Other Interesting Points in the comparison of different types of NCCs

According to the two dimensions of “Origin” and “Network”, all NCCs are categorized in four types: Independent NCC, Coupling NCC, Decoupling NCC and Dependent NCC. By comparing these four types of NCCs, more interesting findings are revealed, which will be demonstrated below.

By comparing the six cases in chapters four, five and six, I summarize other interesting findings besides the main argument, especially in terms of how different NCCs approach the local policy makers, how they put forward their proposal about local policies, and what is the main role NCC leaders played in the whole process.

Distinguishing Coupling NCCs and Decoupling NCCs

In this thesis, Coupling NCCs and Decoupling NCCs are NCCs with strong connections with both state and business, and both adopt the network span strategy in the process of influencing local policy process. However, the differences between these two types of NCCs in terms of their policy influence and network strategy are evident.

Regarding NCCs’ influence on the local policy process, Coupling NCCs’ influence reflects on the area of political propaganda and advocacy, and it is in this process that they gradually gain more influence from the government rather than exerting influence to the government. Decoupling NCCs’ influence was much broader in various kinds of local

policy, but their final goal was to improve their influence in the business circle, benefit their members and in the end exert wide range influence on businesses.197

Regarding their Network Span Strategy, Coupling NCC and Decoupling NCC also have different focus. Coupling NCCs sacrificee part of their autonomy to develop closer links with the state, while Decoupling NCCs give up part of their state links to acquire more business connections. Therefore, in the end, Coupling NCCs are comparatively more state- network oriented and Decoupling NCC more business network oriented.

The Liaison Office’s role in NCCs’ interaction with local state

The Liaison Office is a special mechanism of local governments in China, with its main function being bridging different regional governments. The former has played important roles in some NCCs’ emergence and development. For example, Zhejiang Government’s Tianjin Liaison Office initiated Tianjin Zhejiang NCC; Guangdong Government’s Beijing Liaison Office provided great financial and policy support to Tianjin Guangdong NCC. During NCCs’ interaction with local states, the Liaison Office acted as a sponsor to lead and protect NCCs’ development in the host places. However, it inevitably eroded NCCs’ independence when NCCs kept a very close relation with it. An example of this is the Dependent NCC - Sha’anxi NCC, which will be briefly introduced below.

Future direction of Independent NCCs’ development

In this research, Independent NCC demonstrates great significance in brokering business cooperation between different localities. However, its influence is restricted within specific business areas, and it is very hard for Independent NCCs to go beyond the influence in business cooperation. Therefore, it is doubtful whether Independent NCCs can maintain the momentum of development in the future. They may develop towards service-oriented enterprise, or sustain their status as business associations with marginal influence towards local policy process, which is worth studying in the future.

The characteristics of local policymaking in China

Analyzing all the policy cases in the case analysis chapters, it is evident that all the policy proposals are intended to be submitted or are already submitted to local administrative

departments, rather than the local legislative department. This indirectly indicates the weak and awkward position of local legislative departments in the Chinese local policy process. There are very few and limited lobbyers trying to deliver their policy proposals through the legitimate channels like the local NPC (National People’s Congress) and the CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference), considering the efficiency and effectiveness of these channels. Through this, I can discern the characteristics of Chinese local policymaking: a significant part of local policymaking and local decision making are carried out by the local governments’ administrative departments, which are embedded within in the process of local policy implementation.

NCC activists’ role towards NCCs’ policy influence

As introduced in Chapter 1, NCC activists refer to the people who devote their time and energy to promoting NCCs’ growth and development with pioneering spirits and innovative courage. Most of the time, NCC activists are the presidents or secretary- generals of NCCs, and sometimes they can be local officials in the government bureaucracy. The common feature across NCC activists are that they have directly or indirectly raised the profile of NCCs’ influence and engaged NCCs to be active actors in local governance. Personal social capital has been used to build up NCCs’ social network. In this case, Shanxi NCC used ZSL’s personal political resources to build up the connections with local state. To what extent is the lobbying success due to things like individual activists’ resources, rather than to the network intensity and span of the NCC? It remains to be further investigated.

The type of Dependent NCCs- Tianjin Sha’anxi NCC

Like traditional business associations, the Dependent NCCs are initiated by a host or the home government agencies and has intrinsic linkage with officialdom. It is closely related with non-local Liaison Offices (zhuwai banshichu or zhuwai bangongshi). More often than not the Dependent NCC and the Liaison Office are combined as “two names (organizations),[with] one management team” (liangkuai paizi, yitao banzi).198 As a consequence, the Dependent NCC’s functions are mainly focused on dealing with inter- governmental relations, including cooperation, official visits and regional negotiations. Due to the obliged duty and its financial and personnel dependency, it is highly dependent

on their home government and acts as the extension of bureau agencies. However, because of the strong linkage with the home government, dependent NCCs have more channels within the political and institutional system to get access to local policy process. Through the internal channels, they can exert certain influence on the local policy process especially in policy implementation, which it is hardly examined by scholars though.

Regarding network building, the dependent NCC is very state network oriented and adopts the network intensity strategy. However, keeping a very close relationship with states, the Dependent NCC still distinguishes from other government organized business associations in terms of function and operation199_.

Dependent NCC’s binding with home government’s Liaison office inevitably eroded its own independence and flexibility, in terms of the content and function. Rather than saying it is a NCC with top-down initiatives, it is more accurate to define it as a government sponsored business association or GONGO (government organized NGO). Due to lack of empirical evidence and it being beyond the scope of this research200, I do not include an in- depth analysis of Dependent NCC in this thesis.