Shifting Relations between State and Social Actors
Heike Holbig & Moritz Bälz
Actors mobilizing support for, and availing special protection to, certain weak groups or interests are often divided into state and non-state/social actors. Societies greatly vary in the degree to which protecting the weak is considered a prominent task of the (welfare) state’s multiple sub-divisions, or is primarily left to actors such as charitable foundations, NGOs, or advocacy groups. Depending on the
political system, prevailing patterns of top-down and bottom-up interactions can be observed. This state-society divide, however, is neither clear-cut nor stable. Social actors may, in various forms and degrees, be supported, influenced, controlled or even manipulated by the state. At the same time, the state-society relationship may be one of competition or may take the shape of a mutually-beneficial partnership. Apart from religious and ideological traditions, the regulatory framework for non-state actors plays a crucial role in dynamically shifting the line in one direction or the other.
Japan’s élite bureaucrats, whose strong position is often considered to be a legacy of the modernization process, are credited with including a broad variety of interests in their policy-making (Rokumoto 2011). The Ministry of Justice even offers a detailed list of those whose human rights (jinken) are in the focus of its policy (Ministry of Justice 2013). An existing tradition of charity notwithstanding, protecting the weak has long been understood primarily as the responsibility of the state. Since the 1980s and 1990s, however, fostering civil society has attracted more and more attention. External factors, such as the transnational diffusion of ideas among NGOs and the international socialization of state actors have played a crucial part, for example, in the rise of environmental NGOs (Reimann 2002). Furthermore, interestingly, the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 has served as catalyst event (Iokibe 1999). The so-called Non-Profit Organizations (NPO) Law of 1998 established a new framework aimed at de-regulating and promoting non-profit activities (Pekkanen 2000; Simon 2009). Reviews, to date, have been mixed; some stress invigorating effects (Haddad 2011), others diagnose a continuing lack of resources on the part of non-state actors (Foljanty-Jost & Haufe 2010) or a problematical degree of state interference with the newly incorporated NPOs (Avenell 2009).
Like Japan, China has a long tradition of a benevolent paternalistic state and charitable religious associations (Will 1990, Smith 2009). Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the totalitarian/authoritarian Party-state has virtually monopolized the protection of weak groups and interests. A restrictive set of administrative regulations for “social groups” formulated in 1989 and revised in 1998 has created high barriers for the founding of NGOs, leading to the widely-criticized phenomenon of GONGOs (government-organized non-governmental organizations) and a high rate of non-registered groups. The cleavage between rich and poor has motivated the official neologism of ruoshi qunti (“groups of weak influence”), coined in 2002 by then Prime Minister Zhu Rongji (Holbig 2002), a vivid example of protectification. At the same time, a rapid increase of activities of the nonstate sector has taken place, including NGOs, NPOs, foundations and other types, such as “charity supermarkets” for the urban poor (Shue 2011). Most dramatically, this trend is manifest in the case of the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008, labelled “‘NGO Year Zero’ for China” (Roney 2011: 86). The increasing influence of foreign and domestic NGOs is visible, for example, in the realms of cultural heritage, where it has given rise to new legislation.
The background study will have to assess to what degree new regulatory environments in Japan and China empower civil society’s protection of weak interests, or, instead, lead to their protectification. Furthermore, it will focus on the growing space for transnational and domestic NGOs to become active, which, to a certain extent, is related to unexpected events, but also reflects a fundamental shift of state-society relations, extending far beyond the limits of protecting the weak.
