Continuity and Change in China’s Civic Engagement from a ‘State in Society’ Perspective

[...]the ndings from such studies often oscillate between scenarios of subliminal democratization on the one hand, and increased repression and the advent of a regime-stabilizing third sector on the other (Chamberlain in Mod China 19(2):199215, 1993; McCormick et al. in Pac Aff 65(2):182202, 1992; Unger and Chan in China after socialism: in the footsteps of Eastern Europe or East Asia? Deviating from this dichotomy we start from a more nuanced perspective and conceptualize civic engagement as an integral part of state-society relations that constitute the interplay between state and societal actors (Ho in China Inf 21(2):187209, 2007; Ho and Edmonds in Chinas embedded activism: opportunities and constraints of social movement, 2008; Saich in Curr Hist 93:260264, 1994; Saich in China Q 161:124141, 2000; Shieh in State and society responses to social welfare needs in China: serving the people, 2009; Teets in China Q 213:120, 2013; Teets in Civil society under authoritarianism: Which conditions and strategies & Stephanie Brauer braeuer@uni-muenster.de Magnus Dau dau@sozialwissenschaften.uni-siegen.de 1 Institute of Political Science, Siegen University, Siegen, Germany 2 Institute for German and European Social Policy and Comparative Political Science, University Mnster, Munster, Germany http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s11266-015-9669-9&domain=pdf Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s11266-015-9669-9&domain=pdf Web End = Continuity and Change in Chinas Civic Engagement from a State in Society Perspective 123 2022 Voluntas (2016) 27:20212026 are necessary for mutual empowerment, and conversely, which conditions and strategies inhibit such empowerment? From this perspective, civic engagement describes not only the intra-societal developments of citizens activities but also the ways in which NGOs and citizens impact on the Chinese state while pursuing their goals. Since the last special issue dedicated to civic engagement (Dekker and Evers in VOLUNTAS 20(3):217219, 2009), new developments have profoundly changed how citizens and the state interact with one anotherand not only in China.