Government Contracting of Services to NGOs: An Analysis of Gradual Institutional Change and Political Control in China

Abstract

This thesis seeks to explain the evolution of non-state welfare provision in the People’s Republic of China under Xi Jinping and his recent predecessors. In particular, it examines the emergence, spread and institutionalization of a policy of government contracting services to non-governmental organizational (NGOs) and related political dynamics at the national, local, and state-NGO interaction levels. This thesis makes several theoretical claims regarding the causes and process of institutional change and the political implications of these transformations. I contend that decentralization, international influences, and authoritarian consolidation have combined to produce gradual institutional change characterized by processes of layering, conversion, and drift. These incremental changes have led to local institutional frameworks and practices of government contracting that remain incomplete and beset by unequal power dynamics between party-state and NGO actors. Notwithstanding the intent to increase the supply of services and promote state-NGO collaboration at local levels, purchase-of-service contracting policies are inseparable from strategies of political control, consent making, and governing techniques deployed by the ruling party-state. This dissertation reveals the presence of informal rules and power relations between purchasers and regulators (local governments) and service providers (NGOs) behind the façade of increasingly institutionalized state-NGO partnerships and of market-based standardized bidding competition processes. In this context, NGOs have adopted mitigating and adaptive strategies in order to cope with new opportunities and constraints. This thesis draws on interviews with NGO leaders and subject matter experts conducted during fieldwork in Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing. It also leverages policy documents, media sources, and an extensive review of distinct bodies of scholarly literature.