Flexible Organizational Weapon of the Party: The New Presence of Women’s Federations in Women’s NGOs in China

ABSTRACT

In the past decade, the Party-state has shifted from pragmatic strategies to Party integration approaches when dealing with the third sector. It has reintroduced its organizational mechanism—mass organizations—to manage this sector and enhance direct linkages with its social constituents. This article investigates how mass organizations strategically connect with and govern civil society through a series of Party integration approaches. Drawing on the cases of women’s federations (WFs) and women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs), we propose a new typology of NGOs based on their relations with the Party: WF-affiliated, civic and independent NGOs. We then evaluate WFs’ Party integration strategies directed at each type of NGOs. First, NGOs directly affiliated with WFs/the Party play a unique political role. Second, to increase regime support, WFs develop patronage relations with civic women’s NGOs that are managed via the administrative system but unembedded in the Party system. Third, independent NGOs detached from both the Party and administrative organizations are flexibly marginalized. This article suggests that Party–state–society relations have been rewritten: civil society faces compound control from the administrative and Party systems, and the Party aims to build organizational hegemony.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Vladimir Lenin, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: The Crisis in Our Party (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1904/1976), p. 1.

² Ming Wang and Weilin Sun, ‘Trends and characteristics in the development of China’s social organizations’, China Nonprofit Review 2(2), (2010), pp. 153–176.

³ National Bureau of Statistics of China, Zhongguo tongji nianjian 2021 (China Statistical Yearbook, 2021). Accessed January 18, 2024. https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/ndsj/2021/indexch.htm.

⁴ Qiusha Ma, ‘The governance of NGOs in China since 1978: how much autonomy?’ Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 31(3), (2002), pp. 305–328; Tony Saich, ‘Negotiating the state: the development of social organizations in China’, The China Quarterly 161, (2000), pp. 124–141.

⁵ See, for instance, Anthony J. Spires, ‘Regulation as political control: China’s first charity law and its implications for civil society’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 49(3), (2020), pp. 571–588; Emile Dirks and Diana Fu, ‘Governing “untrustworthy” civil society in China’, The China Journal 89(1), (2023), pp. 24–44.

⁶ See, for instance, Patricia M. Thornton, ‘The advance of the party: transformation or takeover of urban grassroots society?’ The China Quarterly 213, (2013), pp. 1–18; Ge Xin and Jie Huang, ‘Party building in an unlikely place? The adaptive presence of the Chinese Communist Party in the non-governmental organizations (NGO)’, Journal of Contemporary China 31(135), (2022), pp. 428–444; Lin Nie and Jie Wu, ‘Strategic responses of NGOs to the new party-building campaign in China’, China Information 36(1), (2022), pp. 46–67.

⁷ See, for instance, Baogang Guo, ‘A partocracy with Chinese characteristics: governance system reform under Xi Jinping’, Journal of Contemporary China 29(126), (2020), pp. 809–823; Patricia M. Thornton, ‘From frame of steel to iron cage: the Chinese Communist Party and China’s voluntary sector’, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 51(3), (2022), pp. 411–436.

⁸ Yongdong Shen, Jianxing Yu, and Jun Zhou, ‘The administration’s retreat and the party’s advance in the new era of Xi Jinping: the politics of the ruling party, the government, and associations in China’, Journal of Chinese Political Science 25, (2020), pp. 71–88.

⁹ See, for instance, Jérôme Doyon and Konstantinos Tsimonis, ‘Apathy is not enough: changing modes of student management in post-Mao China’, Europe-Asia Studies 74(7), (2022), pp. 1123–1146; Shiuh-Shen Chien and Dong-Li Hong, ‘River leaders in China: party—state hierarchy and transboundary governance’, Political Geography 62, (2018), pp. 58–67.

¹⁰ Philip Selznick, The Organizational Weapon: A Study of Bolshevik Strategy and Tactics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960).

¹¹ Paul Harper, ‘The party and the unions in communist China’, The China Quarterly 37, (1969), pp. 84–119; Barnett A. Doak, ‘Mass political organizations in communist China’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 277(1), (1951), pp. 76–88; Gregory J. Kasza, ‘Parties, interest groups, and administered mass organizations’, Comparative Political Studies 26(1), (1993), pp. 81–110.

¹² Zheng Wang, Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1964 (University of California Press, 2017), p. 12.

¹³ See, for instance, Jude Howell, ‘The struggle for survival: prospects for the women’s federation in post-Mao China’, World Development 24(1), (1996), pp. 129–143; Jérôme Doyon, ‘Low-cost corporatism? The Chinese Communist Youth League and its sub-organisations in post-Mao China’, China Perspectives 2019(2), (2019), pp. 39–46; Simon Clarke, ‘Post‐socialist trade unions: China and Russia’, Industrial Relations Journal 36(1), (2005), pp. 2–18.

¹⁴ ‘Xi Jinping chuxi Zhongyang dang de quntuan gongzuo huiyi’ (Xi Jinping attends the Central Party’s group work meeting). Accessed June 24, 2022. http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2015/0710/c64387–27282531.html.

¹⁵ See articles 32 and 33 of the Constitution of Communist Party of China amended in 2022.

¹⁶ Yunyun Zhou, ‘Being a good daughter of the party? A neo-institutional analysis of the All-China Women’s Federation organisational reforms in China’s Xi Era’, China Perspectives 2019(2), (2019), pp. 17–28.

¹⁷ See, for instance, Shen, et al., ‘The administration’s retreat and the party’s advance’; Patricia M. Thornton, ‘The advance of the party’; Nie and Wu, ‘Strategic responses of NGO’; Xin and Huang, ‘Party building in an unlikely place?’.

¹⁸ Shen et al., ‘The administration’s retreat and the party’s advance’.

¹⁹ Thomas Pepinsky, ‘The institutional turn in comparative authoritarianism’, British Journal of Political Science 44(3), (2014), pp. 631–653; Carles Boix and Milan W. Svolik, ‘The foundations of limited authoritarian government: institutions, commitment, and power-sharing in dictatorships’, The Journal of Politics 75(2), (2013), pp. 300–316; Milan W. Svolik, ‘Power sharing and leadership dynamics in authoritarian regimes’, American Journal of Political Science 53(2), (2009), pp. 477–494; Dan Slater, ‘Iron cage in an iron fist: authoritarian institutions and the personalization of power in Malaysia’, Comparative Politics 36(1), (2003), pp. 81–101.

²⁰ Kellee S. Tsai, ‘Adaptive informal institutions and endogenous institutional change in China’, World Politics 59(1), (2006), pp. 116–141; David L. Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (University of California Press, 2008); Andrew J. Nathan, ‘China’s changing of the guard: authoritarian resilience’, in Critical Readings on the Communist Party of China, eds. Brodsgaard, Kjeld Erik (Brill, 2017), pp. 86–99; Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, ‘Embracing uncertainty: guerrilla policy style and adaptive governance in China’, in Mao’s Invisible Hand eds. Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2011), pp. 1–29.

²¹ Ji Ma, ‘Bridging state and nonprofit: differentiated embeddedness of Chinese political elites in charitable foundations’, Journal of Chinese Political Science 28(3), (2023), pp. 483–510; Judith Audin and Jérôme Doyon, ‘Intermediary political bodies of the party-state: a sociology of mass and grassroots organisations in contemporary China’, China Perspectives 2019(2), (2019), pp. 3–8.

²² Samuel Handlin, ‘Mass organization and the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes: evidence from Venezuela’, Comparative Political Studies 49(9), (2016), pp. 1238–1269.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Selznick, The Organizational Weapon.

²⁵ Gregory J. Kasza, ‘Parties, interest groups, and administered mass organizations’; Arthur Steiner, ‘Current “mass line” tactics in communist China’, American Political Science Review 45(2), (1951), pp. 422–436.

²⁶ Qiusha Ma, ‘The governance of NGOs in China’.

²⁷ Philippe C. Schmitter, ‘Still the century of corporatism?’ The Review of Politics 36(1), (1974), pp. 93–94.

²⁸ Jonathan Unger and Anita Chan, ‘China, corporatism, and the East Asian model’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 33, (1995), pp. 29–53; Margaret M. Pearson, ‘The Janus face of business associations in China: socialist corporatism in foreign enterprises’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 31, (1994), pp. 25–46; Peter Nan-Shong Lee, ‘The Chinese industrial state in historical perspective: from totalitarianism to corporatism’, in Womack, Brantly (eds), Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 153–79; Bruce J. Dickson, ‘Cooptation and corporatism in China: the logic of Party adaptation’, Political Science Quarterly 115(4), (2000), pp. 517–540; Jennifer Y.J. Su and Reza Hasmath (eds), The Chinese Corporatist State: Adaption, Survival and Resistance (Routledge, 2012).

²⁹ Chris King-Chi Chan and Ngai Pun, ‘The making of a new working class? A study of collective actions of migrant workers in South China’, The China Quarterly 198, (2009), pp. 287–303.

³⁰ Qian Li, ‘The development of women’s organizations under the internet environment’. https://www.lnswdx.cn/lnswdx/fn_xbyjjd/lltd/2021102915575082534/index.shtml. Accessed January 18, 2024

³¹ Ray Yep, ‘The limitations of corporatism for understanding reforming China: an empirical analysis in a rural county’, Journal of Contemporary China 9(25), (2000), pp. 547–566.

³² Judith Audin and Jérôme Doyon, ‘Intermediary political bodies of the party-state’, p. 5.

³³ Chris King-chi Chan, ‘Community-based organizations for migrant workers’ rights: the emergence of labour NGOs in China’, Community Development Journal 48(1), (2013), pp. 6–22. Jingwei Alex He and Genghua Huang, ‘Fighting for migrant labor rights in the world’s factory: Legitimacy, resource constraints and strategies of grassroots migrant labor NGOs in South China’, Journal of Contemporary China 24(93), (2015), pp. 471–492.

³⁴ Tony Saich, ‘Negotiating the state’.

³⁵ Xi Jinping: Xi jinping guanyu shehui zhuyi zhengzhi jianshe lunshu zhaibian [Excerpts from Xi Jinping’s Discussion on Socialist Political Construction] (Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2017).

³⁶ Jérôme Doyon and Konstantinos Tsimonis, ‘Apathy is not enough’.

³⁷ Philipp Genschel, ‘The dynamics of inertia: institutional persistence and change in telecommunications and health care’, Governance 10(1), (1997), pp. 43–66.

³⁸ Junyang Wang, ‘The political limits of China’s anti-corruption reform: an institutional analysis of the new supervision commission’, Journal of Contemporary China 33(145), (2024), pp. 151–172.

³⁹ Jing Ouyang, ‘Zhengzhi tonghezhi jiqi yunxing jichu: yi xianyu zhili wei shijiao’ [Political integration system and its operational basis: from the perspective of county governance], kaifang shidai, Open Times 2, (2019), pp. 184–198.

⁴⁰ Ibid; Wesley Kaufmann, Reggy Hooghiemstra, and Mary K. Feeney, ‘Formal institutions, informal institutions, and red tape: a comparative study’, Public Administration 96(2), (2018), pp. 386–403.

⁴¹ Jieren Hu, Peng Zeng, and Tong Wu, ‘How are “red social workers” trained? Party-building absorption of society in China’, China Review 22(3), (2022), pp. 297–323.

⁴² Xi Jinping: Excerpts from Xi Jinping’s Discussion on Socialist Political Construction.

⁴³ For an opinion on the ACFTU’s role in promoting its connections with labor-related NGOs, see Accessed January 18, 2024. https://shzzgz.acftu.org/zcll/zcfg/202009/t20200920_463659.html?7OkeOa4k=qAqwrqrWVeGNuHtjbLe7wmEnZapXaNH8iFNdJQKBgnZqqcYVarjJqAqqSG.

⁴⁴ On comprehensively promoting the participation of women’s federations in society, see Accessed June 26, 2022. https://www.women.org.cn/upload/Attach/mrbj/6407662329.doc.

⁴⁵ See, for instance, Patricia M. Thornton, ‘The advance of the party’; Ge Xin and Jie Huang, ‘Party building in an unlikely place’; Lin Nie and Jie Wu, ‘Strategic responses of NGOs’.

⁴⁶ Samuel Handlin, ‘Mass organization and the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes’; Milan W. Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

⁴⁷ Anthony J. Spires, ‘Contingent symbiosis and civil society in an authoritarian state: understanding the survival of China’s grassroots NGOs’, American Journal of Sociology 117(1), (2011), pp. 1–45; Carolyn Hsu, ‘Beyond civil society: an organizational perspective on state—NGO relations in the People’s Republic of China’, Journal of Civil Society 6(3), (2010), pp. 259–277.

⁴⁸ Samuel Handlin, ‘Mass organization and the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes’; Takis S. Pappas, ‘Patrons against partisans: the politics of patronage in mass ideological parties’, Party Politics 15(3), (2009), pp. 315–334.

⁴⁹ Takis S. Pappas, ‘Patrons against partisans’, p. 318.

⁵⁰ See, for instance, Fahimul Quadir, ‘How “civil” is civil society? Authoritarian state, partisan civil society, and the struggle for democratic development in Bangladesh’, Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue Canadienne D’études du Développement 24(3), (2003), p. 433; Samuel Handlin, ‘Mass organization and the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes’.

⁵¹ Fahimul Quadir, ‘How “civil” is civil society’, p. 426.:

⁵² Matthew S. Winters and Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro, ‘Information credibility and responses to corruption: a replication and extension in Argentina’, Political Science Research and Methods 8(1), (2020), pp. 169–177.

⁵³ Yunyun Zhou, ‘Theorizing illiberal state feminism: institutional dilemmas and political parallelism in China’s gender governance’, Women’s Studies International Forum 98, (2023).

⁵⁴ Cheris Shun-ching Chan, ‘Invigorating the content in social embeddedness: an ethnography of life insurance transactions in China’, American Journal of Sociology 115(3), (2009), pp. 712–754.

⁵⁵ Haitao Wei and Cheris Shun-ching Chan, ‘Working without wages: network structure and migrant construction workers’ protests in China’, The China Quarterly 252, (2022), pp. 1140–1161.

⁵⁶ See the ACWF bulletins from May 18, 2016, February 14, 2019, and April 22, 2020.

⁵⁷ For example, WF-affiliated NGOs in Shanghai include the Shanghai Female Enterprisers Association, Shanghai Female Engineers Association, Shanghai Medical Women’s Association, Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions Female Workers Committee, etc.

⁵⁸ Interview with representative of a WF-affiliated NGO in Guangzhou, February 7, 2023.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Cheris Shun-ching Chan, ‘Invigorating the content in social embeddedness’.

⁶¹ Interview with representative of a WF-affiliated NGO in Guangzhou, February 7, 2023.

⁶² Interview with WF official in Guangzhou, February 7, 2023.

⁶³ Interview with WF official in Shanghai, June 3, 2022.

⁶⁴ Xiaoxian Gao, Lihua Xie, and Chun Han, zhongguo funv NGO chengzhang jinxingshi [Women’s NGOs in China are growing] (Jincheng Press, 2009).

⁶⁵ Jude Howell, ‘The struggle for survival’, p. 136; Jie Du, ‘Gender and governance: the rise of new women’s organizations’, in Governance in China ed. Jude Howell (Rowan & Littlefield, 2004).

⁶⁶ Zheng Wang and Ying Zhang, ‘Global concepts, local practices: Chinese feminism since the fourth UN Conference on Women’, Feminist Studies 36(1), (2010), pp. 40–70.

⁶⁷ Interview transcript with Gao Xiaoxian from the Global Feminist Oral History Interview Project.

⁶⁸ Interview with two staff members and the director of the hub organization in Shanghai, June 3, 2022.

⁶⁹ Interview with the director of the hub organization in Shanghai, June 3, 2022.

⁷⁰ A government-sponsored accreditation program that rates NGOs from ‘not rated’ to 5A; NGOs that get 3A or above are viewed as high-performance organizations; see, for instance, Wei Luo, Wenjuan Zheng, and Yan Long, ‘Relational work and its pitfalls: nonprofits’ participation in government-sponsored voluntary accreditation’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 33(1), (2023), pp. 63–79.

⁷¹ Interview with WF official in Chongqing, June 13, 2022.

⁷² Takis S. Pappas, ‘Patrons against partisans’; Samuel Handlin, ‘Mass organization and the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes’.

⁷³ Interview with representative of a WF-affiliated NGO in Hubei, February 5, 2023.

⁷⁴ Philip Selznick, The Organizational Weapon, p. 123.

⁷⁵ According to Wang Zheng, state feminists refer to women cadres under the CCP’s leadership who advocated for women’s rights and interests, such as female political figure Song Ching-ling, left-wing writer Ding Ling, and patriotic businesswoman Dong Zhujun.

⁷⁶ Interview with the director of the hub organization in Shanghai, June 3, 2022.

⁷⁷ Interview with GONGO representative in Shenzhen, June 10, 2022.

⁷⁸ Interview with WF official in Chongqing, June 13, 2022.

⁷⁹ Interview with representative of a grassroots NGO in elderly service in Shanghai, June 1, 2022.

⁸⁰ Qi Wang, ‘From “non-governmental organizing” to “outer-system”—feminism and feminist resistance in post-2000 China’, NORA-Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 26(4), (2018), pp. 260–277.

⁸¹ See, for instance, Qi Wang, ‘From “non-governmental organizing” to “outer-system”’; Jun Li and Xiaoqin Li, ‘Media as a core political resource: the young feminist movements in China’, Chinese Journal of Communication 10(1), (2017), pp. 54–71; Xinhui Jiang and Yunyun Zhou, ‘Coalition-based gender lobbying: revisiting women’s substantive representation in China’s authoritarian governance’, Politics & Gender 18(4), (2022), pp. 978–1010.

⁸² Interview with the representative of a rights-advocacy NGO in Beijing via Zoom, January 15, 2023.

⁸³ Song Xiuyan, ‘ba jiangzhengzhi guanchuanyu fulian gaige yu gongzuo quanguocheng’ [Prioritize the political work in the whole process of the reform and work of WF]. Accessed March 17, 2023. http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0613/c227126–29336313.html.

⁸⁴ Zheng Wang, ‘Feminist struggles in a changing China’, in Amrita Basu (eds), Women’s Movements in the Global Era (Routledge, 2018), pp. 155–181; Xinhui Jiang and Yunyun Zhou, ‘Coalition-based gender lobbying’.

⁸⁵ Emile Dirks and Diana Fu, ‘Governing “untrustworthy” civil society in China’, The China Journal 89(1), (2023), pp. 24–44.

⁸⁶ Based on authors’ fieldnotes. Interview with the vice director of the women’s NGO intermediary in X city, June 22, 2022.

⁸⁷ Daniel Koss, ‘Party building as institutional bricolage: asserting authority at the business frontier’, The China Quarterly 248, (2021), pp. 222–243.

⁸⁸ Alex Pravda and Blair A. Ruble (eds), Trade Unions in Communist States (Boston: Allen & Unwin, Inc., 1986); Gordon White, ‘Prospects for civil society in China: a case study of Xiaoshan City’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 29, (1993), pp. 63–87.

⁸⁹ Shen et al., ‘The administration’s retreat’.

⁹⁰ Interview with the government-owned NGO’s representative in Shenzhen, June 10, 2022.