Abstract
Since the establishment of Friends of Nature in 1994, grassroots environmental NGOs in China have become a force to be reckoned with. Existing scholarship has mainly focused on NGOs dedicated to national policy advocacy, closely cooperated with international partners, and are characterized by good reputation and high-profile strategy. Some of them even employ implied political confrontation. Scholars have considered factors that relate to the development of environmental NGOs in China, such as political opportunity structure, resource mobilization, and world polity. Most of the existing evidence was collected during the Hu–Wen administration, which had seen some considerable opening toward the non-governmental sector. However, since Xi Jinping came into power, the establishment of institutions spearheaded by the new Environmental Protection Law shows that while the state’s discourse on “greening” continues, the implementation of the Law on Administration of Activities of Overseas NGOs and the Charity Law has been symptomatic of the state’s more refined control and guidance of societal forces. Because of the dynamic changes in the overall situation, it is necessary to reevaluate the effectiveness of the existing theories. Based on the explanation of the public life phenomenon in the social capital literature, as well as on attempts to focus on the “sense of space” in the analyzing process, this thesis proposes that the local “confidence, knowledge, and cultural identity” connected to the examined environmental NGOs constitutes a “local social capital.” According to the strength of the relationship and the composition of the network, local social capital can be separated into three main types: bonding, bridging, and linking. This thesis assumes that environmental NGOs with good local social capital can maintain their capabilities and obtain limited common resources better, ensure the organization’s survival and make environmental actions sustainable. This is how they display “local resilience.” Through fieldwork in and comparative analysis of two environmental NGOs, the results of this thesis suggest that downward linking capital is the foundation of the entire local social capital. Rather than chasing funds, reputation, or performance appraisal by the government, environmental NGOs should start to pragmatically, patiently, and carefully build strong local social capital under the existing external pressures. This way, even if the resilience of governance of China’s post-totalitarian authoritarian regime is shrinking, the vitality of environmental NGOs can remain strong and the sustainability of environmental actions can be maintained.