Relations, The Limits Of System: Transformation Of China's Government And The Charitable Organization

After reform and opening-up in China, the social groups have springing up abruptly. The number of social groups rose from 4446 to 346,000 since 1988, and nearly 300,000 charity organizations have grown from nothing since 1994. In the transitional period, it suggests important governance signification and institutional reason. Charity organization is mainly a kind of body and mechanism to distribute the fortune rather than to pursuit power, because it is a typical legal person of financial group rather than social group. Legal person of financial group, as opposed to social group, is a kind of group of wealth, which embody the relation between entrusting and trusting property and the wealth to be redistributed and transferred, therefore it naturally overcomes the defects of interest distribution conducted by government or market. There are three kinds of distributional mechanisms of wealth,that is assigned—conducted by government, by market or by charity organizations. These mechanisms are different in the aspects of running characteristics, guiding principle, formal structure and value target. As it is, the model of the relationship between government and charity organization and the institutional construction virtually is the model and institution relationship of interest distribution (wealth distribution) between them. The dissertation mainly uses the theories of socialism civil society,voluntary behavior and voluntary organization theory and institutional change theory,to analysis and elaborate the relationship model between government and charity organization, the limit of the relationship model (institutional foundation), and options of the institutional change in transitional period.Firstly, the dissertation gives an overview of three kinds of typical relational models in Canada, English and America as reference to research this subject in transitional period of China. These three kinds of relationship models make sense to provide a kind of reference to the power relation and functional relation when distributing interest between government and charity organization, namely as a reference to concrete disposition power relation and functional relation among different interest distributional mechanism. Secondly,from the historic perspect it illuminates the evolvement of the model about the relations between government and charity organization since new China has been established. It experiences two periods, one is period of government's substitution model and another is hegemonic and functional supplementary relation. The period of government substitution exists in the totalitarian society, while the period of hegemonic and functional supplementary relation exists in transitional times. The core of the model of hegemonic and functional supplementary relation period is that government can manipulate and control charity organization with hegemony, and charity organizations assist government functionally as the result of power released by government. The hegemonic and functional supplementary relation model is different from either the manipulation and control of power relation, or the cooperative relation of power and functions, and also different from the autonomous model in western countries.However the problem is as followed: for what reason, this relation changes from the model of government substitution to the model of hegemonic and functional supplementary relation? Moreover, why it happened to be this kind of relation, and neither goes forward nor steps back to original model. Or why the hegemonic and functional supplementary relation comes into being? What is the institutional foundation? Where the limit of this relation exists? Accordingly, this dissertation explores the rationality of the hegemonic and functional supplementary relation and the institutional foundation, which is actually a kind of unsymmetrical organizational power and function relation.The term, the unsymmetrical organizational power and function, includes four domains, that is the unsymmetrical power and function of government, the unsymmetrical power and function of charity organization, the unsymmetrical power between government and charity organization, and the unsymmetrical function between government and charity organization.It is this structure that becomes the institutional foundation of the model of the hegemonic and functional supplementary relation.In aspect of government, the reason that government can control charity organization is the system path dependent of the adminisitive centralization and administrative controlling economic, and the system changing lag of political power controlling. However the resources controlled by government is not plenty enough to deal with social relief, which means government needs the functional supplement of charity organization.The qualification and space that charity organization gains to perform function are directly related to the government'trust. In aspect of charity organization, the wealth of charity organization is characterized by public property, which is not well respected nor protected. In this case, government probably can freely violate it as the sustainer of public property, which consequently puts charity organization into a weak position. In addition, the nature of charity organization is the legal person of financial group rather than the social group. It is the group of wealth and it embodies the relation to entrust and trust about property and the relation to redistribute and transfer it. The charity organization can not claim but only can keep the wealth remainders, so it has not enough motivation to sustain its property. Facing the powerful government, charity organization has to obey. Moreover, because there are some factors, such as the government selective motivation policies, the failure of credibility and volunteer,and the governance failure of charity organization itself, the charity organization can not provide sustainable and sufficient social relief. Thus it can only play a supplementary role rather than partner, not to speak of the replacement of government.But as a interest distributive mechanism,the unique characteristic of market is that it has the natural demand and ability to expand ,and from which the charity organization resultantly derives as the third distributive mechanism in the same time, so that the interest distributive mechanism of government just have transitional characteristic on powerful control and functional domination relative to other mechanism, according to which it can be regarded as a mixture of imposed institutional change and induced institutional change. Before the reform and opening-up, the institutional change of China is on the whole a kind of imposed institutional change dominated by government, while since the reform and opening-up, the induced institutional change chosen by society appear and gradually come into being an effective model because of the appearance and development of social resources. However under China's national conditions, it is impossible to desirably realize an opposite relationship between state and society, let alone the replacement of state by society. This relationship essentially is a sort of mixture and cooperation or a kind of benign mutual action patterns, or a socialism civil society that "state in a society". Against this macro background, the imposed institutional change dominated by government is still reasonable and the change of charity organization also has its reasons. The domain of the institutional arrangement by government involves defining property,supplying ideology,supervising by the legislation and so on. The purpose of the institutional arrangement by the charity organization is to testify its credibility, to obtain autonomy and to rationalize its organizational structure, which is the necessary demand and basic condition of social choices.The charity organization is a kind of special non-profitable organization, which is characterized by its main body, the disadvantaged people in society and those demanding people. Therefore, the more accumulatively and mightily charity organization develops in a period of time, the more surely the disadvantaged people is produced by the institution. Thus it is essentially important to introspect the institutional justness and rationality. To these people, the importance is not only to provide a organizational security like charity organization, and offer appeal chance and its institutional approach, but also to balance interest distribution and further rights distribution by this organizational security, namely the government and society have obligation to satisfy all people's rights and demands of all-round development rather than the minority.The dissertation consists of six sectors. The first is "introduction", which states the reason of writing, literature review, analysis tools and analytical method. The second is "terms defining and their historical evolution", which explains the social and political transformation, and charity, charity organization and the history of China's charity organization. The third is "relationship model: the hegemonic and functional supplementary relation", which illustrates the history and current state of the relationship between government and charity organization after new China established, and give an explanation about the develop process and institutional form of model of government substituting charity organization and the model of hegemonic and functional supplementary relation. In this sector, the author mainly wants to make the historical model of the relationship clear. In the forth sector, "limit analysis: unsymmetrical organizational power and function", the dissertation emphatically demonstrates why the hegemonic and functional supplementary relation comes into being in the transitional period (after China's reform and opening-up). The reason lies in the unsymmetrical organizational power and function, which embodys three aspects, the unsymmetrical power and function between government and charity organization, the unsymmetrical power and function of government, and the unsymmetrical power and function of charity organization. This part generally analysis the institutional cause of this model. The fifth is "institutional arrangement: from governmental choice to social choice", which provide an analyse that under the mutual reaction of governmental choice and social choice, both government and the charity organization need to implement an corresponding institutional arrangement to acquire orders equilibrium. The domain of the institutional arrangement by government involves defining property,supplying ideology,vsupervising and regulating, etc. The purpose of the institutional arrangement by the charity organization is to testify its credibility, to obtain autonomy and to rationalize its organizational structure. The institutional construction from traditional society to modern society is the main point in this sector. The last one ,"conclusion and next discussion" , summarizes the fundamental points of the whole paper and points out the deficiency and moot questions, which are about unbalance of interest and rights of the charity organization's special main body. Because the needy of the charity organization is the disadvantaged, It is not enough only to perfect the relationship between the government and the charity organization and form the platform where charity organization autonomously develop to solve the problem totally. The solution of the disadvantaged problems is to balance the three interest distributional mechanism among government, charity organization and market, and to respect and admit the general rights.