Global Networks 8, 2 (2008) 232–252. ISSN 1470–2266. © 2008 The Author(s)
232 Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd & Global Networks Partnership
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society:
transnational cooperation in Chinese NGOs
STEPHANIE CHAN
Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego,
401 Social Science Building, 9500 Gilman Drive,
La Jolla, CA 92093-0533, USA
stchan@ucsd.edu
Abstract Transnational networks and organizations are often hailed as embodiments
and carriers of global civil society, yet these assessments remain incomplete due to a
lack of empirical research on their internal dynamics. In this article, I investigate
whether or not transnational NGOs embody the cooperation across multiple social,
cultural and political cleavages central to definitions of global civil society by
exploring how multiple memberships are negotiated in the context of their everyday
tasks. Using organizational documents and interview data with staff of two Protestant
Christian development NGOs in China, I analyse how actors within these transnational
organizations successfully manage their multiple memberships in national
polities, national cultures, religious communities and a world culture. While multiple
memberships exhibit the potential both to enable and to constrain an NGO’s organizational
tasks, the key to making such ties enabling are staff who act as skilful crosscultural
brokers. Thus, the type of social capital required to render multiple
memberships beneficial and not harmful to the organizations also makes these
organizations true indicators of a developing global civil society.
Keywords GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY, TRANSNATIONAL NGO, RELIGION, SOCIAL CAPITAL,
CHINA
Transnational networks and organizations are often treated as primary indicators of
global civil society (Anheier et al. 2001; Smith 1998; Smith and Wiest 2005; Tsutsui
and Wotipka 2004). Yet, most of these analyses ignore the internal dynamics of these
networks and organizations, rendering assessments of whether or not they are truly
representative of global civil society incomplete. The inner workings of these transnational
interactions matter most for conceptualizations of civil society that draw upon
Tocqueville and his theoretical successors. In Helmut Anheier’s (2007) recent
assessment of the current state of the field of global civil society research, he suggests
that one of the most neglected elements in empirical research is the civility aspect of
global civil society. As Peter Berger (2005: 14) asserts:
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society
© 2008 The Author(s) 233
Civil society is as civil society does. If there are institutions and cultural
developments that enhance civility across borders and continents, then one can
indeed speak of global civil society in the making. NGOs can be part of this.
But it is important not to lose sight of the fact that there are other globalizing
institutions, movements, and cultural diffusions that are highly uncivil. And
NGOs can be a part of this, too.
Do relationships in transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) actually
embody the ‘civility’ characteristic of ‘global civil society’? In particular, do they
embody the cooperation across crosscutting social, cultural, religious and political
cleavages that is central to global civil society? How are these crosscutting ties
negotiated in the process of conducting a transnational NGO’s organizational tasks?
To answer these questions, I examine two Protestant Christian development NGOs
in China that have been successful in achieving transnational cooperation across
extreme social, cultural and political cleavages. I refer to these organizations as transnational
NGOs since they involve high degrees of transnational cooperation.
1
According
to prevailing theories and previous studies, China represents one of the least
probable historical, political and cultural contexts in which to find NGOs that exhibit
the transnational cooperation characteristic of a truly global civil society. Moreover,
according to some perspectives, religious organizations like these are also improbable
sites of the ‘civility’ component in definitions of global civil society. Studying sites
where an outcome predicted by theory does not occur helps us to test the governing
assumptions of a theory as well as to expand its range of explanation (Emigh 1997).
Although some of my conclusions in this article may be case and locale specific, there
are lessons we can extract from these cases regarding the mechanisms of crosscultural
negotiation and the effects of multicultural environments on a transnational
NGO’s organizational tasks that may be illuminating for analysing other transnational
organizations constituted by crosscutting ties and multiple memberships.
The results of this investigation reveal that we must re-examine some of the
assumptions underlying theorizing about NGOs and global civil society. Contrary to
theories that predict that China is an unlikely locale, these cases reveal that there are
at least pockets of a thriving global civil society in China. Contrary to theories that
predict a lack of civility among religious NGOs, I find that religion can both constrain
and bolster civility. Finally, filling in the gap in research on the mechanisms that
facilitate cooperation across crosscutting ties, these two cases illustrate how the
process of cross-cultural negotiation works via the agency of staff who act as skilful
cross-cultural brokers. Thus, the type of social capital required to render multiple
memberships beneficial and not harmful to the organizations also makes these organizations
true indicators of a developing global civil society.
Transnational cooperation, global civil society, and social capital
John Keane’s ideal type of global civil society provides a framework for examining
whether or not the internal dynamics of transnational networks and organizations are
Stephanie Chan
234 © 2008 The Author(s)
indicative of global civil society. As Keane (2003) points out, five features
characterize this ideal type. Global civil society:
1. consists of non-governmental structures and activities;
2. is a form of society;
3. exhibits civility;
4. contains both strong traces of pluralism and strong conflict potential; and
5. is global.
2
By definition, transnational NGOs fit three of these five criteria – they are nongovernmental,
a form of society, and global.
3
However, it is in the remaining two
criteria – civility and strong conflict potential – that assessments of transnational
networks and organizations as indicators of global civil society become murky. Keane
(2003: 14) defines civility as a ‘proclivity towards non-violence and respect for the
principles of compromise, mutual respect, and power-sharing among different ways
of life’. The strong conflict potential results precisely from these different ways of
life. Thus, civility combined with strong conflict potential means that global civil
society ‘looks and feels expansive and polyarchic, full of horizontal push and pull,
vertical conflict and compromise’ (Keane 2003: 16). For transnational networks and
organizations truly to embody global civil society, they must exhibit cooperation
across crosscutting social, cultural, religious and political cleavages. Neither the
cleavages nor the cooperation can be absent.
Abdullahi An-Na’im further elaborates on how the quality of this negotiation
process and the ability to participate in it should be central to studies of civility in
global civil society. He states that ‘global civil society can be seen as consisting of
various actors with different objectives negotiating to broaden and deepen their
overlapping consensus about the normative framework of their global association’
(An-Na’im 2002: 57). Global civil society is about agreement, despite differences, on
the conditions necessary for the process of negotiation: ‘mutual respect and appreciation
of cultural and contextual difference and the possibility of peaceful
coexistence’ (An-Na’im 2002: 57). Thus, civility is contingent on how diverse cleavages
are managed.
Despite an increase in empirical research on global civil society, empirical studies
of ‘civility’ within it are lacking. When searching for the emergence of global civil
society, scholars often look towards international non-governmental organizations
(INGOs) and transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) as key indicators,
treating them as instances of the transnational cooperation that characterizes a
global civil society. Scholars of domestic civil society who have been informed by
Robert Putnam’s (1993; 2000) work on civic associations and social capital test
theories of the vibrancy of civil society by examining domestic voluntary and civic
associations. Scholars of global civil society, in turn, have made INGOs and TSMOs
their stock-in-trade (Anheier et al. 2001; Smith 1998; Smith and Wiest 2005; Tsutsui
and Wotipka 2004). However, the true test of whether or not these transnational
organizations are representative of the emergence of global civil society is not only in
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society
© 2008 The Author(s) 235
their quantitative increase but also in the quality of their internal dynamics. Associations,
according to Putnam, are indicators of a vibrant civil society because they
both indicate the existence of and facilitate the production of social capital. Putnam
(1995: 67) defines social capital as ‘features of social organizations, such as networks,
norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit’.
However, since not all types of social capital are conducive to ‘civility’ or to
cooperation across diverse groups, we must investigate not only whether or not these
associations exist but also what types of social capital are evident within them. Social
capital may produce negative effects, including the exclusion of outsiders to the group
(Portes 1998). Putnam distinguishes between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital.
Bonding social capital is ‘inward looking and tend[s] to reinforce exclusive identities
and homogenous groups’, while bridging social capital is ‘outward looking and
encompass[es] people across diverse social cleavages’ (Putnam 2000: 22). He argues
that both have potential to have positive effects; however, he also notes that bonding
social capital may negatively lead to out-group antagonism. An important question for
global civil society, then, is how to manage bonding capital so that it is beneficial and
not corrosive to a group. For transnational NGOs to embody global civil society, they
should exhibit a delicate blend of bonding and bridging social capital that promotes
connectedness as well as civil give-and-take. Improving upon counts of organizations,
some scholars have focused on investigating not only the quantity of organizations
but also the quality of the ties within and across these organizations (Paxton 2002;
Stolle and Rochon 1998). Yet, it is still a mystery how the presence of multiple
memberships and crosscutting ties is actually worked out within the organization.
While one can view social capital as an indicator of civil society, it also refers
more generally to social networks that serve as a resource for getting things done.
Pamela Paxton (2002: 256) writes that it is ‘the notion that social relations can
facilitate the production of economic and non-economic goods’. Organizations, in this
case, development organizations, can benefit from the social capital of its members.
Social capital can facilitate certain organizational tasks. Given that we can consider
social capital as both an indicator of civil society and a conduit for the more effective
completion of goals, we must ask whether the type of social capital that is conducive
to organizational tasks is also the type of social capital that may be characterized as
part of global civil society. Therefore, I analyse the social capital present in these
transnational organizations in the context of their everyday tasks.
Managing multiple cleavages
What types of cleavages are likely to emerge in transnational networks and
organizations? Drawing from the literature on transnational social movements, we
may speculate on the types of cleavages likely to be pervasive in instances of
transnational cooperation. Transnational organizing often breaks down along national
lines, as in the case of the Socialist International (Chatfield 1997) or the Mexican–
Canadian labour organizing efforts against NAFTA (Gabriel and Macdonald 1994).
Perhaps the most outstanding power asymmetry exists between Northern and
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236 © 2008 The Author(s)
Southern actors within transnational networks (Smith 2002), which underlies even the
most successful transnational efforts (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Most INGOs are still
based in the North (Sikkink and Smith 2002) and funding most often flows from
Northern funders to Southern beneficiaries, which some argue reinforces structural
inequalities. Moreover, while the Northern actors often focus on civil and political
issues, Southern actors are often more concerned with economic issues (Keck and
Sikkink 1998).
Important for the purposes of this article, in which I analyse religious NGOs, are
the theorized divides between religious and secular actors and limits to the civility of
religious actors. Historically, the concept of civility has been formulated in contrast to
the incivility of religion. Heba Raouf Ezzat (2004: 45) explains, ‘Civility was linked
to notions of secular rationalism and measured in daily life by European cultural
values that were heavily ethno-centric in this respect.’ As a result, many studies of
transnational NGOs have focused on secular, ‘progressive’ organizations to the
exclusion of religious ones (Anderson and Rieff 2004; Tarrow 2002). John Boli and
George Thomas (1999: 43) observe a small and declining percentage of INGOs in
religious sectors and speculate that this trend could reflect how ‘the individualism of
world culture works against collectivist forms of transnational organizing (labor,
family, religion, distinctive cultural identity)’. Paxton (2002: 270), in her study of the
presence of multiple memberships among international associations, concludes,
‘Three associations stand out as less connected than others: trade unions, sports
associations, and religious associations.’ Transnational religion is often cast as oppositional
to globalization, universalism, and civic transnationalism (Barber 1995;
Juergensmeyer 2005). Berger (2005: 15) writes, ‘I suspect that, in the aggregate,
religion is more likely to have negative consequences for civility – that is, religion,
more than not, tends to create conflict both within and between societies.’ Some
religious groups, like the Italian Catholic Church in Putnam’s study (1993) and the
Chinese Catholics in Richard Madsen’s study (1998) exhibit the ‘vertical bonds of
authority’ rather than ‘the horizontal bonds of fellowship’ characteristic of civic
community (Putnam 1993: 107).
However, one should not consider religion as uncivil by definition. Religion may
manifest itself in ways that are a threat to civility or in ways that are a strong
motivation for civil engagement, and the cases in which religion motivates one type
of action or the other must be investigated empirically (Ezzat 2004). What requires
further research is how ‘different global agents “negotiate” across the secularreligious
divide and how they achieve an “overlapping consensus”’ (Ezzat 2004: 45).
An emphasis on the process of establishing a transnational collective identity often
overshadows this negotiation process. Transnational social movement scholars focus
on the establishment of a collective identity that serves to unify transnational actors
despite their many differences. Citing Leila Rupp and Verta Taylor’s (1999) example
of the collective identity of ‘international sisterhood’ serving to unify feminists across
national, cultural and class distinctions, Jackie Smith (2002) and Sharon Erickson
Nepstad (2001) argue that establishing a collective identity is the mechanism used to
ease other potentially conflictual differences. Nepstad demonstrates how, despite their
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© 2008 The Author(s) 237
racial, class, ethnic, national and ideological differences, participants in the US–
Central America peace movement unified transnationally around their collective
identity as progressive Christians. Christian Smith (1996: 18) makes a similar claim
regarding religious bonds: ‘Most religions are national and transnational by nature,
and therefore create common bonds between people of differing national and global
regions, races, and classes, which can transcend and defy more proximate loyalties.’
In these accounts, it seems as if multiple social, political and cultural cleavages are
managed through the transcendence of a single membership above the others.
Yet such a zero-sum game where one membership trumps the others does not
seem compatible with the complex process of civil give-and-take necessary to
embody global civil society. Hence, if the diverse crosscutting ties in these transnational
NGOs are managed by the emergence of a ‘master’ tie that supersedes the
others, then this challenges the contrary claim that they are indicators of global civil
society. We see this paradox emerge in Nepstad’s study of the US–Central America
peace movement. She asks why not all American Christians, particularly the evangelicals,
fundamentalists and conservative denominations, joined the peace movement
and argues that the non-joiners were not ‘socialized to focus on justice, peace, and the
plight of the poor and oppressed’ (Nepstad 2001: 34). What we see is that the establishment
of a collective identity that serves to unify the members of the peace
movement also serves to exclude certain individuals or groups. While transcending
some differences, it also serves to reinforce others. As Nepstad (2001: 23) remarks,
‘Although a collective identity may enable activists within a transnational movement
to transcend their internal differences, we must also study how activists deal with the
external pressures and challenges of competing interests and identities.’ And, it is
precisely this element of the process of transnational cooperation, dealing with the
challenges of competing interests and identities, that would seem to provide the best
window into the civility, or lack thereof, within instances of transnational organization.
This negotiation process is the central concern of this article.
China: an improbable context for global civil society
China is an improbable place to find evidence of global civil society. Statist and nondemocratic
societies, according to previous studies, are not conducive to thriving
domestic civil societies nor the type of social capital that would support membership
in global civil society (Paxton 2002; Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas 2001; Smith
and Wiest 2005). Searches for civil society in China have come up rather empty. The
lack of fit between the concept of civil society and the conditions of NGOs and other
non-state actors in China has led scholars to conclude that civil society in China is at
best ‘emerging’, ‘nascent’, ‘partial’, or ‘incipient’ (Frolic 1997; He 1997; Hjellum
1998; Madsen 1998; Pei 1998; Weller 1998; White 1996; Whyte 1992; Zhang 1997).
Though scholars of transnational social movements provide examples of statist, nondemocratic
societies that are active participants in transnational activist networks, for
some an indicator of global civil society, they argue that the invulnerability of
China to military pressures and economic sanctions makes it a difficult target for
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238 © 2008 The Author(s)
transnational activism (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink
(1998: 118) use China as their ‘negative case’: ‘The Chinese case is negative substantiation
for the argument presented here: a weak, repressed, and divided domestic
movement, combined with little possibility for leverage politics, constitutes exactly
the conditions under which we would not expect successful human rights pressures.’
Given the statistical odds and pessimistic accounts of domestic civil society in
China, it presents a surprising context in which to find any semblance of global civil
society and the types of social capital supportive of a global civil society. It is
precisely this improbability that makes transnational NGOs in China and their successful
exhibition of the global give-and-take across social, cultural and political
cleavages interesting cases for study. What enables successful civil cooperation within
even a seemingly extreme and improbable case?
In sum, we are left with a theoretical puzzle. First, we must explain how these
transnational religious NGOs in China, despite the theorized antagonistic political
environment and theorized presence of potentially uncivil religious ties, are able to
exhibit cooperation across multiple social, cultural, religious and political cleavages.
Second, if it holds that the mechanism responsible for successful transnational
cooperation across diverse and multiple ties is the establishment of an overarching
collective identity, then a mode of cooperation exists within these NGOs that may be
incompatible with the civility and strong conflict potential aspects of Keane’s (2003)
global civil society ideal type. The following case studies will illuminate how we
need to reconsider the mechanisms of cooperation in light of the empirical study of
the internal dynamics of transnational NGOs. Transnational networks and organizations
do serve as accurate indicators of a global civil society, but through a
dynamic process of negotiation among crosscutting ties rather than through a transcendent
master tie.
Case studies: China Agape and ServeChina
Using interview data and organizational material, which includes internal documents,
annual reports and newsletters, I examine how crosscutting memberships in two
Protestant Christian development NGOs are managed and how they enable and constrain
their organizational tasks. I conducted ten in-depth interviews with staff
members and former staff members of China Agape and ServeChina.
4
Both these
NGOs have offices in mainland China and Hong Kong. I interviewed staff from both
sites for both these organizations, three staff in the mainland China office and one in
the Hong Kong office for China Agape and three staff in the mainland China office
and three in the Hong Kong office for ServeChina.
Although both these organizations focus their work on China, their donors, volunteers
and staff are transnational. While there were six foreign and forty local staff at
China Agape at the time of the interviews, 97 per cent of the organization’s funding
came from abroad, with only 3 per cent originating in China. Though it is a very
localized organization, as the high proportion of staff from China shows, its partnerships
with organizations and individuals from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland,
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society
© 2008 The Author(s) 239
Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
the UK and the United States shows that it is very international as well.
ServeChina, which places foreign development and relief professionals in China, has
100 national and 195 expatriate staff. In 2003, at the time of the interviews, the staff
included people from 21 different nations. Their funding comes mainly from international
NGOs, support networks in the professionals’ countries of origin, and the
Hong Kong government, and not locally from mainland China. It is difficult to get
accurate figures on the number of organizations like China Agape and ServeChina.
Estimates on the number of INGOs in China range from a conservative 490 by China
Development Brief, to 2297 in 2002 by the Union of International Association’s
Yearbook of International Organizations (Chen 2005), and 3000–6000 by Wang
Ming, director of the NGO Research Centre at Tsinghua University. According to
Wang Ming, 1000 of his estimated 3000–6000 organizations are, like China Agape
and ServeChina, faith-based.
The two NGOs I study here, China Agape and ServeChina, have achieved
‘success’ at the most basic level – survival. Given the precarious legal environment
for NGOs in China, particularly those with religious affiliations, this is no small task.
China Agape and ServeChina have many similarities. They are both development
organizations, aimed at promoting multi-faceted development in China. Both were
established in the 1980s, prior to the promulgation of any legal provisions for NGOs
in China. Local Chinese Christians founded China Agape in 1985, while Christian
business people and academics in Hong Kong founded ServeChina in 1981. Both
form partnerships with international organizations and communities; and both have
local offices in China to handle affairs on the Chinese side and a branch office in
Hong Kong to handle overseas affairs. Both self-identify as ‘Christian’, though we
shall see this has different meanings for different people within the organizations. One
notable difference is that China Agape has close connections with the official ThreeSelf
Church in China. ServeChina, on the other hand, though founded by Hong Kong
Christians, lacks these same local Chinese Christian connections.
To analyse how multiple memberships are managed, I study these processes in the
context of an organization’s everyday tasks of raising funds, hiring staff, recruiting
volunteers, establishing legitimacy in multiple contexts, meeting government officials,
reporting to donors and making connections with local communities. In
analysing how crosscutting ties affect organizational tasks, I show how multiple
memberships can enable and constrain a transnational NGO’s organizational tasks.
This allows us to observe how actors sort out multiple memberships in everyday
settings and how such actions affect the organization’s other tasks.
Religion as a resource
For China Agape and ServeChina, religious ties supply the bonding and bridging of
social capital necessary to raise funds for the organizations’ activities. As scholars
studying social movements would have anticipated, religion serves as a ‘resource’ for
these NGOs. In both cases, Protestant churches and Christian organizations provide
Stephanie Chan
240 © 2008 The Author(s)
the bulk of the funding for their development projects. Many of these are long-term
funding relationships and not single grants or donations. In both organizations, the
sole support for all foreign staff comes from local churches and Christian mission
agencies in the countries of origin. While support from Christian organizations and
agencies abroad signifies a ‘thinner’ or more generalized trust, supporting foreign
staff in a particular NGO provides a ‘thicker’ type of trust (Putnam 2000) built on
personal relationships with the donors. Donors are able to give to someone they know
and trust and recipients are required to keep the donors updated. Thus, there is both an
element of personal investment and additional accountability. Drawing funding from
local congregations in the countries of origin is a form of ‘bloc recruitment’ that
scholars of domestic movements have recognized as a valuable asset in movements
that involve churches. Local staff salaries come from the organization’s overall
budget, which means that funding from Christian organizations abroad also indirectly
supports them.
Staff in both these organizations are ‘recruited’ through Christian networks.
ServeChina’s director of operations described the NGO situation in China as ‘very
nebulous’, lacking ‘clear provisions’. He also mentioned that people move from one
NGO to another, which turns the ‘organizations’ into loose clusters of people who
retain several affiliations at once. He had formerly worked as an intermediary who
matched people wanting to work in China with those needing human resources. In the
course of this work, he often encountered people from ServeChina and it was because
of his frequent contact over the years with the ServeChina China director that he was
eventually hired. ServeChina’s international director had also performed many similar
jobs on the NGO circuit before entering his current position. The assistant to the international
director remarked that she had ‘married into this job’. Other members of staff
had heard of the organization through friends or had formerly worked as a volunteer
before joining the staff. For China Agape, the local university provides a ripe
recruiting ground for volunteers and staff. The associate general secretary of China
Agape heard about the organization from students at the local university where he
worked compiling dictionaries. He said that his interest in Christianity was another
reason for joining. Once in these organizations, the staff members often hop from one
position to another as the NGO community in China is small. In an interview with a
woman who is starting an NGO development and training centre in China, whom I
met through the director of a university’s NGO study centre, I discovered that she had
also formerly worked at China Agape.
Though similarly embedded in Christian donor networks and the NGO community
in China, what distinguishes China Agape from ServeChina is the former’s
embeddedness in the local Chinese Christian network. Local churches and Christian
communities play an important role in initiating and carrying out its local projects. In
working with local churches, China Agape is able to utilize an already developed and
extensive organizational network, or in the words of one observer, the ‘largest grassroots
NGO in China’. The vice-president of China Agape writes in the organization’s
newsletter:
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society
© 2008 The Author(s) 241
In [---] County now, each township has a church, and the presence of the
church in development work is extensively felt. In the past, I was told, a
villager would say: ‘Church? What’s that? I don’t care.’ Today, however, they
would say: ‘Yeah, I know what the church is about. It does good things. It
helps us alleviate poverty.’
He also recounts stories of how the Christians in these local villages are beginning to
care for other villagers despite being poor themselves, cultivating a spirit of altruism.
He remarks, ‘What [ChinaAgape] does is very, very little, and if it can do anything at
all, it is because of the gifts these people have offered, although they might be poor in
material terms.’
This contrasts with ServeChina’s rural projects coordinator’s observation that the
greatest challenge in their village development projects is that the villagers have no
sense of community. He observed that everyone took care of his or her own interests
and lacked what he called a ‘community sense’. I commented that this surprised me
because I would have expected villages to be tight-knit communities (as our social
science categories might suggest). He said that this might have been the case prior to
1949, when people used public property to help the needy, but not after 1949 when
the government took over all land ownership. With reform, land has been decollectivized,
but a sense of both dependence on the government and a suspicion of
neighbours left over from the events of the Cultural Revolution remain. This,
combined with the politicization of all organizations during the Mao era as well as the
introduction of a competitive market economy, has depleted social capital in these
villages. According to Gold (1985: 664), the lack of community sense the rural
projects coordinator observed has deeper and more traditional roots. He argues that
social relations in reform era China represent a ‘resurgence throughout society of the
importance of particularistic ties, distinguishing us from them (neiwai youbie, literally
“there is a difference between inner and outer”)’.
Although their Christian affiliations serve as a valuable resource for ServeChina,
and even more so for China Agape, their religious ties come with extra challenges,
particularly in having to deal with the constraints of overlapping and multiple cultural
structures, or the collective norms, beliefs, symbols, scripts and practices of each
culture. In addition to establishing legitimacy with the Chinese government, with
local beneficiaries and with the wider NGO community, these organizations also have
to establish legitimacy within the Christian community. Navigating within these
various cultural structures is quite difficult, in fact so difficult that China Agape has
considered shedding its Christian ties. However, thus far, it has been successful at
managing these delicate, multiplex connections.
Negotiating crosscutting religious ties
While the Chinese government is wary of NGOs in general, as it sees them as a threat
to their authority, the suspicion surrounding Westerners and, even more specifically,
Christians, is the result of a legacy of Western imperialism and Christian missionary
Stephanie Chan
242 © 2008 The Author(s)
activity. The Chinese government has associated Christian missionaries with the
Western imperialist enterprise. Thus, conflicts between Westerners and Chinese locals
are not simply a matter of cultural conflict, but a matter of historical political
conflicts. Culture here is inseparable from power and politics. As evidence of this, we
may look at the Government White Paper on Freedom of Religious Belief in China
(October 1997). This document lists the atrocities that Catholic and Protestant missionaries
committed in China. It claims that Western Protestantism and Catholicism
were simply guises for Western colonialism and imperialism. It further states, ‘While
playing an inglorious role in modern Chinese history, Western Catholicism and
Protestantism manipulated and controlled Chinese churches turning them into the
appendages to Western religious orders and mission societies.’
The sensitivity of the government to religious activity requires both of these
organizations to master the craft of simultaneously maintaining legitimacy with the
government and with their Christian supporters. While their Christian identity acts as
a liability in their relations with the Chinese government, it simultaneously serves as
legitimization in the eyes of overseas Christian supporters. The staff in both these
organizations seemed to be well equipped with the ‘right’ answers when I asked them
what makes their organization a ‘Christian’ one. In other words, they were able to
adapt discursively to the ideological structure in China. Since the Chinese government
does not tolerate proselytizing, documents from these organizations explicitly state
that their intention is not to proselytize. ServeChina’s website states, ‘[ServeChina] is
a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) with a Christian ethos and
background. However [ServeChina] does not get involved in political issues nor
engage in religious activities unacceptable in China.’ Prefacing his description of
China Agape’s church-run projects, the organization’s vice-president writes in the
newsletter, ‘[China Agape] is not a church organization and does not engage in
proselytizing work. However, since it is initiated by Chinese Christians and, in [---
province], works through local churches, this work improves the relations of the
church with the local government and with the people who have no religious belief.’
In practice, however, the line is more blurred. This became evident when most of
my interviewees asked me if I was a Christian before proceeding with the interview
questions dealing with Christianity. My religious social capital factored into these discussions.
The assistant to the director of ServeChina said that, in China, they are
legally a secular organization and that local staff members are not required to be
Christians, yet all the international staff and associates are Christian. I asked her how
she would respond if a non-Christian called and asked to teach with the organization.
She said she would tell the person in question that they want to ‘minimize differences
between the team members’ because a lot of issues already arise from the difficulties
of adjusting to a new place, so unity and similarity are important for the team. Here
we see an instance of viewing bonding social capital as more important than bridging
social capital. Eventually, she would politely turn him or her down. China Agape’s
volunteers are not required to be Christians, but most of them are because they are
recruited through Christian channels.
When the discussion turned to evangelism, all the Christians stressed ‘lifestyle’
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society
© 2008 The Author(s) 243
evangelism as preferable to direct proselytization. The disabled projects coordinator at
ServeChina said that evangelism is a ‘by-product, not the objective’. According to the
rural projects coordinator, the organization has changed a lot from a more direct
evangelism approach to an action-based, lifestyle evangelism approach. The focus
now, he said, is on doing projects and doing them well; it is not evangelism. He calls
this a ‘long-term plan for the good news’. The director of operations at ServeChina
had a more complex way of explaining the relationship between meeting physical and
spiritual needs. In his characteristic style of giving roundabout, yet very informative
responses to my questions, he said that the Christian message needs to be heard, and
then went into a discussion of communication theory. From his perspective, cultural
and language differences can create a lot of ‘noise’ and stop the communication of the
message to the receiver. Unless there is a way to identify the person who comes in,
the outsider, he explained, the message will remain unheard. By going in and doing
these projects, they are entering into people’s lives in ways they can understand. In a
separate interview, he also mentioned that ServeChina has ‘a gospel motivation’.
The pre-approved answer at China Agape differs a little from that of the staff at
ServeChina. When asked what made China Agape ‘Christian’, the associate general
secretary, a local non-Christian Chinese, mentioned its values, its founders and the
organization’s name. A former staff worker at China Agape, also a local Chinese nonChristian,
responded that Christianity forms the ‘background’ for the organization.
When I asked her if there were any cultural conflicts within the organization, she said
there are cultural differences but no cultural conflicts because of Christianity. She
added that all members of staff received Christian training upon entering the organization
and that Christians are ‘good-hearted people’ so there are not many conflicts.
While the religious connection does seem to have beneficial effects as a conflictmitigator,
as a cultural frame that transcends national cultural differences, it has also
been a challenge for China Agape to manage. Asked how China Agape is a Christian
organization, the communications director, a German Christian who works at the
Hong Kong office, replied, ‘That’s a nut we’re cracking every day.’ The Christian
donor community is concerned about China Agape’s close ties with the China
Christian Council (CCC), the umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in
China. Some overseas Christians are worried about the CCC and Chinese government
co-opting China Agape, calling China Agape the ‘social service arm of the CCC’, but
the communications director claims that this is untrue. While they have a close
relationship through personal links, they are not the social service arm of the CCC, as
evidenced, she added, by the CCC’s recent establishment of its own social service
department. An internal document describes the complications associated with having
Christian ties:
For some, probably most of our partner organizations, it is essential that
[China Agape] has a ‘Christian face’ … to justify giving funds to [it]. Their
regulations stipulate that their work be related to ‘Christian’ organizations,
however that term may be defined. To meet this need, [China Agape] tries to
highlight the ‘Christian’ aspects of its work when relating to partners.
Stephanie Chan
244 © 2008 The Author(s)
Within China, however, expectations towards [China Agape] are slightly
different, and this is reflected in [China Agape’s] formal position. All Chinese
NGOs must be officially registered under a governmental ‘host’ organization.
In [China Agape’s] case, this is the Provincial United Front of --- Province.
This alignment underlines [China Agape’s] middle position as a churchrelated,
but not church organization (for which the [Religious Affairs Bureau]
would be the appropriate host). At the same time, the arrangement reflects the
political reality of the time when [China Agape] was founded.
Though it is a complex relationship to maintain, the document also states that its
‘mixed identity’ has at least one benefit: ‘In the context of China, this enables us to
relate to a variety of societal groups and to recruit Christian and non-Christian staff,
while at the same time emphasizing our commitment to certain Christian values.’
ServeChina faces similar challenges and adopts a similar multi-fronted strategy.
The director of operations presented me with his ‘formula for effectiveness’ and
sketched a diagram of the local Chinese community labelled ‘1’ and of the overseas
Christian donor community labelled ‘2’. As he described the role of ServeChina, he
waved his pen back and forth between ‘1’ and ‘2’, providing a tangible illustration of
bridging social capital. He said that ServeChina needed to mediate between these two
communities, particularly translating the local work in China into terms that resonated
with the Christian donor community. This describes a situation with which sociologists
of religion are intimately acquainted in studying evangelical social engagement
in the USA. The emphasis that evangelicals place on transforming individual lives
often blinds them to larger social problems and impedes their engagement in broader
social transformation (Smith et al. 1998; Wuthnow 1999). This paradox appears to
extend to their activity abroad. The director of operations implied that there is a mismatch
between the narrower outlook of donors and the broader engagement of the
organization. Thus, we see how the evangelical cultural structure within which the
organization works might constrain its actions. As the director’s description
illustrates, however, they overcome this incongruence by bridging social capital, or
through what social movement scholars might call cultural ‘brokerage’ (McAdam et
al. 2001). They define brokerage as the ‘linking of two or more previously unconnected
social sites by a unit that mediates their relations with one another and/or with
yet other sites’ (McAdam et al. 2001: 26).
National political and cultural cleavages
Despite a slight decline in the post-1978 reform era, the dominance of the government
is still present in every aspect of life in China. As a former local Chinese staff
member at China Agape told me, ‘You can see the government, feel the government
everywhere.’ In addition to jumping through all the legal hoops necessary even to
exist as an organization under an authoritarian regime, a crucial part of any development
project is to cultivate positive relationships with local government officials.
ServeChina’s rural project coordinator, also a Chinese local, said that possibly the
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© 2008 The Author(s) 245
most crucial relationship in these projects is their relationship with the village leader.
He explained that you cannot contact the villagers directly but must always go
through the village leader. If the official does not approve then the villagers will
neither welcome nor accept you. A former China Agape staff member similarly
asserted that foreigners try to adopt models they have used elsewhere, as in
Bangladesh and India, and think they will work without adjustment in China. She
said:
There are big differences, the primary being that the government is rather
messy in these other countries and you can enter and contact villagers directly.
It does not work this way in China because the government is so ‘perfect’ in
China. You need the government for your project to succeed.
What she means by ‘perfect’ is not faultless, but rather, omniscient and omnipotent.
The cultivation of village social capital requires an extensive knowledge of the
local social and cultural norms, a skill that many foreigners lack. The ServeChina
rural projects coordinator described the situation:
The government will ask the foreigners to have dinner and that kind of stuff,
but when it comes to negotiating they will not do it with a ‘white face’, only
with a Chinese face. It is hard for foreigners to assess and understand the
situations in political gatherings, who is important, what is the history, who are
the stakeholders.
I asked him if they would negotiate with an overseas Chinese person, and he said,
‘Yes, there is just something about a white face that makes them uncomfortable.
There is a guy [a Westerner] who has worked here and lived here for ten years and his
Chinese is excellent but they still will not negotiate with him.’ This conversation
arose out of another we were having about cultural conflicts, which began in English.
When we conversed in English, he mentioned that there were not any cultural
conflicts. However, once I began to converse with him in Chinese, he opened up and
the above story emerged. My ‘Chinese face’ probably helped.
These cultural factors have encouraged ServeChina to recruit more Chinese staff.
The Chinese office representative for ServeChina is from Hong Kong and has a background
as a lawyer who specializes in mainland Chinese law. She was recruited to
help ServeChina navigate through the Chinese legal environment as well as to be a
cultural bridge builder. The office representative mentioned that Hong Kong culture is
closer to Chinese culture. The general assistant to the international director, the one
responsible for recruiting the office representative, chimed in at this point and said
that despite most people in the organization being Christian, the cultural gap is still
very wide. Likewise, the director of operations at ServeChina, an American, mentions
that Westerners are often the targets of suspicion in China. He says ‘If a Westerner is
present the government becomes more suspicious. Singaporeans, [American-born
Chinese], overseas Chinese can go into areas that Europeans cannot.’
Stephanie Chan
246 © 2008 The Author(s)
Foreigners are constant targets of suspicion in China. The Public Security
Bureau (PSB), China’s law enforcement agency, visits the ServeChina China office,
which has some foreign staff, weekly. This is not the case for the fully local
Chinese-staffed China Agape China office. ServeChina’s American project
coordinator, who helps run education programmes for disabled children at local
schools, states that, ‘there is a lot of turnover in school positions. In my
observation, it seems that whenever they get too close to foreigners they are
transferred.’ The ServeChina urban project coordinator, a German, remarks that
urban areas are highly complex and politically sensitive. He adds that you can do
more with less money and under less scrutiny in rural areas.
Though all the informants mentioned that cross-cultural cooperation was more
prevalent than cross-cultural conflict among the staff, there were mentions of
potential conflicts that were eventually resolved. When speaking of the difficulties of
Sino–German cooperation, one of the former staff members from China Agape spoke
of always having to ‘fight’ with the German partners while putting up her hands
boxing style. However, she said that in the end they came around and compromised.
Some of the problems were different cultural styles, as the urban projects coordinator
from ServeChina notes, ‘[German and Chinese culture] are polar opposites. …
Germans are task-oriented, precise, critical, analytical, and perfectionist.’ However,
divisions also emerge from unequal partnerships. According to a former China Agape
staff member, many foreign organizations do not trust their Chinese partners. She
comments, ‘Partnerships should be equal. Germans come in and say “do this, this, and
this”, and don’t consult with the Chinese.’ They eventually resolved these conflicts by
sitting down with both sides and having them negotiate as equals.
Adapting to world cultural norms
An added set of cultural norms within which the staff of these NGOs must negotiate is
a set of world cultural norms (Boli and Thomas 1999; Meyer et al. 1997). Boli and
Thomas (1999: 15) state, ‘Like all cultures, world culture becomes embedded in
social organization, especially in organizations operating at the global level.’ Staff at
both China Agape and ServeChina felt the need to conform to certain organizational
and cultural norms to legitimize themselves within the larger NGO community.
5
A
point of concern for many of my informants, especially those staff members with
most contact with the academic community, was the need to professionalize. The
communication director at China Agape, who holds a Ph.D., said, ‘Like all [non-profit
organizations] those working for this one have about 90 per cent enthusiasm and 10
per cent professionalism.’ According to the rural project coordinator at ServeChina,
the people working there have a strong religious background but very little experience
with project management, a wealth of religious social capital but a scarcity of world
cultural social capital. ServeChina’s urban project coordinator had a master’s degree
in development studies and was about to leave the organization to pursue a doctoral
degree. When he first came, he developed a training curriculum, participatory
methods and project evaluation, all of which were weak upon his arrival three years
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society
© 2008 The Author(s) 247
earlier. All of these were ideas imported from academic studies of development. John
Boli (2005: 388) considers science and professionalization to be part of the ‘core of
world culture’. When asked if outside culture affected local office practices, the
general secretary of China Agape said that the primary influence was in terms of
‘communication and efficiency’.
Not only do these organizations feel pressure to be professional and efficient, but
numerous informants also advocated participatory models and methods. Participatory
models for some meant grassroots initiation and participation in development activities.
When I asked if local projects were sustained after China Agape staff had left the
project sites, the general secretary responded affirmatively and quoted one of the
organization’s mottos: ‘Local people are agents of change.’ Another informant contrasted
‘participatory methods of leadership’ with ‘remnants of a communist regime
leadership style’. She said that the older members of the organization adhered to a
communist leadership style while the younger ones preferred a more participatory
method of leadership.
If there is a common ‘culture’ among the diverse staff it seems to be an organizational
culture with a strongly Western flavour. Every local Chinese staff member at
China Agape speaks English, and though the office is located in China, the associate
general secretary said that the dominant language in the office is English. A former
China Agape staff member who recently established an NGO training centre said that
a key to bridging cultural divides is having people who understand both cultures. She
mentioned that over half the staff at China Agape had majored in English in college
and that they had to take an English test to work for the organization. This reinforces
the extent to which staff members are required to be cultural brokers as much or more
than they are required to deal with the administrative and logistical tasks of the
organization. She herself has a Ph.D. in sociology from a Chinese university and a
master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard. Thus, a unifying culture appears to be one that is highly- and Westerneducated
and English-speaking.
Conclusion
Returning to the initial questions that guide this study, we find that these NGOs
embody the characteristics of a global civil society in that they exhibit cooperation
across intersecting social, cultural and political cleavages. China Agape and
ServeChina illustrate both the benefits and challenges of working among
crosscutting memberships. They sit at the intersection of multiple memberships of
national polities, national cultures, religious communities and a world culture. This
amalgamation of ties seems to be extremely vulnerable to conflict. Indeed, the
evidence reveals social, cultural, political and religious cleavages. Surprisingly,
however, as one respondent remarked, there are many cultural differences but few
cultural conflicts. Therefore, these transnational NGOs exhibit both the ‘civility’
and ‘strong conflict potential’ features of Keane’s (2003) ideal type of global civil
society.
Stephanie Chan
248 © 2008 The Author(s)
The key to managing crosscutting ties and multiple memberships successfully
appears to be, as one of my informants insisted, people who understand both cultures
and are able to bridge the cultural divides. An essential resource in these organizations
is a diverse staff comprised of actors with varying dimensions of bridging and
bonding social capital. Their cause-based collective identity is invaluable to creating
internal solidarity and civility, while their additional identities, including national and
religious ones, are valuable for connecting them with both donors and beneficiaries.
Contrary to the hypothesis that it is only possible to manage multiple cleavages
through a single membership that transcends the others, from this article we see that
one can dynamically engage multiple memberships. The staff members of these
NGOs exhibit a complex push and pull among various memberships. The interaction
of multiple memberships is not a zero-sum game, and it is precisely this fact that
makes these relationships ‘civil’. The negotiation of multiple memberships must not
be a zero-sum game if it is to be cast accurately as civil society. Since China is a
particularly tough climate for the flourishing of civil society, the fact that pockets of
global civil society can even thrive in such democratically arid conditions bodes well
for its prospects in other contexts and bolsters support for the necessity of skilful
cross-cultural brokers as a key factor in a thriving global civil society.
Through these cases, we observe that crosscutting ties and multiple memberships
have the potential to complicate as well as facilitate an NGO’s organizational tasks.
Religious ties certainly act as a resource. In addition to aiding resource mobilization,
Christianity provides these organizations and their staff with motivation and unifying
values and reveals the potential to mitigate other cultural conflicts. At a local grassroots
level, it helps cultivate a spirit of philanthropy and altruism that would otherwise
be missing. Conversely, it greatly complicates the process of establishing
legitimacy, for these organizations have to juggle multiple identities at once. Moreover,
the tendency of Christian donors to be concerned exclusively with evangelistic
efforts and individual transformation restricts rather than enables the organizations
they support to engage in broader social change. Local social capital, in the form of
connections and good relations with local village officials, using pre-existing village
social networks, knowledge of local customs and styles of negotiation, and even the
physical features of being associated with ‘us’ rather than the ‘them’ of imperialism
and foreigners, is critical to these organizations’ development activities. Finally, as
members of a larger NGO community, or world polity, these NGOs need to conform
to the norms of professionalism, efficiency and education.
Whether multiple memberships serve to enable or constrain an NGO’s organizational
tasks appears to hinge on the actions of skilful cross-cultural brokers. The very
type of social capital that serves as a main indicator of global civil society – cooperation
across multiple memberships – is therefore also a central resource in completing
organizational tasks. Negotiating crosscutting ties directly facilitates organizational
tasks while also indirectly building the basis for global civil society. This confirms the
findings of other scholars on the critical role of transnational brokers in facilitating
cooperation among diverse members (Bandy 2004; Bandy and Smith 2005).
In this article, I have elucidated what social processes and patterns were present in
Cross-cultural civility in global civil society
© 2008 The Author(s) 249
two NGOs that achieved cooperation across multiple social, cultural and political
cleavages in an unlikely environment. I provided a glimpse of the internal dynamics
that often remain elusive in studies of transnational NGOs in relation to global civil
society. Yet, the generalizability of these claims rests on further study of what is
going on within transnational networks and organizations in different sectors, in
different regions of the world, and which are affected by different types of divides and
intersecting memberships.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Gordon Chang, Se-Hyun Cho, John Evans, Jeff Haydu, Rachel JacobAlmeida,
Denis Kim, Kris Kohler, April Linton, Richard Madsen, Seiko Matsuzawa, Junkyun
Mok, Kevin Moseby, Lisa Nunn, and Eric Van Rite for their insightful comments and
suggestions. Alisdair Rogers and anonymous reviewers also provided valuable comments and
suggestions. I presented different versions of this article at the 2004 annual meeting of the
American Sociological Association and at the 2006 International Studies Association meeting
where discussants, participants and audience members provided helpful feedback. The UCSD
sociology department funded part of this research. The NGO informants provided the
invaluable information that made this project possible.
Notes
1. I use the term ‘transnational NGO’ rather than INGO because an INGO is sometimes used
to designate only an NGO that works in more than one country. Since these organizations
operate in China with staff, volunteers and donors from numerous parts of the world, I have
labelled them transnational NGOs.
2. Some people argue that the related concepts of ‘global civil society’ and ‘civility’ carry too
much cultural baggage and Western liberal bias to serve as useful concepts for empirical
analysis. However, I agree with Anheier (2007) in his reflections on this critique. He asserts
that not only is it impossible to formulate a neutral, value-free definition of global civil
society, but that one needs to judge a concept by its ability to ‘generate knowledge and
enhance understanding’ (Anheier 2007: 4).
3. The term ‘global’ is, however, contested; according to most definitions, organizations that
are transnational or international would qualify as global in the sense that it is used here.
4. I have used pseudonyms for NGOs and informants to protect their confidentiality.
5. World culture theorists acknowledge that what they have identified as ‘world culture’ arose
out of Western Christendom (Boli and Thomas 1999); thus world culture tends to look like
Western culture. Yet some elements of Western culture have come to be seen as globally
valid, which Boli (2005) argues makes them elements of ‘world culture’. What is important
for the purposes of this article is that there are certain norms propagated by the NGO
community to which the NGOs studied feel the need to conform. Since an NGO that works
internationally claims to embody ‘world culture’, I equate the norms of the international
NGO community with ‘world culture’.
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