Comparative Analysis of American NGOs in China and Chinese NGOs in the U.S.

This article analyzes the activities of American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China and Chinese NGOs in the United States in the context of global competition between the United States and China for the leadership in the future model of the world order. In International Relations theory, especially in its theoretical paradigm of realism, the consideration of states as actors in international relations dominates scholarship. However, in recent decades it has become apparent that researchers have a significant interest in non-state actors, such as interest groups and NGOs, and their impact on international relations. NGOs in China and the United States have different historical backgrounds, environments, and government institutions in different ways. Still, but in terms of comparative analysis they represent comparable categories. The analysis offered in this study shows that, firstly, despite the strict regulation of the activities of NGOs in place in China, American NGOs have more opportunities to work in this environment than Chinese NGOs do in the United States, where the situation for their activities is apparently more favorable. Secondly, despite the advantages that partnerships provide, neither American nor Chinese NGOs form partnership networks and therefore, lose momentum for their own development. Thirdly, although the conditions for their activities differ in both countries, American and Chinese NGOs have equal opportunities to pursue their goals. Finally, American NGOs in China are less dependent on their government than Chinese NGOs in the United States are on the Chinese government. The study is comparative and takes as its units of analysis Chinese NGOs in the United States and American NGOs in China. Developments in the field of interest group politics serve as the theoretical framework for this research. The investigation uses methods of comparative quantitative analysis and social network analysis, while the interdisciplinary nature of the methods allow them to take advantage of the analytical capabilities of Comparative Political Science, Interest Group Politics, and International Relations.

China’s NGO Partnerships in a New Era of Development Cooperation

China’s 2021 White Paper, China’s International Development Cooperation in the New Era, offers a new vision for a more people-centred approach to its development cooperation. While the White Paper extensively discusses partnerships, it only briefly mentions encouraging cooperation with non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This article argues that NGO engagement in international development activities would improve their effectiveness, a view shared by many Chinese scholars and practitioners. However, challenges exist that constrain optimal engagement, especially access to funding, and a weak enabling environment and policy framework. This article addresses these challenges, drawing from the literature on ‘going out’ among Chinese NGOs and social organisations, along with interviews with key players in the Chinese NGO ecosystem. The article recommends, among other things, that the government clarify and improve its policy framework for NGOs/social organisations in support of China’s international development collaboration, especially regarding funding flows, personnel regulations, and material and capital outflows.

Chinese NGOs at the interface between governmentality and local society: An actor-oriented perspective

The relations between society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been relatively neglected in the field of China NGO studies, which remains largely wedded to a state–NGO problematic within a state–society framework. In this anthropological study of an NGO’s post-Wenchuan earthquake recovery programme, we adopt an actor-oriented approach to identify the main lines of tension between the strategies, rationalities, and techniques deployed by the different actors in the field. Focusing on NGO–society relations, we take the NGO not as an incarnation of society vis-a-vis the state, nor as an incarnation of the state vis-a-vis society, but as a key link in a shifting chain of state and non-state actors that aims to introduce to local society an assemblage of techniques, discourses, and values for the promotion of self-government. This ‘international development package’ is a specific form of what social scientists have theorized as ‘governmentality’. In this case study, the modalities of participation and cooperative self-government promoted within this development package are in tension with local values, social relations, and political structures. The case shows that dynamic tensions between the actors are mediated by the deployment of practices of governance that circulate between international institutions and networks, state agencies, NGOs, and local authorities and actors.