Alienation Or Embeddedness: A Dynamic Review Of Government-Social Organization Relationship During Governmental Purchase Of The Social Services

In recent years,faced with increasingly complex problems in public management and public services,the government has actively encouraged various social organizations to participate in the practice of social services.The government introduces social organizations in the form of purchasing services to solve this problem.The two parties should be cooperative contractual relations,but in reality there is alienation.Based on the case of Family Integrated Service Centers(FISC)as related to the Municipal Government of Guangzhou,we try to take a dynamic view of the relationship between government and social organizations(G-SO)in the course of the purchase of the social services from FISC by the government.We found the two actors began to form the models of alienation and embeddedness in the G-SO relationship in the process.By view of institutionalism,the restrictive frame causes continuous tensions,which means the legal constraints are strong while the resource constraints are weak at the beginning of the purchasing,resulting in the so called alienated Government-Social Organization relationship.The relationship of embeddedness between G-SO,however,is formed due to the weak legal constraints and strong constraints of resources later.Furthermore,the constraints of power and control run through all the way in this process,at the beginning,they strong legal constraints and weak resources constraints,in the contrary,weak legal constraints and strong constraints of resources later,which results in the two-way G-SO relationship of alienation and embeddedness.For a healthier Government-Social Organization relationship,it is necessary to understand and check even deeper into the internal logic of dynamic relationship in between.