Government-npo Relations in Service Procurement: Quasi-Corporatist and Quasi-Pluralist Practices and Challenges in China

Abstract

The government’s delivery of public services through non-profit organizations ( npos) has become a hot subject of current research about npos. Because of neglecting the fact that Chinese npos feature a pluralistic structure and they organize activities at multiple administrative levels, the explanation framework of pluralism and corporatism greatly simplifies the complexity of the Chinese society. Through the matrix of four dimensions, i.e., competition, non-competition, high organizational legitimacy and low organizational legitimacy, we may find that some cases are similar to pluralistic buying. And other cases are similar to corporatist buying. The reason why pluralism and corporatism are not sufficient to explain the current practice of service procurement in China is that both theories are based on Western liberalism. In whichever way services may be procured in the future, we must be on high alert in particularistic trading currently between the government and npos in the procurement of services.