Please join us this Friday, May 4th, from 2:00 to 3:00PM for the last installment of the semester in the ongoing Friday Forum Series hosted by The Center for the Study of Global Issues (GLOBIS), to be held in the 2nd floor conference room of our main office. This week's talk "Civil Society in the Chinese Context: Structure, Institution & Theoretical Paradigms" will be delivered by, Ms. Lichao He, a graduate student in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. An abstract follows:
Civil society defines the sphere between the state, the market, and the family. Deeply rooted in the western historical and political context, this concept is often portrayed as the opposition to "the state", a force that checks the state's power and develops in tandem with democracy. In stark contrast with this western "ideal type", in East Asian countries, civil society is shaped by its "archrival"- the state, and its evolution does not readily fit into the theoretical paradigms that are originated from the western experiences.
Studying the recent NGO boom in China, this paper tries to address the question that why, in a country without the tradition of the separation between the state and society, there has been a vibrant growth of the citizens voluntary associations since the 1990s. By comparing the features and traits of the NGO sector in the three major stages of civil society evolution in China and testing the hypothesis, the paper argues that the nascent civil society in China is a product of the structural reform and is molded by the state. It studies the role of the structure and institution in deciding the nature of the civil society and posits a theoretical paradigm that is derived from the East Asian developmental state context, hoping to offer new insights on the evolution of the state-society relations in non-western, developing countries.
GLOBIS is located in the historic Franklin House on the corner of Thomas St. and Broad St. at the Northern edge of campus.
