理解中國公民社會的韌性──以 H 市三個草根同志 NGO 為例

Abstract

近年來，中國公民社會的發展呈現一個矛盾的態勢。一方面，國家放寬對社會組織的註冊限制，增加對其購買服務的力度，使得在民政部門註冊的社會組織數量，從2011年的46萬迅速增長到2016年的接近70萬。另一方面，我們也看到在習近平上台的這幾年，國家對公民社會採取了一連串嚴厲的打壓措施，像益仁平、傳知行等老牌草根組織也受到波及，國家還通過立法，規限草根NGO的境外聯繫。這一矛盾的現象，為中國國家-社會組織關係的研究提供了新的現實素材。 學界對於中國國家-社會組織關係的研究可以歸納為三種路徑，一種是聚焦於討論非政府組織的出現對中國政治民主化的影響，一種則關注國家的統合主義管治結構，最後一種則是從中國的現實出發，去解答在中國這個非民主體制下，非政府組織為何出現、如何運作、如何與政府互動等問題。這些研究路徑，或因遷就於理論而有削足適履之感，又或者因為研究者只從某一類型或區域的組織著手，而僅能關照到某一局部的非政府組織。 因而，本研究為了回應現實的變化和既有研究之局限，嘗試從中國的後極權主義政治體制出發，去理解中國公民社會在一個不友好的政治環境下如何找尋空間以維持自身的自主性，和進行倡導的工作。本文認為，中國的政治體制為公民社會的發聲提供了一些制度化的管道，而官僚系統的條塊區隔則給社會組織創造了可供利用的空間，與此同時，後極權體制下已經出現的經濟與社會的有限多元化，為一些具備「社會企業家精神」的NGO從業者提供了發揮創造力去行動的空間。綜合這些因素，中國的公民社會組織得以在一個變動的、設限的後極權體制下實踐組織的理念和回應國家的政策，筆者將這種草根組織維持自身自主性和用各種方式進行倡導的行為，稱之為公民社會的韌性。 本文以中國H市的三個草根同志NGO為例，通過訪談和參與式觀察，了解它們在註冊、募款和倡導等三個方面的策略選擇及其背後的戰略思考，以此來呈現草根組織所面臨的制度環境和NGO負責人在公民社會實踐上的努力。一個組織的註冊情況及其財政結構，是其組織自主性的重要體現，組織的倡導行為，則體現了草根NGO在推動善治和社會變革等方面的努力，此二者皆是研究公民社會的重要維度。 在正文的章節安排中，第一章緒論將統領全文，說明本文的問題意識和研究方法，第二章將對既有研究進行梳理，并解釋本文提出的分析框架；第三章則是介紹中國非政府組織的發展歷史及現狀，說明中國NGO所面臨的制度環境，第四章則進入主體部分，對三個案例的三種策略進行詳細地說明，最後一章為結論，對文本的研究進行總結，並對後續研究提出期望。 本研究希望能夠提出一個分析中國國家與社會組織互動關係的總體性框架，希望讀者在閱讀本文之後，能對公民社會在中國的發展狀況能有一個初步的了解。

In recent years, the development of the Chinese civil society has presented a contradictory scenario. On one hand, the country has relaxed social organization registration restraints and strengthened the intensity of government purchases, which led to a rapid increase in social organization registrations at the PRC Ministry of Civil Affairs, from 460,000 in 2011 to nearly 700,000 in 2016. On the other hand, over the past few years since General Secretary of Communist Party Xi Jinping took office, China has taken a series of harsh actions to suppress the civil society, affecting even old grassroots NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), such as Beijing Yirenping Center, The Transition Institute, and so on. China has even passed legislation regulating and restricting overseas connections of grassroots NGOs. This contradictory phenomenon has given rise to new realistic material for researches on the relationship between the state and social organizations in China. Scholars’ studies on the relationship between the state and social organizations can be summarized into three approaches. The first approach is to focus on discussions on the influence of NGOs’ emergence on China’s political democratization. The second approach is to study China’s corporatism governance structure, and the last approach is to attempt to provide answers to how NGOs emerged, how they operate and how they interact with the government under the non-democratic regime in China, with China’s reality as the starting point. These research approaches, whether cutting corners to fit in the theories or researchers focusing on a certain type of organization or regional organizations as the starting point, can only cover a certain range of NGOs. Therefore, in response to the actual changes and limitations of existing research, this study attempted to gain an insight into how the Chinese civil society under an unfriendly environment seeks space to maintain its autonomy and carry out advocacy work, with China’s post-totalitarian regime as the starting point. This study argues that China’s political system provides institutionalized channels for the voice of civil society, while the fragmented bureaucratic system creates space available to social organizations. At the same time, under the post-totalitarian system, the limited pluralism of economy and society has emerged to provide NGO activists that display “social entrepreneurship” with space for creative actions. In view of these factors, the organizations under the Chinese civil society are able to realize their organizational philosophy and cope with the state’s policies under a changing and limited post-totalitarian regime. The author calls the behavior of grassroots NGOs maintaining autonomy and using various ways to carry out advocacy the “resilience of civil society”. Three gay NGOs in H City, China were adopted as the examples. Through in-depth interviews and participant observations, the author will elaborate on their strategic choices in three aspects, namely, registration, fundraising and advocacy, as well as the strategic mindset behind these choices, which form a basis on which the institutionalized environment confronting the grassroots NGOs and the NGO activists’ efforts put into civil society implementations were presented. The registration situation and financial structure of an organization are an important manifestation of the organization’s autonomy, while an organization’s advocacy behavior is a manifestation of grassroots NGOs’ dedication towards promoting good governance and social change, which are both important dimensions in civil society related research. In terms of the chapter arrangements, Chapter 1, the introduction, guides the whole paper and explains the problem awareness and research methods. Chapter 2 sorts out existing studies and explains the analytical framework proposed in this study. Chapter 3 introduces the development history and current situation of China’s NGOs and explains the institutionalized environment confronting China’s NGOs. Chapter 4 covers the main body and elaborates on the three strategies in the three cases; the last chapter draws conclusions and provides a summary of this study and expectations put forward for follow-up research. This study is intended to provide a general framework for analyzing the interactions between the state and social organizations in China. Hopefully, readers will have gained an initial understanding of the development of civil society in China after reading this paper.