Nongovernmental Organizations’ Policy Advocacy and Government Responsiveness in China

Can the “associational revolution” improve authoritarian government responsiveness? If it can, what kind of nongovernmental organization (NGO) can successfully lobby the government? Based on different theoretical perspectives, I develop three hypotheses: a pluralist hypothesis that focuses on resource exchange between such organizations and the government, a corporatist hypothesis that focuses on government institutional control and policy consultant intention, and a clientelist hypothesis that recognizes the underinstitutionalization of the policy-making process and emphasizes the informal network. I then test these hypotheses with a quantitative study of survey data of registered NGOs in three Chinese provinces. I find that the corporatist hypothesis is largely supported; the pluralism hypothesis is also somewhat supported while the clientelist hypothesis is not supported. The data reflect a hybrid pattern of policy advocacy that I term pluralized state corporatism, which fits China’s recent social-economic transformation and lagged political reform.