Whither new social organizations in urban China? [Elektronische Ressource] : the structural politics of social organizations in urban China, post 1989 / von Qiang Wu

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• Soziologie

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• Publié par: universitat_duisburg-essen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 35
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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Whither New Social Organizations in Urban China?
The Structural Politics of Social Organizations in Urban China, post 1989


Vom Fachbereich
Gesellschaftswissenschaften
der Universität Duisburg-Essen
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

Dr. sc. pol.

genehmigte Dissertation

von

Qiang WU
aus

Fuzhou

Referent: Prof. Dr. Thomas Heberer
Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Markus Taube

Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: Feb. 5, 2008






To my wife Liyuan XU
ii ABSTRACT
In the last decade, the new social organizations (NSOs) in urban China stemming from
conventional social organizations in association with remarkable institutional and social
innovations have attracted increasing attentions from scholars, constituted of formal NGOs
(mainly environmental NGOs), many more “asserting rights organizations” and informal NGOs.
From the perspective of structural politics, this dissertation deems such innovative social
organization as the resulting structuration of the NSOs’ autopoietic movement, and launches a
Giddensian structuration approach to explore the three-level processes of NSOs’ politicization:
the rise of asserting rights movements, the construction of rational oppositional consciousness
and new generation of liberal (movement) intellectuals, and the formation of NSOs’ networks.
Using fieldwork investigations and observations, a twin activism was formulated as the
rationale of NSOs’ politicization: the online posting of e-forum participants and networking
agitation of NSO’s entrepreneurs. Such twofold habitualized behaviour functions as the micro-
meso mechanisms of NSOs’ category politics since the Internet become widespread in urban
China from 1998 onward.
On this structuralist basis, we can draw out a duality of NSOs’ structural politics in
present-day urban China: an emerging morphogenetic civil society on the one side and a “late
authoritarianism” on the other side. They inter-connect by the anti-authoritarian nature and deep
structure of NSOs – which can be traced back to the 1989 democracy movements, which have
revived and been transformed to NSOs’ autopoietic movement and the new social movements
since 1992 onward.
Key Words: China, New Social Organizations, New Social Movements, Social Network,
Structuration, Late Authoritarianism
iii ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
In der letzten Dekade haben die Neuen Sozialen Organisationen (NSOs) im urbanen China, die
sich von herkömmlichen Sozialen Organisationen durch ihre bemerkenswerten Institutions- und
Sozialinnovationen unterscheiden, zunehmende Aufmerksamkeit bei den Gelehrten erregt.
Gegründet wurden die NSOs teilweise von einigen offiziellen NGOs (hauptsächlich Nicht-
Regierungs-Umweltschutzorganisationen), doch noch viel häufiger von „Organisationen der
Rechtserklärung“ („asserting rights organizations“), und nicht-offiziellen NGOs.
Aus der Perspektive der Strukturpolitik, betrachtet diese Abhandlung solche innovative
Sozialorganisationen als Ergebnis der Strukturierung der autopoietischen Bewegung der NSOs
und erforscht anhand Giddens Theorie der Strukturierung die Drei-Niveau-Verfahren der
Politisierung der NSOs: der Aufstieg von „Rechtserklärungsbewegungen“, der Aufbau eines
rationalen oppositionellen Bewußtseins mit einer neuen Generation der liberalen (Bewegung)
Intellektueller, und die Bildung von Netzwerken der NSOs.
Von den Feldarbeitsforschungen beobachte und formuliere ich den Doppelaktivismus als
die Interpretation der Politisierung der NSOs: die Online-Eintragung der Teilnehmer des E-
Forums und die vernetzenden Handlungen der NSO-Unternehmer. Solche zwei habitualisierte
Verhalten funktionieren als die Mikro-meso-Mechanismen der kategorialen Politik der NSOs,
seit dem 1998 das Internet begann sich im urbanen China weit zu verbreiten.
Auf dieser strukturalistischen Grundlage können wir eine Dualität der strukturellen Politik
der NSOs in heutigem urbanem China herausstellen: einerseits eine auftauchende
morphogenetische Zivilgesellschaft, und anderseits einen „Late Authoritarianism“.
Zusammengehalten wird diese Dualität durch die Mediation der antiautoritären Natur und der
dichten Struktur der NSOs - dies kann in den Demokratie-Bewegungen im Jahre 1989
zurückverfolgt werden, die wieder belebt und umgewandelt zu der autopoietischen Bewegung
von NSOs in den letzten 15 Jahren geführt haben.

Key Words: China, New Social Organizations, New Social Movements, Social Network,
Structuration, Late Authoritarianism

iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, I thank my wife, Liyuan Xu, and owe deeply to my parents, Qingxin Wu and
Laixian Cui. This dissertation could not have been written without their love, care,
encouragement, and many inspired ideas during the past five years.
I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Thomas Heberer and Prof. Dr. Markus Taube, whose patience
and strict requirements throughout five-year study shaped a homework-like draft to a qualified
PhD dissertation. I would also like to thank Dr. Lun Du, Christian Göbel, Chungsik Yu, Yuhao
Zhou, and Christiana Warmer, who have engaged with me in discussion and exploration of
themes on the social-political transformation in China and other South-East Asian countries,
and provided many concrete comments and advices. The colleagues in Deutsche Welle, Erning
Zhu, Ming Shi and Yuelei Hu, and friends Michael Bauer Yi Liu and Chong Shan, who helped
my work and life in Germany very much.
I would particularly like to acknowledge the “Internet friends” in Beiwang Academy (an
online discussion group), Li Ben, Zhenhua Su, Jie Liang, Jinjing Jia, and Jin Liu. They not only
offered help during my fieldwork in China, but, also, their communicative actions in association
with my study on China’s Internet-based NSOs provided a rare space within which I could
conduct participant observation to access the process how an online discussion group was
transforming to an offline community.
Finally, I thank Jennifer Bradburn, who corrected the overall English writing before I
formally submitted this dissertation.
Nevertheless, I am fully responsible for possible mistakes and omissions in this
dissertation.

v CONTENTS

1. Introduction: background and design of dissertation .......................................................1
1.1. Launch of the Central Question: corporatism or not? ...............................................1
1.2. Design of Dissertation ..............................................................................................5
1.2.1. Purpose and Objectives .................................................................................5
1.2.2. Theoretical Perspectives ................................................................................6
1.2.3. Assumption and Hypotheses .........................................................................9
1.2.4. Method and Data ..........................................................................................12
1.2.5. Scope, Innovations, and Limitations ...........................................................15
1.3. Structure of the Dissertation ...................................................................................18
2. Theoretical Perspectives: framing the structural transformation ...................................21
2.1. Literature Overview: the debate around the origin of NSOs .................................21
2.2. Structuration Theory: an approach framing social organizations ..........................26
2.3. Categories in Social System Transformation .........................................................31
2.3.1. Categories as Symbolic and Social Boundaries ...........................................31
2.3.1.1. Symbolic Boundaries .............................................................................32
2.3.1.2. Social Boundaries ..................................................................................33
2.3.2. Categories as Political Mechanism ...............................................................35
2.4. Social Movements and Social Networks 39
2.4.1. Social Movements and Contentious Politics ..............................................40
2.4.2. Social Network Construction of NSOs .......................................................44
2.5. Summary: framing structural politics of NSOs ......................................................47
3. Social Organizations in Transformation: overview, status quo, and puzzles ...............49
3.1. From Social organizations to New Social Organizations ......................................49
3.1.1. Concept: social organizations in the Chinese context ................................49
3.1.2. The Rise and Fall of Social Organizations .................................................50
3.1.2.1. The Status Quo of Social Organizations ...............................................50
3.1.2.2. ial Organizations: From 1980s to 2005 ........53
3.1.3. The Rise of New Social Organizations: an overview .................................56
3.1.3.1. Environmental NGOs ...........................................................................57
3.1.3.2. Civil