Party Building in an Unlikely Place? The Adaptive Presence of the Chinese Communist Party in the Non-governmental Organizations (NGO)

Faced with the burgeoning NGOs in China in recent years, the Party-state has adopted a model of adaptive party building to maintain its presence and strengthen its grip over the evolving social sphere. Based on a two-year field work in Shanghai, this article finds that the new model is characterized by the party's rigidity in the principle of social penetration and an array of flexible strategies to facilitate its entry. While promoting the party's rapid organizational expansion in NGOs, the adaptive tactics also bring up problems, which may undermine the effectiveness of the party's permeation in the long run. This article highlights the behaviors of the party's agencies in the state-society interaction, which we suggest may shape the country's grassroots political development in the future.