding this research and to the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) linking arrangement that facilitated international collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Such assertions tend to be based on anecdotal evidence and available data sets on NGOs compiled by researchers, although due to lack of registration precise statistics are inevitably difficult to collate.

2 Experiments with this had already begun in 2010 in Beijing (Yin 2011).

3 See Section XIII: Making Innovations in the Social Governance System.

4 The framework and empirical evidence are explained further in Howell, Shang, and Fisher (2018).

5 The sample frame was used to select organisations of varying size, registration status, etc., operating in locations with a minimum of seven child welfare organisations.

6 This data set yielded basic information such as size, registration status, funding, domain and place of activity, and date of establishment.

7 Over 60% of non-governmental adoption agencies are run by faith-based organisations.

8 The association is not named to protect confidentiality.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jude Howell

Jude Howell is a professor of international development at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE). She is Director of the ESRC Research Programme on Non-Governmental Public Action and former Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the LSE (2003–2010). Her research on China relates to civil society and governance, gender issues and labour organising. Recent books include The Global War on Terror, Aid and Civil Society (with Jeremy Lind), Governance in China and In Search of Civil Society. Market Reform and Social Change in Contemporary China (with Gordon White and Shang Xiaoyuan).

K. R. Fisher

K. R. Fisher is a professor of social policy at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She conducts research on the organisation of social services in Australia and China. Her research interests include services in the community, disability and mental health services, and project and service evaluation. She applies inclusive research methods with people with disability, families, and disability policy officials and service providers. She leads the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) Disability Research Program, and the SPRC Communication and Engagement Committee, and was an Official Visitor for NSW Mental Health, Acting Deputy Director Disability Studies and Research Centre UNSW, co-convenor of the NSW Australasian Evaluation Society, a foundation member of the Board of the Disability Studies and Research Institute, and a Disability Community Visitor for accommodation services for people with disabilities. Her experience includes 8 years of early childhood research as a consultant and director in Families At Work. Her research associated with the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody included Aboriginal community consultations. She has published four books with Xiaoyuan Shang on China-related research. She is active professionally on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, regularly promoting her recent publications and events.

X. Shang

X. Shang is a professor at Beijing Normal University, and an associate professor in the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales. She is widely acknowledged to be a leading international expert in the study of social welfare provision to vulnerable children in China. In 2014, her research project ‘Support for China’s orphans’ was selected as one of the Ten Innovations that Changed Our World, by UNSW Australia. In 2003, she was awarded the Alice Tay Human Rights Award by the Australia–China Council for her significant contribution to improving the understanding of child rights in China. Her main publications include Disability Policy in China: Child and Family Experiences (with K. Fisher; Routledge); Caring for Orphaned Children in China (with K. Fisher; Lexington Books), China’s System of Social Support to Vulnerable Children (China Social Sciences Academic Press), The Reforms of China’s Social Protection System (China Labour and Social Security Press) and Impacts and Transition: the Development of China’s Civil Society Organizations (China Social Sciences Press). She has published extensively in leading international and Chinese journals.