Response Paper for 4 international affairs articles

Innovators and Implementers: The Multilevel Politics of Civil Society Governance in Rural China January 7, 2017Abstract Early literature on China's civil society focused on organizations' autonomy from the state. However, the precise ways in which these organizations are de- pendent on the state|and on individual o cials|are less well understood. I argue that NGOs depend on di erent types of o cials whose career incentives vary, with signi cant implications for relationships with nonstate actors. One set of o cials, innovators, seek rapid promotion and use civil society partner- ships to gain higher-level attention. Their career goals lead them to provide support for NGOs, but excessive reliance on innovators can force organizations to stray from their mission and weaken their long-term position in a given locality. A second set of o cials, implementers, seek stability and security.

Cognizant of the risks of partnering with non-state actors, these o cials are sometimes forced by their superiors to engage with NGOs but see little personal bene t to doing so. These ndings suggest the importance of China's multilevel political structure for state-society relations.

Key Words: civil society, NGOs, multi-level politics, cadre management, rural China, public services Introduction Do civil society organizations in China represent an autonomous sphere independent from the state|and as a result, a nascent source of democratic opposition to Chinese Communist Party rule? Much of the literature on NGOs in China has focused on this debate. 1 However, some question the wisdom of doing so, arguing that research 1 Foster (2001); J. Hsu & Hasmath (2014); Read (2003); Teets (2013); Unger (2008); X. Zhang & Baum (2004).

1 on Chinese civil society has become excessively narrow in scope, that an autonomous civil society is an unattainable standard, or that it would be better to look for analogs within China's own history than to import foreign models. 2 Indeed, although some organizations seek to avoid the state, autonomy may not even be a desirable goal for many NGOs, as it comes at the cost of in uence. 3 And while autonomy is a central concern of Western research on NGOs in China, organizations themselves see autonomy as less important than e cacy and \organizational viability." 4 These challenges to the notion of autonomy suggest the importance of shifting our focus from organizational autonomyto organizational dependence. In other words, if autonomy is neither possible nor necessarily desirable, how do organizations interact with and depend on the state? And given that the Party-state is characterized by what Lieberthal and Lampton (1992) call \fragmented authoritarianism," on whom, exactly, do NGOs depend? Answering these questions requires us to assess organiza- tions' actions and motivations, but also to pay greater attention to the range of state actors these organizations encounter and the incentives these o cials face. It has been well established that o cials at di erent levels of China's geographic- administrative hierarchy have di erent goals, which may lead them to cooperate in some instances and work at cross-purposes in others. 5 The relevance of these formal political networks for the more informalties between o cials and NGOs has not been explored, however. I argue that the structure of the Chinese state has important im- plications for non-state organizations, which must navigate between di erent levels of government and di erent individuals within those levels whose goals do not necessar- ily align. In short, organizations must navigate two types of local state hierarchies. 2 Perry (1994); Salmenkari (2013); Tenzin (2014).

3 Gallagher (2004); Salmenkari (2014).

4 C. Hsu (2010, 267).

5 Heberer & Schubert (2012); Lieberthal & Lampton (1992); Mertha (2009); Smith (2010).

2 The rst is the tiao/kuaisystem of vertical and horizontal networks that structures the Party-state. The second is a hierarchy of di erent individual o cials embedded within this institutional structure, a result of the multilevel structure of the Chinese state and of the monitoring and promotion system (the Cadre Responsibility System) used to incentivize o cials to follow higher-level mandates.

As they navigate these hierarchies, NGOs encounter two very di erent types of o cials. The rst are ambitious and promotion oriented. These o cials, whom I label innovators , are eager to use partnerships with nonstate service providers to boost their own promotion prospects, and may provide various forms of assistance| material resources, access to their professional network of other o cials, information about the locality the NGO hopes to serve|to help improve an organization's odds of success. Their support for non-state organizations may be principled, but it is also instrumental: By partnering with nonstate actors to provide public services, these o cials hope to earn a reputation for innovation that will impress their superiors and lead to promotion to higher o ce. Partnerships between these \innovators" and nonstate organizations can be mu- tually bene cial. However, nonstate organizations pay a price for depending too heavily on such partnerships. First, these leaders are likely to be only temporary residents. The same qualities that make them e ective partners for non-state orga- nizations also lead them to move quickly up the promotion chain, often taking them to a di erent locality every 5-8 years. Thus while a partnership with an \innovator" can yield invaluable short-term bene ts, investing too heavily in this relationship can leave organizations in a precarious position when their patron moves on to a di erent post. Second, promotion-minded o cials' career incentives lead to spatial biases in the quality of local governance, with important implications for civil society orga- nizations as well as for local government pro jects. Promotion incentives encourage 3 o cials to focus on physically proximate areas that are likely to be observed by their superiors. 6 This logic can lead them to push NGOs into geographically proximate locations that are easy for higher-level elites to reach, even when an organization's express purpose is to serve underserved areas. The second group of o cials, implementers, seek to minimize political risk and extra work for which they are unlikely to be rewarded. Some spend much of their time engaged in direct contact with citizens and state-run public service providers. Others are longtime employees of a single bureau and have amassed substantial knowledge of the relevant policy area, but have little day-to-day professional contact with citizens.

Unlike \innovators," \implementers" do not seek to draw attention to themselves, as doing so can come at a high cost to their career if a gamble does not pay o .

While the role of promotion incentives in motivating o cial behavior has received substantial attention from scholars of rural Chinese politics, 7 many o cials are un- interested in promotion, preferring the stability of a low-stress job in or near their hometown. 8 While some such o cials become committed to the mission of a non- state organization, they have little professionalincentive to spend time and energy assisting these organizations. And because such assistance is typically outside of the purview of the implementers' formal job responsibilities, higher-level \innovators" are limited in their ability to force these implementers to enthusiastically support civil society pro jects. In short, the principal-agent problems within the multilevel Chinese state that disrupt formal policy implementation create challenges for non-state actors as well. Drawing on in-depth interviews, as well as non-participant observation of two groups' activities, this paper argues that a more complex understanding of he state" 6 Author, 2015.

7 Burns (1985{1986); Edin (2003, 2003a); Landry (2008); O'Brien & Li (1999).

8 Interview with county o cial, Yunnan, 2011.

4 that civil society groups encounter can enrich our understanding of both civil society and the multi-level Chinese state in two ways. First, a more nuanced understanding of the individuals who make up the local state|and their professional incentives for partnering with or avoiding non-state actors|can be a useful complement to existing research on regional and sectoral variation in the regulation of NGOs. 9 Second, existing research on local governance and o cials' promotion incentives has paid little attention to non-state groups. My research suggests that, as local governments increasingly partner with nonstate groups to provide public services, 10 these groups are becoming a tool that ambitious o cials strategically mobilize in order to improve their own promotion prospects. Case studies of two organizations |which possessed varying levels of local knowledge and support but looked quite similar in terms of their relationships with di erent types of o cials| demonstrate the utility of analyzing organizations' relationships with these di erent types of o cials.

Existing Literature The concept of civil society has been a topic of contention among China scholars since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989. Much of this research has concerned whether \civil society" exists in China. 11 As civil society organiza- tions have proliferated|the number of o cially registered NGOs rose from 4,446 in 1988 to 506,173 in 2013|the stakes of these debates have increased. 12 The answers have also become more complex as new organizational forms|GONGOs (government-organized NGOs), PONGOs (Party-organized NGOs), and QUANGOS 9 Hildebrandt (2013); Teets (2015).

10 Jing (2008); Jing & Savas (2009); Simon & Teets (2012); Teets (2012); M. Zhang & Sun (2012).

11 Chamberlain (1993); C. Hsu (2010); Huang (1993); Salmenkari (2008, 2011, 2013); White (1993).

12 Spires et al. (2014), 65.

5 (quasi-autonomous NGOs)|have blurred the distinction between state and society.

13 The multitude of ways in which the Chinese state interacts with these actors| repression and surveillance, regulation, outsourcing of public services|has grown increasingly diverse as well. 14 At stake in much of the existing literature is the possibility of an autonomous civil society that can serve as a counterweight to the CCP regime. Some scholars argue that social organizations are able to create substantial autonomy, 15 but a growing consensus regards autonomy as a virtually impossible standard for Chinese organiza- tions. And while disruption and repression by state actors are real concerns, these organizations often see autonomy from the state as an undesirable outcome because autonomy would likely come at a cost to the organization's in uence, access, or per- ceived legitimacy. 16 This is certainly not true of all organizations|some grassroots organizations try to avoid the state, and some groups even try to hide the fact that they are acting in concert. 17 Given this lack of agreement over the desirability and feasibility of autonomy from the state, then, it seems more useful to characterize the various roles that the state plays vis-a-vis social organizations, and to nd more accurate frameworks for making sense of the relationship between the state and civil society. The dominant approach to understanding the relationship between the state and civil society groups in China is the corporatist model. Corporatism describes a mode of interest representation under which di erent interest groups are channeled into hierarchically organized associations responsible for negotiating with the state on 13 Lee & Wang (2005); Saich (2000); Schwartz (2004); Simon (2013); Thornton (2013); Wu (2003).

14 Fu (2016); Hildebrandt (2011); Howell (2015); Jing (2008); Jing & Savas (2009); Kang & Han (2008); Simon & Teets (2012); Teets (2012); Yang (2003); M. Zhang & Sun (2012). 15X. Zhang & Baum (2004).

16 Foster (2001); Gallagher (2004); C. Hsu (2008); J. Hsu & Hasmath (2014); Saich (2000); Spires (2011). 17Fu (2016).

6 behalf of the interest group they represent.

18 Although China diverges from the orthodox corporatist model, scholars have applied it to China since the onset of its associational revolution. 19 More recently, J. Hsu & Hasmath (2014) have claimed that local governments use a corporatist model to encourage civic organizations to provide public services in support of the goals of the local state. Howell (2015) describes the state's attempts to work with labor NGOs to provide public services to migrant workers as \welfarist incorporation." However, the corporatist model has been critiqued for ignoring the ways in which the market shapes the environment in which NGOs function, 20 and for only describing those organizations that are closely linked to the state. 21 Furthermore|and most importantly for this paper|the corporatism literature focuses primarily on hierarchical relationships between state agenciesand social or- ganizations. Although the corporatism literature has improved on autonomy-focused research in its more complex and internally varied picture of he state," the litera- ture still primarily regards the state as a set of functionally or geographically de ned units, and pays insu cient attention to the individualswho make up the local state and to their rationale for assisting or hindering the work of NGOs. The evidence pre- sented in this paper suggests that di erently positioned representatives of the local state may diverge in their attitudes toward a single NGO. A third set of sources provides something of a middle ground between the auton- omy and corporatism schools. Teets argues that while the corporatist model may have applied to Chinese civil society in the 1990s, Chinese civil society is now char- acterized by a mix of autonomy and top-down linkages to the state (\consultative 18 Schmitter (1979).

19 Dickson (2000-2001); Foster (2001); Unger & Chan (1995). Yep (2000) sounds a note of caution.

20 Howell (2012).

21 Spires (2011).

7 authoritarianism").

22 These links enable civil society groups to in uence policymak- ers' perceptions of social problems|and ultimately the policy solutions they enact. 23 Spires (2011) similarly sees the Chinese state and civil society groups as interdepen- dent and engaged in \contingent symbiosis": state actors tolerate the presence of illegal organizations if they are able to claim credit for those organizations' achieve- ments. And a new body of work on isomorphic pressures and organizational elds helps us better understand why some organizations pursue closer ties with the local state than others, and why the local state may better understand NGOs in some circumstances than others. 24 While these new sources explore variation in nonstate organizations' locations, the professional backgrounds of their founders, and their resource strategies, I argue that they must be complemented by detailed attention to the individuals who make up the Chinese state. While a large body of work has described the varying behavior of o cials at di erent levels of the Chinese Party-state hierarchy and across di erent agencies at the same level, 25 this complex picture of the state|and particularly of the individual-level incentive structures that drive o cials to act in di erent ways|is largely absent from the research on Chinese civil society. Furthermore, scholars have attributed both the CCP's political and economic strength and some of China's most intractible governance problems to the career incentives used to motivate individual o cials. 26 However, whether these incentives motivate o cials to work with civil society groups remains largely unexplored. 22 Teets (2013, 2014).

23 Teets (2016).

24 Hasmath & Hsu (2014); C. Hsu & Jiang (2015); J. Hsu et al. (2016).

25 Heberer & Schubert (2012); Lieberthal & Lampton (1992); Mertha (2009); Smith (2010).

26 Chung (2016); Edin (2003, 2003a); Heberer & Schubert (2012); Landry (2008); O'Brien & Li (1999).

8 Data This paper draws on 65 interviews with NGO employees, experts, and county and township government o cials. The civil society actors I interviewed worked for a range of organizations; while none sought to challenge the state, some were un- registered while others were registered GONGOs founded by lifelong government employees. These interviews were conducted between 2009 and 2012 as part of a broader pro ject on public service provision in ethnically diverse areas of rural China.

As a result, all the organizations discussed in this article were involved in health- and education-related programming, or in infrastructure construction, and imple- mented many of their programs in resource-poor areas. I also rely on observations collected during non-participant observation of two NGOs engaged in direct provision of health and education services in southwestern China, EdJustice and the Center for Community Empowerment (CCE). 27 Both were founded by private individuals, and had strong relationships with the some local o cials. One organization had foreign founders, while the other was founded by a successful member of the local elite. De- spite this key di erence, which gave the two organizations varying degrees of local knowledge and di erent resource bases, there were strong similarities in their rela- tionships with local o cials, which should increase our con dence in the broader relevance of the dynamics described in this article. The argument of this article thus should not be presumed to apply to all Chinese NGOs. Rather, it is most applicable to those that employ what C. Hsu & Jiang (2015) call a \state alliance" (as opposed to \state avoidance") strategy. Because the organizations I study focus on public service provision, their goals typically align quite well with those of local governments. Furthermore, these organizations were all 27 These names are pseudonyms to protect the identities of my interviewees; throughout the article, I use ctional place, organization, and individual names for this reason.

9 either based in the ethnically diverse southwest or ran programs in ethnic minority areas, which were typically also resource-poor; the dynamics I describe here might not apply to areas where local o cials have less need for the material resources that NGOs could supply. The scholarly literature on promotion incentives and local o cial behavior describes su ciently consistent nationwide dynamics to suggest that the basic dynamics described here should hold in other regions of China as well.

That said, the importance of regional variation in civil society management should not be understated, 28 and it may be di cult for NGOs to develop relationships with \innovators" in places where these organizations are either less necessary or more politically sensitive than the areas I studied.

Innovators Prior research suggests that Chinese o cials are highly responsive, in both positive and negative ways, to the performance targets set for them by higher levels of gov- ernment. Since cooperation with NGOs is not explicitly rewarded by the monitoring and promotion system for local o cials, one might expect the Cadre Responsibility System to have little bearing on o cials' interactions with civil society groups. On the contrary, however, my interviews suggest that the same political incentives that drive local o cials in other contexts color these o cials' attitudes toward nonstate organizations as well. The head of a Yunnan-based public health organization with programs in several minority autonomous areas argued, for instance, that local o - cials always \look up": They take action only when doing something increases their performance score and their likelihood of promotion. 29 While scholars often assume that economic growth and social stability are the primary goals that local o cials 28 J. Hsu et al. (2016); Teets (2014).

29 Interview with head of local public health NGO, Yunnan, 2010.

10 seek to achieve, these o cials' superiors are now su ciently interested in social ser- vice provision that \political achievements" like decreasing the local HIV infection and engaging volunteers to provide public services are worth their while as well. As a result, local o cials may be willing to work with NGOs whose work promotes these goals. 30 More broadly, creativity and innovation can earn o cials the positive at- tention of their superiors and improve their promotion prospects. As the head of a local GONGO told me, all o cials want to do something \creative" to show o to higher-level o cials in the hope of earning a promotion; implementing an innova- tive program|such as working with a non-state organization to provide services to citizens in a new way|is one way of doing this. 31 For these \innovators"|o cials interested in spearheading new programs in order to boost their own promotion prospects|working with NGOs may be a logical ap- proach. 32 Employees of foreign NGOs, domestic NGOs, and GONGOs all frequently describe their primary contribution as an ability to experiment with new approaches to public service provision. Because these organizations are often small and resource- constrained, running experimental pilot programs is often all they can a ord to do; they have to simply hope that if a pilot program is successful, the local government will take over the program and implement it on a larger scale. 33 Indeed, government adoption of an experimental program is the best evidence, for one local GONGO, 30 Interview with local employee of international NGO, Beijing, 2010; interview with academic expert on civil society, Hong Kong, 2010. 31Interview with head of local GONGO, Yunnan, 2010.

32 Working closely with NGOs is unlikely to be the onlyaction these o cials take to distinguish themselves as innovators; energetic and promotion-oriented, they pursue multiple types of innovation in an e ort to attract the attention of their supervisors (Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011. The claim of this article is not that working with an NGO causeso cials to be promoted, but rather that \innovator" o cials perceive NGOs as one tool they can use to improve promotion prospects, and this perception shapes their interactions with nonstate actors. 33Interview with head of CCE, Sichuan, 2010. Several of the interviewees quoted in C. Hsu & Jiang (2015) make similar claims.

11 that a program has been successful.

34 Whereas local o cials are often risk-averse, unwilling to try new approaches unless their success is virtually guaranteed, non-state service providers are willing to try new things, even knowing that they may fail. And they often do so with the tacit support of the local government, who wants to see whether new approaches to public service provision will work but doesn't want to assume direct responsibility for these experiments. 35 In the service of enabling these experiments to succeed, promotion-minded o cials provide substantial support to NGOs|far more than existing literature would lead us to believe. EdJustice, an educational NGO established by foreigners but with signi cant support from Chinese elites, provides a useful example of this dynamic. 36 EdJustice depended heavily on the support of a single prefectural o cial, described by the organization's director as the \hook in the wall" on which all of the organization's programs and relationships hang. In an in uential provincial-level position when the organization's founders rst met him, the o cial was later sent to the countryside ( xiaxiang ) to serve as Party Secretary of Bright Sun, a poor prefecture-level city.

Given 3-5 years to evolutionize" Bright Sun|an achievement that would likely earn him a promotion|Party Secretary Yao sought to partner with the NGO to bring new resources and an innovative new approach to improving educational outcomes in Bright Sun. In some ways, the dynamic between Yao and EdJustice seems consistent with Spires (2011)'s credit-claiming story. Yao stood to bene t from positive attention by higher-level o cials should EdJustice succeed in improving the prefecture's educa- tional outcomes, through very little e ort of his own. Yao's interest in the partnership was not purely about claiming credit for others' work, however. Yao is one of a class 34 Interview with head of local GONGO, Yunnan, 2010.

35 Interview with head of local public health NGO, Yunnan, 2010.

36 Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

12 of o cials who are \ambitious, smart, interested in the welfare of the people they serve, and interested in new models." 37 He pushed the organization to expand their programs more broadly than they would have done otherwise|a strategy that could back re, but one that made sense for an upwardly mobile o cial intent seeking credit for initiating large-scale educational reform. He also ensured that the prefectural education bureau committed resources to help the organization's programs succeed, including funding for assisting with volunteer placement and substantial logistical support from education bureau o cials. While Party Secretary Yao was an especially active partner, EdJustice relied on a similar partnership with an entrepreneurial county leader, Governor Zhang, at a sec- ond pro ject site, Cloud Forest County (located outside Bright Sun Prefecture) as well.

While many county leaders were nervous about partnering with a non-state organiza- tion, Governor Zhang pushed the partnership through \by sheer force of personality," although he was not the organization's only advocate (the vice bureau chief of the education bureau was also supportive of the organization). While Governor Zhang did not provide the same level of material support to the organization that it received in Bright Sun Prefecture, his willingness to actively support the organization, and to task the education bureau with providing logistical support, made it possible for EdJustice to operate in the county. Indeed, the presence of a supportive \innovator" in Governor Zhang was one of the reasons that EdJustice chose to operate in the county in the rst place. In addition to material support, innovators aid NGOs by providing access to the cellular structure of the Chinese state. 38 While organizations' ties to the state are often contingent and personalistic, based on a friendship or a serendipitous meeting 37 Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

38 For a detailed overview of the evolving tiao/kuaisystem, see Mertha (2005).

13 with a single o cial, 39 o cials are embedded in horizontal, place-based networks as well as vertical, issue-area based ones (the tiao/kuaisystem). By providing access to both types of networks, o cials who serve as active partners to non-state service providers can enable organizations to work in a broader set of locations, and to make their programs more ambitious, than would otherwise be possible.

One Sichuan-based NGO provides a useful example of the ways in which the active partnership of a single bureau can spawn a broader network of ties to di erent levels of government and to o ces organized around di erent issue areas, and ultimately improve an organization's e cacy. The organization, the Center for Community Empowerment (CCE), runs a variety of education, health, and economic development programs in several minority autonomous counties, many of which are also among the poorest counties in the province. Because of its emphasis on helping women and girls, the organization's strongest ties are to the women's federation ( fulian) at the prefectural level. The vertical hierarchy of the fulianhas given the organization access to county-level partners (each county has a fulianbranch), and has assured the organization assistance from townships and villages o cials because the county fulian maintains close ties to female cadres at these levels. 40 Without access to this vertical network, CCE would have di culty implementing its programs. 41 The prefectural fulian's horizontal linkages to other issue-based o ces at the same geographic level in the administrative hierarchy were also a valuable resource for CCE. Most importantly, the prefectural fulianintroduced CCE to o cials from the prefectural labor bureau. This led to a partnership under which the labor bureau 39 Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011; interview with head of foreign NGO, Yunnan, 2010. 40Interview with local employee of CCE, Sichuan, 2010.

41 This phenomenon is not limited to CCE. The head of a local NGO in Yunnan also described these vertical networks as essential: Without them, organizations would need to build new relationships at each level of government. Building ties with one bureau at the provincial or prefectural level enabled easy access to lower-level o ces. Interview with director of local NGO, Yunnan, 2010.

14 introduced girls who had graduated from CCE's work training program to prospec- tive employers both within Sichuan (hotels, restaurants, and tourism companies) and outside the province (factories in coastal cities). This was a mutually bene cial ar- rangement. As the organization initially struggled to convince \impatient" girls to complete the extensive training program, the promise of reliable work opportunities provided an incentive for program participants to complete the program, which helped the organization accomplish its goals and made it a more attractive candidate for for- eign foundation funding. And for the labor bureau, tasked in part with providing workers to employers in coastal cities, CCE provided a steady stream of relatively well-prepared potential workers in an area where most residents' poor Mandarin and limited education inhibited their ability to succeed outside their villages. 42 These productive partnerships with innovators complicate the notion that auton- omy is a desirable goal for NGOs. Employees certainly express some frustration with these relationships, to which they often believe they make an unequal contribution.

One employee of a public health NGO complained that NGOs are \paying for their own programs and paying the government for the privilege of being able to imple- ment them." 43 Another argued that NGOs are legitimate in a way that the local state is not: \We solve the problems [the government] hasn't solved." 44 Despite these frustrations, however, organizations often have little choice but to work closely with the state|and many would not want to avoid such a partnership even if they could. Somewhat paradoxically, partnering with o cials can provide organizations with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens they hope to serve. Citizens largely dis- trust Chinese NGOs; their trust in NGOs has remained lower than their trust in the government, even as awareness of local and central government corruption has 42 Interview with local employee of international NGO, Beijing, 2010.

43 Interview with employee of foreign public health NGO, Yunnan, 2010.

44 Interview with head of CCE, Sichuan, 2010.

15 increased.

45 Unsurprisingly, organizations respond to these dynamics by tying them- selves more closely to the Chinese state. One study of the Chinese NGO Pro ject Hope argues that that NGO sta intentionally \blurred the distinction between their charitable organization and the state." 46 And the head of CCE argued that without the partnership of o cials from the fulian, it might have been di cult to recruit girls to participate in one of the organization's training programs, as many citizens regard NGOs with some suspicion. 47 Organizations that try to operate independently from the state often face harrassment by government o cials and skepticism from citizens, who are wary of complicating their own relationship with local government. 48 Given these dynamics, it is hardly surprising that many organizations see a partnership with an \innovator" as an essential tool for organizational success.

Organizations do incur two types of costs by depending heavily on these relation- ships, however. First, their lack of autonomy from \innovator" o cials means that the spatial distribution of NGO pro jects often re ects o cials' preferences|based largely on what will improve their promotion prospects|rather than the organization's mis- sion. Like many non-state organizations operating in China, EdJustice explicitly sought to ameliorate the inequitable distribution of resources between rural and ur- ban areas. Insofar as Bright Sun contains several poor counties with large minority populations and is located in one of China's poorest provinces, the partnership with Secretary Yao has helped the organization to successfully pursue this goal. However, EdJustice was given limited discretion over the localities in which it operated. Al- though the director described the process of choosing county work sites within Bright Sun as a \process of negotiation" between the organization and their partners in the 45 Dickson (2016).

46 C. Hsu (2008, 89).

47 Interview with head of CCE, Sichuan, 2010.

48 Interview with head of local NGO, Yunnan, 2010.

16 prefectural government, EdJustice was bargaining from a position of weakness given its dependence on these government ties. Thus, despite the organization's rural and egalitarian focus, it began by implementing its programs in counties close to the pre- fectural capital and even one in the prefectural capital|a developed city relative to the surrounding rural areas|in order to give face to prefectural o cials from Bright Sun. 49 Other organizations have even less input than EdJustice had over the location of its pro jects. According to an employee of an international development organization with several programs in minority areas throughout China, the organization's high- level government partners exert complete control over the spatial distribution of the organization's programs. The organization works closely with the poverty alleviation bureau ( fupinban), and said that the national fupinbantypically directed the orga- nization to work with a given provincial poverty alleviation o ce, which would in turn specify a list of counties to work in within the province. My interviewee did not see this dynamic as problematic, claiming that he best way to help the Chinese government [phrasing she later changed to he Chinese people"] is to go where the government says the need is greatest." 50 \Innovator" o cials have incentives to place programs in certain types of localities, however, for reasons other than the severity of the area's need. Inducing EdJustice to work with schools in the Bright Sun prefectural capital ensured that Secretary Yao's innovative approach to educational reform would be observed by the higher- level responsibles in charge of monitoring his performance and recommending him for promotion. Should the organization have operated far from the prefectural capital, in the types of locales the organization originally set out to serve, this would not 49 Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

50 Interview with employee of international development NGO, Beijing, 2011.

17 necessarily have been the case. Prefectural capitals and other nearby areas are also the places where a leader like Secretary Yao, brought in from elsewhere with few local ties, must forge a support base in the local political elite in order to e ectively do his job. Agreeing to serve these relatively proximate areas increased EdJustice's political value to Bright Sun o cials (including Yao), but also meant that relatively well-o areas of the prefecture|those already privileged by geographic proximity to political elites|received a disproportionate share of the organization's services. 51 The organization was able to push back against o cials' preferences to some degree|it refused to work in one proposed pro ject site that was clearly not in need of additional resources|but could not assert its own demands too strongly without jeopardizing its important relationships with its backers. 52 These spatial dynamics are not inevitable. CCE, for example, was able to operate in the counties it saw as the most needy, rather than relying on prefectural o cials to determine where the organization would operate. But CCE also had unusually strong local knowledge and support that made this possible: The organization's founder was from the prefecture and had strong personal ties to local elites, and the sta had nearly all grown up in the area. For many organizations that lack this local knowledge base, the information that o cials can provide is an essential resource for the success of their programs, but dependence on this information also makes their programs vulnerable to the same biases, spatial and otherwise, that inform those o cials' performance of their own duties. A second cost to relying on innovators is that doing so can imperil an organiza- tion's long-term position. Depending on innovators ties organizations to temporary residents of the places where they operate, since these o cials typically have their 51 The spatial logic underpinning promotion incentives leads o cials to prioritize direct provision of public services to these same proximate areas (Author, 2015). 52Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

18 eye on their next promotion up and out of their current locality or position. Once these o cials move on to the next position, organizations may nd it di cult to func- tion e ectively. EdJustice, for instance, encountered di culties when the supportive vice-head of the county education bureau in Cloud Forest County was promoted to a position in the prefectural government. 53 This is not especially surprising; the ed- ucation bureau o cial was likely supportive of EdJustice in the rst place in part because he saw the organization as a tool to improve his own promotion prospects.

Organizations thus face a di cult dilemma. They often choose where to operate because they have the support of innovative, openminded ( kaifang) leaders in those localities, 54 but those leaders are unlikely to stay put; the very qualities that make them good partners for NGOs also make them good candidates for promotion.

EdJustice used a variety of strategies to shelter the organization from the depar- ture of a supportive \innovator." Describing e orts to move away from personalistic ties to individual leaders toward more programmatic ties as \di cult but necessary," the organization's leaders pursued a dual strategy of attempting to formalize their relationships with supportive organizations at universities and in the provincial ed- ucation bureau while simultaneously fostering personal ties to individual leaders by doing favors for those leaders and pursuing personal connections with other VIPs who could potentially assist the organization. Because formal agreements (such as a Mem- orandum of Understanding with an o ce within the Education Bureau) were only implemented when supportive \innovators" put pressure on a particular government o ce, 55 the two strategies were not substitutes for each other, and the organization was likely to continue to depend on individual relationships with o cials even as its 53 Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

54 Interview with head of local GONGO, Yunnan, 2010; interview with local employee of interna- tional NGO, Beijing, 2010. 55Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

19 formal bureaucratic ties deepened.

Implementers What about organizations' relationships with the o cials who dostay put? Although much is made of promotion incentives in the Chinese politics literature, only a handful of the o cials I encountered during my eldwork seemed eager to move up the Party- state hierarchy. As one Yunnan county o cial explained to me, most o cials he knows just want a comfortable life in their home county, without the pressure and move away from family that a promotion typically entails. 56 Indeed, the o cials I refer to as \implementers"|typically long-term employees of a single bureau with little interest in a rapid ascent|make up a substantial proportion of local o cialdom, and represent a di erent facet of the local state that NGOs encounter. Relationships with these \implementers" pose a di erent set of challenges than ones with \innovators." Without a strong personal career incentive to motivate cooperation, implementers are often reluctant to work closely with non-state organizations. Organizations must build partnerships with o cials who vary dramatically in their enthusiasm, aversion to risk, and commitment to an organizations' goals. These challenges are a result of the principal-agent problems created by the multilevel structure of the Chinese state. There is no guarantee that an innovator's commitment to cooperation with a civil society organization is shared by the o cials he supervises; facing di erent incentives and time horizons, these lower-level o cials cannot easily be forced to actively cooperate with organizations toward which they are skeptical. Once an organization has established a relationship with an innovator, it typically relies on a web of lower-level o cials to help implement its programs. In the case of 56 Interview with county o cial, Yunnan, 2011.

20 CCE, the organization's partners in the prefectural women's bureau connected the organization to county-level women's bureau o cials, who in turn helped to recruit female township and village o cials to assist with direct implementation of CCE's programs. For example, CCE ran HIV/AIDS prevention education programs for rural women and distributed free condoms to women who partipated. Operating with a small sta that could not have easily conducted these trainings on their own, CCE relied on the participation of these female local o cials to amplify the organization's impact. In order to do this, CCE employees brought female township and village o cials together for training; these o cials were then tasked with returning to their home villages and recreating the training for female residents. Without the partnership of these \implementers," CCE would have been largely unable to conduct its programs|a problem likely to be even moresevere for organiza- tions that lacked the deep local knowledge and elite ties that CCE's leaders possessed.

The rst obstacle was organizational capacity: CCE elds a small sta , and would have been unable to directly conduct trainings in many villages in a short period of time. Bringing local women together in a central location for a training would also have been di cult, as transportation conditions between villages are extremely poor and women belonging to the local ethnic minority group bear an unusually heavy workload. 57 Even if their numbers had been greater, CCE sta would likely have been unable to conduct these trainings with village women themselves due to local cultural norms (male employees could not have discussed sex with village women, for instance). Even female employees of the organization were regarded with suspicion as village outsiders; they came from the same prefecture and belonged to the same ethnic group, but were more educated and far more assimilated into Han culture than the village women. In some villages, they had little di culty interacting with local 57 Interview with employee of CCE, 2010.

21 women who participated in CCE's programs, but in others the women were reluctant even to participate in a follow-up survey conducted by these employees to evaluate the organization's programs. 58 The help of local female o cials who were well known to village residents was thus essential to the organization's ability to reach a large number of citizens.

But CCE's relationships with these implementers, though vital to the organiza- tion's success, were not uncomplicated. Some o cials enthusiastically embraced the task of conducting trainings for local women, and the organization's follow-up surveys found local residents to be quite knowledgeable about HIV prevention. Other o cials were the opposite, however|some simply failed to conduct the trainings at all, while others did so in such a cursory way that local women were unable to answer any basic questions about HIV prevention, to the frustration of CCE employees. Because they had no viable alternative, however, there was little the organization could do to force recalcitrant township and village o cials to do a more thorough job of implementing the organization's training curriculum. The grassroots o cials with which CCE partnered were not well-positioned for promotion to higher levels of government, even if they had been interested in moving up (many were functionally illiterate and spoke no Mandarin Chinese, for instance).

They thus did not face the same career incentives that \innovators" do when it came to participating in the implementation of an innovative program. Whether they worked hard to achieve the organization's goals seemed to be more a matter of personal interest in the organization's work than a rational calculation. The head of one GONGO claimed that when a higher-level o cial orders lower-level o cials to do something, they do it|a huge bene t of partnering with an innovator in a position to 58 Non-participant observation of CCE training programs, 2010.

22 assign tasks to lower-level o cials.

59 Perhaps GONGOs, due to their relatively close ties to the state, are better able to get their high-level backers to put pressure on lower- level \implementers" on their behalf. But the CCE example suggests principal-agent problems can be severe; even when \implementers" dutifully assist with a program, they may do so in ways that undermine the organization's e ectiveness. One of their primary bene ts as partners|their embeddedness in the local community, in contrast to \innovator" o cials who often parachute in from elsewhere|can be a double-edged sword: They may have strong opinions and preferences regarding the needs of their community that do not necessarily accord with the organization's philosophy. The nature of EdJustice's partnerships with implementers was somewhat di er- ent, but the two organizations faced similar challenges as a result of the disconnect between innovators' goals and those of implementers. After building a relationship with an \innovator" in a high-level leadership position in each of its sites, the or- ganization worked most directly with the prefectural and county education bureaus.

Even though these bureaus' superiors were enthusiastic supporters of the organiza- tion, these relationships were somewhat fraught. Education bureau o cials had little to gain and much to lose by forging overly close ties to the organization; whereas the innovator could distance himself from the organization should it get into political or other trouble|education was only one part of his broad portfolio|education bureau o cials would likely be unable to avoid taking responsibility, and could face a sub- stantial career penalty. 60 And while high-risk, high-reward gambles are sometimes worthwhile for o cials looking to stand out from a crowd, as \innovators" tend to do, there is little bene t to risk-taking for o cials simply looking to maintain stable employment in their current position. 59 Interview with head of GONGO, Yunnan, 2010.

60 Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

23 When it comes to partnering with implementers, then, organizations may thus nd themselves (and their innovator partners) simply ignored. EdJustice established a relationship with the international o ce of the provincial education department, and brought an o cial from that department to Cloud Forest County to encourage teachers to incorporate more creative methods for teaching oral English into their classrooms. Because teachers were evaluated on the basis of their students' test scores rather than on their spoken English, however, neither the o cial nor EdJustice could successfully convince local teachers to make oral English a priority. 61 As was the case of nonstate organizations' relationships with \innovators," these relationships with \implementers" complicate the notion of organizational autonomy, calling into question whether such autonomy is either possible or desirable. Although organizational leaders and employees frequently expressed frustration with do-nothing local o cials, in the multilevel Chinese system|under which interaction with these o cials was essentially unavoidable|these organizations often wanted moreinvolve- ment than local o cials were willing to provide, not less. 62 But the severe principal- agent problems that arise from the misalignment of the goals of innovative, upwardly mobile o cials and those of bureaucrats in the trenches mean that organizations often have less support from o cials than they would like.

Conclusion This paper argues for shifting our attention away from organizational autonomy| which the examples presented here suggest is neither possible nor desirable|to a 61 Interview with director of EdJustice, Beijing, 2011.

62 Exceptions include cases where the government is distrusted by the population an organiza- tion serves. For a public health organization serving IV drug users, for instance, the most helpful support that the government partner (the local CDC) provided was to secure a promise from the public security bureau to refrain from arresting program participants. Interview with employee of international public health organization, Yunnan, 2010.

24 more detailed investigation of organizational dependenceon individual o cials. The state, as China's NGOs experience it, is multifaceted: It contains not only laws and bureaus, but also self-interested individuals who seek to achieve their own goals within the strictures of a complex, multilevel bureaucracy. Di erent types of o cials face dif- ferent career incentives: \innovators" seek to draw attention through entrepreneurial governance strategies (and thus to maximize their own promotion prospects), while \implementers" seek to minimize political risk and avoid spending time on innovators' pet pro jects that are unlikely to bene t them personally. As nonstate organizations seek to function in a multilevel system in which the former type often oversees the latter, they often bene t from close ties to the rst group, and struggle to overcome the second's reluctance to engage with them. This suggests that organizations often do not see autonomy as a valuable asset. Close integration with the local state comes at a cost, however. First, it means that organizations are often deployed in support of o cials' goals in much the same way that discretionary government pro jects can be, with the result that non-state organizations' programs often exhibit the same kinds of spatial and other biases as government services do. And second, close ties to \innovator" o cials can leave organizations in a weak long-term position; these o cials are often deployed only temporarily to a given locale, and without support from the \implementers" who stay behind, the organization's viability is unlikely to outlast the tenure of their primary backer. Recent changes to the legal environment in which China's civil society organiza- tions function may alter the dynamics described in this article, but are unlikely to undermine them completely. While some hope that the Charity Law (implemented 1 September 2016) will produce bene ts for NGOs, such as greater ease of registra- tion, there are also concerns that parts of the law, such as the \social ethics" ( shehui 25 gongde ) provisions, are dangerously ambiguous. 63 Many see the Overseas NGO Law (1 January 2017) as repressive; it sub jects organizations to stricter registration re- quirements and to monitoring by the Ministry of Public Security. 64 While it is still too early to assess the long-term e ects of these policy changes, one possibility is that they will make it more di cult for NGOs to secure the backing of \innovators," for two reasons. First, NGOs are useful to these promotion-oriented o cials in part because of the resources they can bring to cash-strapped areas. New restrictions on foreign funding are likely to a ect these organizations|both CCE and EdJustice de- pend on support from foreign foundations, for instance|and may make them less useful partners to o cials intent on rapid implementation of programs that will earn them positive attention from their superiors. Second, if the purpose of the new laws is (in part) to sub ject NGOs to more systematic and formal oversight, their interactions with supervising bureaus may now leave fewer opportunities for personal, relatively informal relationships between individual \innovators" and NGOs to develop. However, it is unlikely that the dynamics described in this article will disappear completely. NGOs in China have always operated in (and despite) an unfavorable legal environment, so the new laws may mark less of a radical departure than early commentary suggests. It is possible that, by clarifying what is and is not permitted, the new laws will actually make it easier for NGOs to function in China. 65 Further- more, the ndings of this article are consistent with C. Hsu & Teets (2016)'s claim that o cials and bureaus develop a vested interest in the success of the NGOs on which they depend. As long as \innovator" o cials see partnerships with NGOs as a pathway to promotion, they are likely to protect and continue to work with the organizations that can bene t them. Without fundamental changes to the evaluation 63 Santos (2016); Spires (2016).

64 Wong (2016).

65 C. Hsu & Teets (2016).

26 and promotion system for local o cials, this dynamic is unlikely to change.

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