Flexible Organizational Weapon of the Party: The New Presence of Women’s Federations in Women’s NGOs in China

In the past decade, the Party-state has shifted from pragmatic strategies
to Party integration approaches when dealing with the third
sector. It has reintroduced its organizational mechanism—mass organizations—
to manage this sector and enhance direct linkages with its
social constituents. This article investigates how mass organizations
strategically connect with and govern civil society through a series of
Party integration approaches. Drawing on the cases of women’s federations
(WFs) and women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
we propose a new typology of NGOs based on their relations with the
Party: WF-affiliated, civic and independent NGOs. We then evaluate
WFs’ Party integration strategies directed at each type of NGOs. First,
NGOs directly affiliated with WFs/the Party play a unique political role.
Second, to increase regime support, WFs develop patronage relations
with civic women’s NGOs that are managed via the administrative
system but unembedded in the Party system. Third, independent
NGOs detached from both the Party and administrative organizations
are flexibly marginalized. This article suggests that Party–state–society
relations have been rewritten: civil society faces compound control
from the administrative and Party systems, and the Party aims to build
organizational hegemony.