Download or read book Associations and the Chinese State Contested Spaces written by Jonathan Unger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What role do Chinese popular associations play in the expansion of civil society and democratization? Under Mao few associations were permitted to exist, while today over 200,000 associations are officially recognized. Are they important foundations of civil society, or vehicles for state corporatism and control? In this book leading China specialists examine an interesting range of associations, from business associations to trade unions, to urban homeowners associations, women's groups against domestic violence, and rural NGOs that develop anti-poverty programs. The contributors find different important trends underway in different parts of China's economy and society. Their findings are nuanced, insightful - and often not what might be expected.

Download or read book Organizing Rural China Rural China Organizing written by Ane Bislev and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the early 1980s China embarked on what can be seen as one of the world's largest social experiments ever. Decollectivization meant much more than the reorganization of agricultural production into family based farming. It signaled significant changes to rural social relations, when privatization, marketization and increased geographical mobility started tearing apart the economic and social institutions that had structured collective village life under Mao. The focus of this book is on how rural society has been reorganized in the 21st century. The first chapters outline the basic organizational structure of rural China and can be used as an introduction to the topic in a classroom setting. They show how the state and its social scientists draw up plans to overcome the perceived lack of rural social organization, and discuss the often problem-ridden implementation of their ideas. The second section presents case studies of institutions that organize key aspects of rural life: Boarding schools where rural children learn to accept organizational hierarchies; lineage organizations carving out new roles for themselves; "dragonhead enterprises" expected to organize agricultural production and support rural development, and several others. The book is of theoretical interest because of its focus on the re-embedding, or reintegration, of individuals into new types of collectivities, which are less predetermined by tradition and habit and more a matter of, at least perceived, individual choice. Most chapters are based on extensive fieldwork and contain vivid examples from daily life, which will make the book attractive to anyone who wants to understand how Chinese villagers experience the extraordinary social changes they are going through.

Download or read book Review and Assessment of China s Nonprofit Sector after Mao written by David Horton Smith and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-11-21 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published research in English is reviewed on the Nonprofit Sector (NPS) in mainland China since Mao’s death in 1976. A large, diverse, and rapidly growing NPS exists, but openly political Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) outside the Communist Party and its control are prohibited. China has civil society in the narrower sense: a substantial civil society sector or NPS exists. However, the party-state in China continues to play a dominating role in regard to the NPS, especially for registered NPOs. Freedom of association is still limited in China, especially for national associations, which are nearly all Government Organized Nongovernmental Organizations (GONGOs), not genuine NGOs/NPOs. The broader scope definition of civil society focuses on functioning civil liberties, and the ability of NPOs in general to influence significantly the government on various policy issues. In these terms, China has a weak but slowly emerging civil society with far more associational freedom than under Mao.

Download or read book Fate Calculation Experts written by Geng Li and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-03-10 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having long been stigmatized as an immoral and even illegal “superstition”, the popular practice of divination is experiencing a revival in contemporary China. Fate Calculation Experts explores how diviners attempt to achieve legitimation in a society which identifies strongly with modernity, science, and rationality. As well as associating with modern knowledge production systems, diviners build a positive social image for their occupation via claims to moral authority and appeals to “tradition”. Beyond matters of image management, diviners’ efforts towards legitimation also figure in the social relationships and fundamental cultural values they develop in their practice.

Download or read book Social Organizations and the Authoritarian State in China written by Timothy Hildebrandt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Received wisdom suggests that social organizations (such as non-government organizations, NGOs) have the power to upend the political status quo. However, in many authoritarian contexts, such as China, NGO emergence has not resulted in this expected regime change. In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt shows how NGOs adapt to the changing interests of central and local governments, working in service of the state to address social problems. In doing so, the nature of NGO emergence in China effectively strengthens the state, rather than weakens it. This book offers a groundbreaking comparative analysis of Chinese social organizations across the country in three different issue areas: environmental protection, HIV/AIDS prevention, and gay and lesbian rights. It suggests a new way of thinking about state-society relations in authoritarian countries, one that is distinctly co-dependent in nature: governments require the assistance of NGOs to govern while NGOs need governments to extend political, economic and personal opportunities to exist.

Download or read book Christianity in Contemporary China written by Francis Khek Gee Lim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity is one of the fastest growing religions in China. Despite its long history in China and its significant indigenization or intertwinement with Chinese society and culture, Christianity continues to generate suspicion among political elites and intense debates among broader communities within China. This unique book applies socio-cultural methods in the study of contemporary Christianity. Through a wide range of empirical analyses of the complex and highly diverse experience of Christianity in contemporary China, it examines the fraught processes by which various forms and practices of Christianity interact with the Chinese social, political and cultural spheres. Contributions by top scholars in the field are structured in the following sections: Enchantment, Nation and History, Civil Society, and Negotiating Boundaries. This book offers a major contribution to the field and provides a timely, wide-ranging assessment of Christianity in Contemporary China.

Download or read book The Role of American NGOs in China s Modernization written by Norton Wheeler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the waning years of the Cold War, the United States and China began to cautiously engage in cultural, educational, and policy exchanges, which in turn strengthened new security and economic ties. These links have helped shape the most important bilateral relationship in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book explores the dynamics of cultural exchange through an in-depth historical investigation of three organizations at the forefront of U.S.-China non-governmental relations: the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and The 1990 Institute. Norton Wheeler reveals the impact of American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on education, environment, fiscal policy, and civil society in contemporary China. In turn, this book illuminates the important role that NGOs play in complementing formal diplomacy and presents a model of society-to-society relations that moves beyond old debates over cultural imperialism. Finally, the book highlights the increasingly significant role of Chinese Americans as bridges between the two societies. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with leading American and Chinese figures, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese politics and history, international relations and transnational NGOs.

Download or read book Civil Society in China written by Karla W Simon and published by . This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the definitive book on the legal and fiscal framework for civil society organizations (CSOs) in China from earliest times to the present day. Civil Society in China traces the ways in which laws and regulations have shaped civil society over the 5,000 years of China's history and looks at ways in which social and economic history have affected the legal changes that have occurred over the millennia. This book provides an historical and current analysis of the legal framework for civil society and citizen participation in China, focusing not merely on legal analysis, but also on the ways in which the legal framework influenced and was influenced in turn by social and economic developments. The principal emphasis is on ways in which the Chinese people - as opposed to high-ranking officials or cadres — have been able to play a part in the social and economic development of China through the associations in which they participate. Civil Society in China sums up this rather complex journey through Chinese legal, social, and political history by assessing the ways in which social, economic, and legal system reforms in today's China are bound to have an impact on civil society. The changes that have occurred in China's civil society since the late 1980's and, most especially, since the late 1990's, are nothing short of remarkable. This volume is an essential guide for lawyers and scholars seeking an in depth understanding of social life in China written by one its leading experts.

Download or read book State Society Relations and Governance in China written by Sujian Guo and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-07-09 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State–society relations and governance are closely related areas of study and have become important topics in the social sciences in the past decades, not only in developed countries but also in the developing world. In China, state-society relations have been changing in the new era of reform and opening, and governance has become a central concern in policy practice and in academia. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, written by scholars from both inside and outside China, the contributors explore the complexity of the changing state-society relationship and the modes and practices of governance in China by combining theoretical exploration and empirical case studies.

Download or read book State Society Relations and Confucian Revivalism in Contemporary China written by Qin Pang and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-25 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of the causes of the Confucian revival and the party-state’s response in China today. It concentrates on the interactions between state and society, and the implications for the Chinese state’s control over society, or in other words, its survival over a rapidly modernizing society. The book explores the answers to questions such as: Why has Confucianism suddenly gathered great momentum in contemporary Chinese society? What is the role of the Chinese state in its rise? Is the state really the orchestrator of the Confucian revival as has been widely assumed? This book will be of interest to think-tank and policy researchers, sinologists, and those with an interest in Chinese society.

Download or read book A Path for Chinese Civil Society written by Jianxing Yu and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book combines empirical research and theoretical discussions to demonstrate that the civil society paradigm as a western concept could be applicable to the study of state-society relations in contemporary China. However, the growth of Chinese civil society does not necessarily present an adversarial or confrontational relationship between state and society, but rather it is a cooperative relationship based on common interests and mutual benefits between industrial associations and local governments. The findings of this research confirm that, in contrast to the conventional civil society model in Western and Eastern Europe, where civic organizations are independent of the state, challenging the state hegemony, Chinese civic organizations, however, still lack autonomy and even remain closely linked to the state, but they are growing and expanding their public space and important role in public affairs through active participation. This non-western path for civil society development is a precise reflection of reality that is profoundly shaped and constrained by Chinese institutional, sociological, and cultural context. Through close investigation into the industrial, organizational, and social governance of industrial associations in Wenzhou and in-depth analysis of their challenges and developments within the institutional context, this book provides fresh empirical evidence and insightful analysis of how industrial associations have actively participated in local industrial governance and conduct of public affairs, gained greater space for their development, and become indispensable partners of local government in social governance.

Download or read book Causal Effects of Social Capital written by Yunsong Chen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-10-02 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a series of studies focusing on the role of social capital in the labor market and beyond. Using the effect of individual social capital on labor markets as an example, this book pays special attention to the origins of and solutions to the endogeneity problem. It uses several identification strategies to systematically test for the causal effects of social capital. First, this book constitutes the first attempt to offer a systematic account of the progress made by social scientists in improving causal inferences into the role of social capital in labor markets. Second, the book adopts specialized approaches—both classical and new—toward different sources of endogeneity. Incorporating the latest research from outside fields, such as economics, into sociological research is a small but significant methodological innovation. Third, in addition to empirical research, this book undertakes an innovative exploration of the theory of social capital. It creatively explains the dynamic evolution of social capital, which helps balance objectivism and subjectivism when analyzing interpersonal actions. For sociologists who focus on quantitative research methods and social capital, scholars who study Chinese societies, and related students, this book provides both advanced methods and rich empirical research.

Download or read book Life Advice from Below written by Eric C. Hendriks and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-07-03 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Life Advice from Below, Eric C. Hendriks offers the first systematic, comparative study of the globalization of American-style self-help culture and the cultural conflicts this creates in different national contexts. The self-help guru is an archetypical American figure associated with individualism, materialism and the American Dream. Nonetheless, the self-help industry is spreading globally, thriving in China and other seemingly unlikely places. Controversy follows in its wake, as the self-help industry, operating outside of formal education and state institutions, outflanks philosophical, religious and political elites who have their own visions of the Good Life. Through a comparison of Germany and China, Hendriks analyzes how the competition between self-help gurus and institutional authorities unfolds under radically different politico-cultural regimes. “This witty book charms its way through a very serious sociology of the seriously quirky field of self-help books. Read it for its fascinating pop-culture insights and you’ll come away with a deep understanding of contemporary sociological theory. Highly recommended.” - Salvatore Babones, University of Sydney “Hendriks’ finding that Germany rather than China is more resistant to self-help gurus offers a powerful corrective to the assumption in much of the globalization literature that the greatest cultural divide is between the Anglo-Western European sphere and the rest of the globe.” - Rodney Benson, New York University

Download or read book State and Civil Society written by Zhenglai Deng and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2011 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intends to present a discussion on state and civil society, contextualized in the Chinese perspectives. This title poses important questions, within the context of Chinese national conditions, particularities and histories, to the validity, applicability and viability of the state and civil society paradigm in the Western academia.

Download or read book Chinese Law and Government written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Contesting Cyberspace in China written by Rongbin Han and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Internet was supposed to be an antidote to authoritarianism. It can enable citizens to express themselves freely and organize outside state control. Yet while online activity has helped challenge authoritarian rule in some cases, other regimes have endured: no movement comparable to the Arab Spring has arisen in China. In Contesting Cyberspace in China, Rongbin Han offers a powerful counterintuitive explanation for the survival of the world’s largest authoritarian regime in the digital age. Han reveals the complex internal dynamics of online expression in China, showing how the state, service providers, and netizens negotiate the limits of discourse. He finds that state censorship has conditioned online expression, yet has failed to bring it under control. However, Han also finds that freer expression may work to the advantage of the regime because its critics are not the only ones empowered: the Internet has proved less threatening than expected due to the multiplicity of beliefs, identities, and values online. State-sponsored and spontaneous pro-government commenters have turned out to be a major presence on the Chinese internet, denigrating dissenters and barraging oppositional voices. Han explores the recruitment, training, and behavior of hired commenters, the “fifty-cent army,” as well as group identity formation among nationalistic Internet posters who see themselves as patriots defending China against online saboteurs. Drawing on a rich set of data collected through interviews, participant observation, and long-term online ethnography, as well as official reports and state directives, Contesting Cyberspace in China interrogates our assumptions about authoritarian resilience and the democratizing power of the Internet.

Download or read book Contemporary Chinese Thought written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: