The development of civic associations in China has been a subject of scholarly debate since the early 1990s. Jonathan Unger's edited volume, Associations and the Chinese State, represents an important new contribution. It revives the earlier debates, raises new questions, and exemplifies some new directions in the second wave of research that has been under way since the early 2000s.
The book consists of an editor's “Introduction” and nine chapters. As far as I can tell, four chapters first appeared in recent issues of The China Journal. The other five are revised versions of earlier papers or newly written for this volume. Most chapters try to assess whether Chinese civic associations are state corporatist or civil society organizations, the former being more dependent on the state and the latter more autonomous. Several chapters attempt to avoid or go beyond these two positions by adopting new perspectives or new terms. Whether making assessments or exploring new horizons, the authors evince high levels of sophistication and critical sensitivity. Their chapters are products of solid empirical research.
Chapter one by Andrew Watson and chapter two by Jonathan Unger and Anita Chan form a contrasting pair. Both provide wide-ranging and enlightening discussions, but their views are different. Watson reviews nine types of associations with varying degrees of autonomy from the state. Emphasizing diversity and change, he sees an evolutionary, transitional civil society emerging. Unger and Chan argue that national and regional-level associations are state corporatist, but they are more ambivalent about small grassroots organizations because they find that these informal groups both exist outside of the corporatist system and are at the behest of local states.
Chapters three to six form a cluster. In chapter three on trade unions, Anita Chan maintains her corporatist perspective. She finds, however, that the recent revival of the Staff and Workers Representative Congress in the state-enterprise sector may signal the introduction of societal corporatism. In societal corporatism, associations are accountable to their constituency and not beholden to the government as in state corporatism.
The other three chapters in this cluster offer three different views on business associations. Kenneth Foster sees neither corporatism nor civil society in the business associations in the city of Yantai. He argues that they are appendages of government agencies. Unger follows the fortunes of three business associations (small, medium and large) in Beijing from 1993 to 2005. He saw signs of a potential shift toward civil society in the 1990s, but that shift had not happened when he revisited them in 2004 and 2005. The government had in fact tightened its control over the large federation. Scott Kennedy studies the role of business associations in forming price-setting cartels in the late 1990s. He argues that although the cartels failed, the failure had less to do with associational weakness than with China's low-concentration industrial structure. Seeing evidence of business associations actively addressing the interests of their members and shaping government policies, he posits that Chinese civic associations are too diverse to permit the use of one single label to capture their relations with the state.
The last three chapters of this volume take up women's groups, a rural NGO, and homeowners’ associations. They offer yet more varied views. In her refreshing study of women's groups engaged in anti-domestic violence activism, Samantha Keech-Marx finds in social movement theory a more useful perspective than civil society. She uses the concept of frame alignment to show that these groups effectively maintain political legitimacy and shape public discourse and state policies by aligning their discursive frames with official rhetoric.
The chapter by Xin Zhang and Richard Baum studies a rural association in Qinghai. Not a creature of the government and highly autonomous, this organization runs rural development projects with funding from international donors. The authors do not think it fits the corporatist framework, but are reluctant to use the label of civil society, calling it instead a “people's (minjian) NGO” in an emergent “civil-communitarian society.” Benjamin Read's chapter on home-owners’ associations reveals a dynamic self-organized associational sector. These groups face similar difficulties as other types in obtaining formal official status. Yet with or without government approval, activists continue to organize and fight for the interests of property owners. Read sees them as a tentative manifestation of civil society.
Clearly, the chapters on the corporatism side of the debate are more assertive. Those leaning toward the civil society side make at most timid gestures at tentative signs of civil society. Chapters on business associations mostly take the corporatist view, while those about more recent and grassroots organizations have more sympathies for the civil society view or other perspectives. Thus as the forms of civic associations become more plural, scholarly perspectives diversify accordingly. If this book were to include additional chapters on other organizational forms (especially online communities) or issue areas (such as environmental protection), the picture of civic organizations would look even more multi-layered. The book thus indicates that analytical pluralism may be an important direction in future research on Chinese associational life.
One irony about Chinese associations is that whatever they are, they are never dull, but are energetically engaged. The chapters in this volume contain rich insights into what Chinese associations do, even as they disagree about what they are. Readers will enjoy this book for both its engaging scholarly debate and the real-life stories of dynamic associational life.
