Advocacy by Chinese Nonprofit Organisations: Towards a Responsive Government? (中国非营利组织的倡导性活动：趋向于促成反应式政府？)
Abstract
To what extent do Chinese nonprofit organisations, through advocacy activities, engage citizens in influencing public policies and contribute to the development of a participatory policy process in China? Based on data collected through a mail survey of 203 registered nonprofit organisations, this study examines the advocacy activities of Chinese nonprofits and their contributions to a responsive government. We find that the intensity of advocacy activities by Chinese nonprofits is relatively low and varies by organizational type, by degree of professionalisation, and by dependence on government funding. We find no association between advocacy intensity and the extent to which Chinese nonprofits engage citizens at the organisational level prior to their advocacy efforts. The ineffective marshalling and integration of citizens’ interests within Chinese nonprofit organisations might be attributable to the corporatist structure of the institutional and resource environments in which Chinese nonprofit organisations operate.
中国的非营利组织通过其倡导性活动，究竟在多大的程度上能发动引导公民参与和影响公共政策，进而又能在多大程度上推动中国参与式政策过程或反应式政府的发展？基于对203个注册了的非营利组织邮寄调查所获得的数据，本研究考察了中国非营利组织的倡导性活动及其对中国反应式政府的影响。研究发现表明，中国非营利组织倡导性活动的强度相对来说较弱，而其对反应式政府的影响也相当有限。这一有限性与中国非营利组织在从事倡导性活动之前，难以有效地引导公民参与组织内部的治理与运作有关。换句话说，中国的非营利组织在政治与社会体系中倡导公民的权益之前，未能有效地在组织内部先行整合与回应公民的权益和诉求。这种组织内部对公民权益与诉求整合和回应的低效可以进一步归结于中国非营利组织所处的法团主义结构的制度与资源宏观外部环境。
Service provision and policy advocacy are two fundamental functions of the nonprofit and voluntary sector in society. With the rapid growth of nonprofit organisations in China since the late 1970s, many scholars have examined the service functions of Chinese nonprofits in areas such as human services (Saich 2008; Wong and Tang 2006), poverty alleviation (Wang 2001; Zhang and Baum 2004), environmental protection (Ho 2001; Tang and Zhan 2008; Yang 2005), and disaster relief (Roney 2011; Teets 2009). By contrast, relatively little research has explored the role of nonprofit advocacy in influencing public policies and promoting a participatory policy environment in China.
More recently, scholars have made some progress in this direction. In a study on the representational capacities of Chinese nonprofits on behalf of the interests of citizens, Guo and Zhang (2012) found that, within an unfavourable regulatory and institutional environment, advocacy organisations in China met more difficulties than service organisations in responding to its constituents’ needs and influencing public policies. Yet their study did not specifically look at the nonprofit advocacy activity itself and its impact on the responsiveness of the policy process. In another recent study, Zhan and Tang (2012) found that current political structural changes in China created greater opportunities for Chinese environmental non-government organisations (NGOs) to advocate policy changes. Nevertheless, their research was limited to advocacy by environmental NGOs. In short, how Chinese nonprofits in general engage citizens in the policy process and contribute to a responsive government through advocacy activities remains significantly under-examined.
In this article, we develop a corporatist continuum framework to analyse the advocacy activity of Chinese nonprofit organisations, describing and examining how semi-autonomous Chinese nonprofits advocate citizens’ needs and contribute to development of more responsive governance within the unique state-society arrangements in China. Using a survey of 203 nonprofit organisations in China, we address three questions: (1) To what extent do Chinese nonprofit organisations, through advocacy activities, engage citizens in influencing public policies and contribute to the development of a participatory policy environment in China? (2) How do Chinese nonprofits convey citizens’ needs to the government- what channels do they use? (3) What factors affect the advocacy activities and channels used by Chinese nonprofits? We find that the intensity of advocacy activities by Chinese nonprofits is relatively low and varies by organizational type, by degree of professionalisation, and by dependence on government funding. Our findings suggest that the corporatist continuum structure has differential effects on the advocacy intensity of Chinese nonprofits, and that it hinders effective citizen engagement at the organisational level and thus limits the ability of Chinese nonprofits to promote responsive governance.
The rest of the article is organised as follows. We begin with a brief review of literature on nonprofit advocacy and responsive government, and particularly on the unique context of the corporatist structure of Chinese nonprofits. We then present the theoretical framework that guides our study. From there, we discuss our research methodology. Next, we present findings from our survey. We conclude the article with a discussion and explanation of our findings as well a summary of the contribution and policy implications of this study.
Nonprofit Advocacy and Responsive Government
Advocacy is one of the most important functions of the nonprofit and voluntary sector (Jenkins 2006; McCarthy and Castelli 2002). Scholarly studies have long recognised the critical role of nonprofit advocacy in contributing to democratic and responsive government (Putnam 1993; Salamon 2002). Nonprofit advocacy can be narrowly defined as ‘the act of pleading for or against a cause, as well as supporting or recommending a position’, and ‘addressing legislators with a view to influencing their votes’ (Hopkins 1992:32). More broadly, however, nonprofit advocacy also includes ‘civic involvement’ (Boris and Mosher-Williams 1998), ‘such as grassroots lobbying (encouraging others to contact legislators to support or oppose specific legislation), attempt to influence public opinion, and educational efforts designed to encourage community and political participation’ (Jenkins 2006:308). In light of these definitions, virtually all types of nonprofit organisations- not just those organisations with advocacy as a primary function but also other service-oriented nonprofits- engage in advocacy activities.
McCarthy and Castelli (2002) categorised the wide range of nonprofit advocacy activities, strategies, and tactics into two main areas: direct advocacy aiming at shaping public opinion and policy and indirect advocacy through building grass-roots constituencies and mobilising citizens for policy positions. Jenkins (2006), Guo and Saxton (2010) applied the similar categorisations. In summary, in the studies of nonprofit advocacy, scholars not only look externally at the representation and articulation of citizens’ needs and interests outside the nonprofit organisations toward the political system and policy process, but also internally at the mobilisation and aggregation of citizens’ demands, voices, and actions through citizen engagement within nonprofit organisations.
Corporatist Continuum and Nonprofit Advocacy in China: A Theoretical Framework
Two perspectives dominate current discourse and research on Chinese nonprofits: civil society and corporatism. These two perspectives have different implications for the role of nonprofit advocacy in the policy process. The significance of the rise of Chinese nonprofits was firstly explored around the concept of civil society (Huang 1993; Madsen 1993; Rankin 1993; Saich 2000; Wakeman 1993). Scholars interpreted the development of Chinese nonprofit sector as an emerging civil society, increasingly autonomous and independent from the state. They alluded that Chinese nonprofit organisations, as the backbone of a growing civil society representing the interests of citizens, would fundamentally transform the political system and policy process through their oppositional advocacy.
Other scholars, however, questioned the applicability of the Western-based concept of civil society to the analysis of the Chinese nonprofit sector (Chamberlain 1993; Pearson 1994; White 1993). For them, the concept of civil society assumes conflicting or contesting relationship between the state and society, which is not typically evident amongst most Chinese nonprofits. Instead, state and society are usually interwoven through Chinese nonprofit organisations. In particular, due to the dual management system,1 an essential characteristic of Chinese nonprofit organisations is their semi-autonomy from or partial dependence on the government.
The concept of ‘corporatism’ has therefore been suggested as a more appropriate concept to examine Chinese nonprofits and their roles in the policy process (Baum and Shevchenko 1999; Chan 1993; Unger and Chan 1995). According to Schmitter:
Corporatism can be defined as a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organised into a limited number of singular, compulsory, non-competitive, hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated categories, recognised or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted a deliberate representational monopoly within their respective categories in exchange for accepting certain controls on their selection of leaders and promotion of interests and supports (1974:93–94).
In line with this concept, the rise of Chinese nonprofits may be regarded as a corporatist arrangement created or at least influenced by the authoritarian state to retain its control over society during the economic transition towards the market economy. New interests, especially those with economic relevance, are vertically organised into peak associations to institutionalise the participation of social groups in the policy process. Within this structure, nonprofits function as intermediaries between the government and citizens: mobilising citizens in the pursuit of collective goals on behalf of the government in a top-down fashion and articulating and representing citizens’ interests and rights in the policy process through a bottom-up approach (Unger and Chan 1995). This corporatist structure frames the advocacy roles of Chinese nonprofits in contributing to a responsive government and the participatory policy process.
For such a corporatist structure to function, a precondition is that the nonprofit organisation must have the capacity to communicate, marshal, and integrate the citizens’ or constituents’ interests in the organisation. Yep (2000) argued that the excessive presence of the state within the organisations has limited such capacities and thus hindered the emergence of a genuine corporatist structure in China.
Nevertheless, Saich (2000) pointed out that state dominance is observed mostly in government-organised non-governmental organisations (GONGOs). For social and especially grassroots nonprofit organisations in China, continued state control co-exists with a symbiotic interrelation between the government and the nonprofits, which allows for more policy impact and more effective pursuit of constituents’ interests.
In order to capture the distinctive complexity of the institutional and resource environments in which all types of Chinese nonprofits operate, we propose a theoretical framework for understanding nonprofit advocacy that draws upon the notion of a ‘corporatist continuum’. More specifically, we contend that the corporatist structure in China should be treated as a continuum or spectrum, with one end dominated by the state often referred to as state corporatism where most of GONGOs converge, and with the other end occupied by the society usually known as societal corporatism in which most grassroots organisations exist. This corporatist continuum is reflective of the complex nature of state-society relations in China. What both ends of the corporatist continuum hold in common is consensus, cooperation, and harmony between the government and the nonprofit organisations (Unger and Chan 1995). Different types of organisations are situated at different positions on the continuum of the corporatist structure, which affects the amount of advocacy efforts they put forth.
In addition to organizational types, the framework identifies two sets of factors that influence an organisation's propensity to engage in advocacy work. The first set of factors measures various aspects of the corporatist continuum that characterises the resource and institutional environments in which Chinese nonprofits operate: the degree of professionalisation and dependence on government funding. The second set of factors measures the extent to which an organisation engages with its primary constituents. In terms of the degree of professionalisation, institutional theory and resource dependence theories offer competing predictions. Institutional theory posits that the institutional and regulatory environment has a determining effect on the structure and activities of organisations including nonprofits, resulting in organisational isomorphism and goal displacement, that is, an increased degree of professionalisation or bureaucratisation and decreased advocacy. According to this theory, the more professionalised nonprofit organisations are less likely to engage in advocacy (Dess and Beard 1984; Scott 1974). Resource dependence theory suggests that nonprofits are dependent on resources for survival and growth (Berry 2003; Pfeffer and Salancik 2003). Thus, the nonprofits must have organisational capacities, a governance structure, management procedures, and professional staff to mobilise and manage the resources needed to support their advocacy activities. In contrast to the institutional theory, resource dependence theory argues that organisational age and professionalisation are associated with the maturing of resource mobilising capacities and thus will actually foster nonprofit advocacy.
The relationship between government funding and advocacy involvement can also be understood through the lens of resource dependent theory, which assumes that organisations become dependent on their environments for critical resources. As a result of this dependency, organisations respond to the demands of those who control critical resources. More specifically, if a nonprofit is dependent on government funding, it may be less likely to participate in advocacy because of the ‘don’t-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you’ phenomenon (Chaves, Stephens and Galaskiewicz 2004). In the political context of a fragmented state, in order to gain needed patronage and resources for advocacy, nonprofit organisations must choose to form partnerships with disparate governmental agencies (Salamon 2002). Hence the higher level of governmental funding might actually enable nonprofit organisations to engage more in advocacy activities.
So far, our discussion has focused on the effects of various external factors along the corporatist continuum on advocacy by Chinese nonprofits. The underlying premise of such an external perspective on organisations is that ‘organisational activities and outcomes are accounted for by the context in which the organisation is embedded’ (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978:39). For a more balanced understanding of state-society relations in China, however, Heath Chamberlain (1998) suggests that we look more to internal dynamics of organisations. He emphasizes that the essential feature of civil society ‘is not so much “relative autonomy of group from state” but rather “relative freedom of the group members”’ (1998:79). In a similar vein, Guo (2007) argues that, in order to effectively represent the interests of their constituents to the state, nonprofit organisations must create the necessary representational capacities; that is, the capacities to communicate the interests of their constituencies by establishing representative democracy within the organizations (Warren 2001; Rosenblum 1998). Guo and Saxton (2010) find that the scope and intensity of nonprofit advocacy tend to increase with constituent board membership, communication with constituents, and level of constituent involvement in strategic decision making.
Based on the proposed theoretical framework above and the existing literature, we present the following research hypotheses:
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Hypothesis 1: The degree of professionalisation of an organisation is negatively associated with the intensity of its advocacy work.
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Hypothesis 2: The degree of an organisation's dependence on government funding is positively associated with the intensity of its advocacy work.
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Hypothesis 3: The intensity of advocacy work differs by organisational types. In particular, economic groups and social groups are associated with higher intensity of advocacy work than are service-oriented organisations.
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Hypothesis 4: Constituent engagement is positively associated with the intensity of an organisation's advocacy work.
Method and Data
The data are from a mail survey of nonprofit executives from three province-level administrative divisions in China.
The Provincial Departments of Civil Affairs from three province-level administrative divisions agreed to participate in our survey: Heilongjiang Province, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. A liaison officer was assigned by each Department for the purpose of survey administration. A total of 300 nonprofit organisations– 100 from each province– were randomly selected by these liaison officers from the directories of nonprofit organisations that were registered with the Provincial Department of Civil Affairs. Hard copies of the survey questionnaire were mailed to the chief executives of the selected nonprofit organisations in September 2009. As at December 2009, a total of 203 survey questionnaires were completed and returned, a response rate of 68 per cent.
Variables
Our dependent variable, Advocacy Intensity, was measured by the level of organisational resources spent on advocacy activities. It is derived from the survey question that asked, ‘Nonprofits often engage in efforts to influence or change governmental policies. If your organisation has been involved in any advocacy work, what proportion of your organisation's resources (time, money, etc) are spent on it? (Enter rough percentage from 0–100; leave blank if not applicable)’.
Our first independent variable, Professionalisation, was measured by the average percentage of work in an organisation that was done by paid staff as opposed to volunteers during the most recently completed fiscal year. The second independent variable, Dependence on Government Funding, was measured by the percentage of an organisation's revenues from government or public agencies. Next, we included four dummy variables relating to organisational types. The first dummy is Economic Groups, which takes on the value of one if an organisation falls into the ‘Economic Group’ category under the current classification system in China, and zero otherwise. The other dummies, Social Groups, Membership-Based Public-Benefit Organisations, and Foundations, are similarly defined. The reference category is ‘Private Non-Enterprise Organisations.’
We then included two variables on constituent engagement. The first variable was Constituent Participation in Organisational Decision-making. It was measured on a 1–6 scale by the level of decision-making authority that the organisation's primary constituents have in making strategic decisions: 1) Group is not consulted; 2) Group is informed during the process; 3) Group is consulted for its opinions, needs, and wishes; 4) Group can vote on alternatives created by others; 5) Group has active input and collaboration in developing alternatives and setting priorities; and 6) Group is empowered to directly select, implement, vote on, and change alternatives.
The second variable is Organisational Communication with Constituents. It includes seven items that tap the quality and extent of communication between the nonprofit and key organisational constituents: 1) We communicate adequately with our constituents; 2) We report to our constituents on our progress; 3) Through research and feedback, including suggestions from community groups, service agencies, advocacy groups and users, we know the needs of our constituents; 4) We use constituent feedback in designing and modifying our program and services; 5) We communicate our decisions to all those affected by them; 6) Before reaching decisions on important issues, we request input from those likely to be affected by the decision; and 7) If the organisation thinks a constituent group is likely to disagree with an action we are considering, we make sure we learn how they feel before we make the decision.
Finally, we included two control variables: Organisational Age, which indicates the age of the organisation in years and Organisational Size, which was measured by the number of full-time equivalent paid staff members in a given organisation.
Findings
In this section, we report survey findings of 203 organisations’ advocacy efforts.
Organisational Background Information
An average organisation in our survey was 9.7 years old (min: 0; max: 56), had 16 full- time equivalent paid staff members (min: 0; max: 694), and had 1.24 million RMB (Chinese yuan) of total revenues (min: 0; max: 68 million RMB) in the year prior to the survey. Interestingly, dues/membership fees account for the largest share of revenue (42.5 per cent) of an average organisation, followed by private sales of goods and services (24.4 per cent) and private contributions (13.7 per cent). Government grants and contracts only account for a small share (6.8 per cent).
Among these organisations, about 80 per cent (163 out of 203) identified themselves as ‘social organisations’, and about 20 per cent (40 out of 203) were ‘private non-enterprise organisations’. Within the ‘social organisations’ category, nearly 42 per cent (68 out of 163) are economic groups, about 49 per cent (80 out of 163) are social groups, nearly 7 per cent (11 out of 163) are membership-based public benefit organisations, and about 2.5 per cent (4 out of 134) are foundations.
Based on the survey responses, the intensity of advocacy activities is moderate among Chinese nonprofits. On average, each nonprofit organisation spends about 9.1 per cent of its total resources on advocacy activities.
Bivariate Tests
We applied bivariate tests to examine the relationship between the major variables. As outlined in Table 1 below, the bivariate analysis offers support for our main hypotheses. The results show that the relationship between dependence on government funding and advocacy intensity is in the anticipated direction. Specifically, there is a strong, positive correlation between the percentage of government funding on the one hand and advocacy intensity on the other, suggesting that increased government funding dependency leads to higher levels of advocacy intensity amongst these non-profit organisations. There is also a positive correlation between being a membership-based public-benefit organisation and advocacy intensity. There is a negative correlation between professionalisation and advocacy intensity. Furthermore, the correlation matrix provides no indication that the independent variables are co-linear.
| Obs. | Mean | S.D. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Advocacy | 203 | 9.10 | 19.07 | 1.00 | ||||||||||
| 2. Age. | 202 | 9.72 | 8.35 | 0.11 | 1.00 | |||||||||
| 3. Size | 203 | 15.79 | 58.17 | −0.05 | 0.05 | 1.00 | ||||||||
| 4. Professionalize | 203 | 90.19 | 23.85 | −0.32 | −0.13 | 0.06 | 1.00 | |||||||
| 5. Govt. funding | 143 | 6.82 | 21.12 | 0.29 | 0.02 | −0.04 | −0.28 | 1.00 | ||||||
| 6. Economic group | 203 | 0.34 | 0.47 | 0.01 | 0.13 | −0.15 | 0.07 | −0.00 | 1.00 | |||||
| 7. Social group | 203 | 0.39 | 0.49 | −0.03 | 0.22 | −0.14 | −0.01 | 0.09 | −0.56 | 1.00 | ||||
| 8. Member-based public benefit | 203 | 0.05 | 0.23 | 0.22 | −0.00 | −0.02 | −0.15 | −0.03 | −0.17 | −0.19 | 1.00 | |||
| 9. Foundations | 203 | 0.02 | 0.14 | 0.10 | 0.10 | −0.02 | −0.05 | 0.07 | −0.10 | −0.11 | −0.03 | 1.00 | ||
| 10. Constituent participation | 151 | 3.69 | 1.27 | 0.04 | −0.06 | −0.11 | −0.17 | 0.09 | −0.06 | 0.14 | −0.01 | −0.15 | 1.00 | |
| 11. Communication | 155 | −0.00 | 1.00 | −0.03 | −0.00 | −0.02 | −0.11 | −0.06 | −0.10 | 0.05 | −0.10 | −0.08 | 0.42 | 1.00 |
- Note: The numbers in bold font are the associations that are statistically significant at 5%.
Multivariate Test
We also conducted a multivariate test. Our dependent variable, Advocacy Intensity, is continuous, truncated at zero, and includes relatively large numbers of observed zeroes (ie organisations that do not pursue advocacy at all). Under these circumstances, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression coefficients are likely to be biased and inconsistent. We therefore use a Tobit, a partial regression technique to examine the effect of the corporatist continuum structure on advocacy intensity.
The results are presented in Table 2. Variables in the model include Professionalisation, Dependence on Government Funding, and organisational type variables (Economic Groups, Social Groups, Membership-Based Public-Benefit Organisations, and Foundations), as well as two control variables (ie age, size). A significant portion of the sample (nearly 30 per cent) was omitted from the regressions due to missing observations on Dependent on Government Funding and the two ‘constituent engagement’ variables. In light of the theoretical significance of these variables, however, we decide to keep it in our model.
| Advocacy Intensity | ||
|---|---|---|
| Parameter Estimate | Marginal Effect (dy/dx) | |
| Control Variables | ||
| Age | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Size | −0.04 | −0.01 |
| Independent Variables | ||
| Professionalization | −0.33* | −0.10 |
| Dependence on government funding | 0.38* | 0.11 |
| Economic groups | 31.05** | 10.17 |
| Social groups | 21.68 | 6.85 |
| Membership-based public-benefit groups | 52.77** | 22.49 |
| Foundations | 59.67** | 27.80 |
| Constituent participation | 4.23 | 1.27 |
| Organizational communication | −5.28 | −1.59 |
| Intercepta | −25.23 | 27.76 |
| Goodness of Fit | ||
| Log likelihood | −244.73 | |
| Pseudo-R2 | 0.05 | |
| Number of observations | 110 | |
- Notes: aIn the “Marginal Effect” column, the amount reported as intercept is the mean dependent variable value at which to judge the marginal effects.
- **Statistically significant at the p < 0.05 level
- *Statistically significant at p < 0.10 level
Our first hypothesis was that an organisation's degree of professionalisation is negatively associated with the intensity of its advocacy work. The regression result is consistent with this prediction. The variable Professionalisation (percentage of work completed by paid staff) has a negative and significant coefficient, indicating that the intensity of an organisation's advocacy work decreases with its degree of professionalisation.
Our second hypothesis predicted that the degree of an organisation's dependence on government funding is positively associated with the intensity of its advocacy work. In line with our prediction, Dependence on Government Funding has a positive and significant coefficient, suggesting that the intensity of an organisation's advocacy work does increase with its dependence on government funding.
Our third hypothesis concerned the effect of organisational type on advocacy intensity. In particular, it predicted that economic groups and social groups are associated with higher intensity of advocacy work than are service-oriented organisations (ie private, non-enterprise organisations). This prediction is only partially supported: being an economic group is found to be positively associated with advocacy intensity, whereas being a social group has no significant correlation with advocacy intensity. Interestingly, being a membership-based public-benefit organisation or a foundation is also found to be positively associated with advocacy intensity.
Our final hypothesis claims the effect of constituent engagement on advocacy intensity. It predicted that both Constituent Participation in Organisational Decision-making and Organisational Communication with Constituents are positively associated with an organisation's intensity of advocacy work. Neither variable is statistically significant. The result thus offers no support to this hypothesis.
Among the control variables, neither organisational age nor organisational size (size of staff) was significant.
Discussions and Conclusion
This study is one of the first to empirically examine the advocacy activities by Chinese nonprofits. Based on the data collected through a mail survey of 203 registered nonprofit organisations, we find that the intensity of advocacy activities by registered Chinese nonprofits is moderate and limited. The nonprofits in our study on average spend about 9 per cent of total organisational resources on advocacy. The effect of their advocacy work on a responsive government, accordingly, seems limited as well.
Our survey findings suggest that the degree of professionalisation, measured by the average percentage of work done by paid staff as opposed to volunteers, is negatively associated with the intensity of advocacy. In other words, the more work done by volunteers, the higher levels of advocacy intensity. This result is consistent with the institutional theory and also supported by other studies (Salamon 2002). Indeed, effective advocacy generally requires active constituents who can be mobilised for advocacy activities. Therefore, the active involvement and engagement of volunteers in the operation of a nonprofit organisation is required to preserve an active advocacy function. Volunteers are an important group of community representatives, as they often come from the local community or are current or former service recipients of the organization (Guo 2007). Thus this result also suggests that constituent or citizen engagement is critical to increasing the intensity of nonprofit advocacy activities and hence to enhancing the role of nonprofits in making government more responsible.
However, our findings from bivariate analysis show that the degree of professionalisation has a significantly negative correlation with the level of constituent participation in organisational decision-making. In other words, the more work done by paid staff, the lower the level of constituents’ participation in the organisational decision-making process will be. This suggests that registered Chinese nonprofit organisations may use constituents to perform work but rarely effectively engage constituents or citizens in their governance and decision-making processes. This is also evident from the findings of the insignificant correlation between advocacy intensity and organisation participation and communication. These findings suggest an important weakness common amongst Chinese nonprofits: when they engage in advocacy work to influence public policy, they fail to effectively engage citizens (constituents) at the organisational level. That is, constituents’ or citizens’ interests are not effectively marshalled or integrated within the Chinese nonprofits. This lack of constituent engagement might eventually jeopardise the ability of Chinese nonprofits to promote more responsive government.
Another significant finding is that the degree of dependence on governmental funding is positively associated with advocacy intensity. This result is consistent with the resource dependence theory. It reinforces the observations by other studies (Salamon 2002). In the Chinese nonprofit context featured by a corporatist continuum structure, organisations with a high degree of dependence on governmental funding are the GONGOs which are created by the state to institutionalise the participation of particular interest groups that have emerged from market reforms. This may explain the positive correlation between governmental funding and advocacy intensity.
Our study also find that different organisation types demonstrate different levels of advocacy intensity: nonprofits on both ends of the corporatist continuum demonstrate similar patterns of advocacy effort, but for different reasons. On the one hand, economic groups (trade unions, business associations, business chambers, labour unions, etc) and foundations are found to engage in higher levels of advocacy. On the other hand, public-benefit organisations (mainly grassroots organisations in the Chinese context) also tend to engage in higher levels of advocacy. Only those social groups consisting of alumni associations, hobby groups, and fellowship societies display no significant correlation with advocacy intensity. Both economic groups and foundations in China are mainly GONGOs. Located on one end of the corporatist continuum featured by state dominance, these organizations have more access to government and the capacity to participate in policy processes. Public-benefit organisations, generally on the other end of the corporatist continuum, are characterised by societal corporatism. They are more society oriented and thus more actively engaged in advocacy efforts, with a view to hold government more accountable for meeting their constituents’ needs and interests. Those social groups located in between the two ends on the corporatist continuum structure, being neither complementary to the government's priorities nor active themselves in articulating constituents’ interests in the policy process, spend little resources on advocacy efforts.
This study makes several important contributions to the existing literature on nonprofit advocacy in China. First, it presents a useful theoretical framework for understanding nonprofit advocacy and its effect on a responsive government by introducing the notion of a ‘corporatist continuum’. This theoretical framework captures the distinctive institutional and resource context for Chinese nonprofit organisations, and therefore helps provide a more robust and appropriate description and explanation of the advocacy patterns of Chinese nonprofits and their contributions towards responsive government in China. Second, this study provides valuable baseline data that can be used to enhance managerial understanding of the impact of constituent participation in organisational decision-making on their advocacy efforts. We observe that Chinese nonprofits, in their efforts to influence public policy, often fail to engage citizens at the organisational level. This disconnect between nonprofit advocacy and constituent engagement is likely due to the lack of effective channels of communication and participation to marshal and integrate constituents’ and citizens’ interests, particularly in the governance of the organisation. In light of these observations, for nonprofit leaders who strive to be more effective in advocating policy changes, we recommend that they restructure their own participatory procedures so that constituents can be more directly involved in the decision-making process.
We conclude this paper by discussing an important limitation of our study. The organisations in our sample are registered nonprofit organisations in China. Therefore, our results may not apply to the rapidly expanding number of unregistered ‘grassroots’ nonprofits. These organizations might differ significantly from registered nonprofits in the scope, intensity, and nature of their advocacy work. Would they engage in more advocacy work since they are not as tightly controlled by the party-state as their registered counterparts? Or would they avoid contact with the government and limit their advocacy work as some scholars (eg Spires 2011) suggests? Future research is needed in this area.
