| Whereas at the beginning of the era of reform in 1978 few associations existed in China, today thousands operate both nationally and locally. How and why have these associations emerged? This study examines the process by which, between 1978 and 2001, business associations emerged onto China's organizational landscape and subsequently began to develop and occupy new positions in the polity. It finds that most business associations were created by government agencies as part of a state project to transform the institutions of economic governance. As high-level economic reformers in the Chinese Communist Party developed a vision for how the old state socialist administrative system should be re-fashioned into one better suited for managing a marketizing economy, they latched onto the idea that vibrant business associations were necessary components of a new and more effective economic governance system. Thus throughout the 1980s and 1990s, administrative reform and state creation of business associations proceeded in tandem, the idea being that functions and resources should be transferred from agencies to associations. Created by government agencies interested in retaining their authority, the new business associations were both weak and relegated to the status of administrative appendage. Yet over time, many associations developed into stronger organizations and, in some cases, even began to transcend the role of administrative appendage.; Finding approaches based on the concepts of civil society and corporatism lacking, this study adopts an organizational approach, analyzing the processes of organizational management, interaction, and change that have driven the emergence of new business associations. Through an examination of the implementation of the state reform project and the creation of associations at both the national level and in one municipality, it reveals the organizational roots of the institutional changes that the Party has aimed to bring about and that have in fact gradually begun to occur. Although a truly robust sector of business associations does not yet exist, associations remain at the heart of change processes propelling forward the evolution of elements of China's political and administrative regime. |
