Negotiating Political Spaces

Social and Environmental Activism in the Chinese Countryside

With an empirical case study from the western Chinese countryside, this paper explores how social organizations both adapt to the restrictive authoritarian framework and negotiate the spaces opening up to society in the realms of environmental and social politics. The study shows that while the party-state understands organizations as consultants and partners in service provision, they have a deviating self-image with the western concepts of "NGO" and "civil society" becoming increasingly relevant as frames of reference.

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