Based on Coleman's trust theory, a representative figure of rational choice theory in sociology, this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the trust relationship between Chinese government and non-profit organizations. The article thinks that because the government relies on non-profit organizations to help it solve social problems and participate in public management to a certain extent, it needs to give trust to non-profit organizations. However, if the behavior of non-profit organizations goes beyond the expected scope of the government, the government will suffer losses. The government is ambivalent about whether it should trust non-profit organizations. In this case, the government supervises and restricts the operation of non-profit organizations by establishing some social structure, establishing strict access system and reward and punishment mechanism. The implementation of these two trust-maintaining mechanisms greatly increases the probability that non-profit organizations deserve the trust of the government. This is one of the important reasons for the rapid growth of non-profit organizations in China.
Keywords: non-profit organization/trust/rational choice
Since the 1970s, the relationship between the government and non-profit organizations has been an important research topic in the non-profit sector. Some scholars try to put forward the type model of the relationship between government and non-profit organizations from the macro level through international comparison. [1] Some scholars have deeply analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the government and non-profit organizations, and then pointed out the internal logic of the cooperative relationship between the government and non-profit organizations. [2] These studies involve the policy model, legal framework, economic process and control mode in the process of interaction between the government and non-profit organizations, but they pay insufficient attention to the trust relationship between the government and non-profit organizations. In fact, the trust relationship between the two institutions is at a more basic but more important level than the specific contents of the government's establishment conditions, operating rules and fiscal and taxation policies. Because the degree of trust in non-profit organizations often determines the size of the action right given to non-profit organizations by the government at the policy level, and also determines the amount of resources that non-profit organizations obtain from society at the institutional level. From this perspective, the government's policy towards non-profit organizations is only a reflection of this trust relationship to some extent. As Bernard Barber said, "Although trust is only a tool in social control, it is ubiquitous and important in all social systems. If power is to play a full or even maximum role in social control, there must be trust in it. " [3](P3 1)
China is a country where the power center determines the basic framework of institutional arrangements and follows the principle of top-down institutional change. In the process of interaction between the government and the non-profit sector, they are in an obviously unequal power position. "In all social institutional arrangements, the government is the most important one. As a monopolist who legally uses coercive power, although the state cannot decide how a system works, it has the power to decide what kind of system will exist. " [4](P377) The government's trust in non-profit organizations fundamentally determines the relationship model between them, and then directly affects the institutional environment and action rights of non-profit organizations. Therefore, it is particularly important to study this topic. This paper attempts to take James Coleman, an important representative of sociological rational choice theory, as an analytical framework to analyze the trust relationship between the government and non-profit organizations, so as to further deepen the research.
I. Principal and Trustee: Coleman's Trust Theory
1. contains the trust relationship between the principal and the trustee.
Trust is a very important concept in social science. Sociology, psychology and economics have all expressed concern about this issue. Scholars have various definitions of trust. Sociological concern about trust can be traced back to Emile Durkheim's analysis of social solidarity [5] and Max Weber's distinction between "special trust" and "universal trust". [6] But it was not until 1970s that sociology began to study trust as a special topic of sociology.
As a representative of rational choice theory, Coleman regards trust as a game and interactive process between two rational actors, and divides the interactive parties into principals and trustees according to the initiative and passivity of the actors. [7](P99- 125) He believes that the simplest trust relationship includes two actors: the principal and the trustee. He assumes that two people are purposeful actors whose purpose is to satisfy their personal interests. The client is always faced with the question of whether to trust the trustee, and the trustee is also faced with the choice of whether to keep his promise. In some cases, the trustee can make a profit by breaking the promise. Therefore, trust behavior is a kind of behavior that puts the client at a disadvantage. Because of trusting the trustee, under certain conditions, the principal can't control his behavior. If the trustee takes advantage of this disadvantage, the interests of the principal will suffer. At the same time, Coleman believes that trust behavior means risk. Because in real life, all kinds of transactions that constitute social actions (note: Coleman's "transaction" here refers not only to the exchange behavior in the market, but also to the social exchange behavior of people in social life. ) It is often not finished immediately. In some cases, the party involved in the transaction provides services or delivers goods (note: Coleman's "services" and "goods" here should also be understood in a broader sense, actually referring to all resources related to the action. Later, the other party can respond accordingly. Because there is a time lag in the giving of trust, the trustee will take pre-agreed actions at some point in the future, which poses risks to the early behavior of the principal. As rational actors, people will take various measures to alleviate the risks caused by time delay. (Note: Coleman believes that these means include: first, intervention in use, that is, A gives money to an intermediary, and after B delivers the goods that should be provided, the intermediary transfers A's money to B. Secondly, in commodity transactions, the trustee as the buyer usually provides the seller with a check guaranteed by others. Third, sign a contract. It is characterized by clear commitment, legal protection and sanctions against the defaulting party. See James Coleman, translated by Fang Deng: The Basis of Social Theory (I), Social Science Literature Publishing House, 1990, p. 107. )
Coleman's analysis shows that the process of the client deciding whether to give trust is suitable for the decision-making mode under the risk condition in decision-making theory. Because he assumes that the actor is rational, the actions of the principal and the trustee can be considered from the perspective of game theory. The principal must decide whether to trust the trustee. If the trustee is unreliable, the trust of the principal will lead to losses. If the trustee is reliable, the trustor refuses to trust, which will also cause losses. The trustee is also faced with the choice of keeping or breaking the promise. The following are analyzed separately.
2. Analysis of customer behavior
Coleman developed a formula to describe the conditions for giving or not giving trust. He believes that in order to maximize personal interests under risky conditions, the client must choose between refusing to trust and giving trust. The customer's expected revenue is equal to the product of possible revenue (g) and success probability (p) minus the product of possible loss (l) and failure probability (1-P). If the minuend is greater than the minuend, that is, the ratio of success probability to failure probability is greater than the ratio of possible loss to possible gain, that is, p/( 1-p) > l/g, rational actors should give trust.
Coleman believes that in this formula, the most important things are the trustee's reliability probability P, possible loss L and possible gain G. The size of these three values is closely related to the client's information about them. In some cases, customers are aware of possible losses, while in other cases, they are not. People sometimes know and sometimes don't know the possible benefits of giving trust. Among these three factors, the probability that the trustee can be trusted is the most difficult to find out. The closer the customer's subjective estimate of probability is to the objective probability, the less likely it is to make a wrong decision. In order to make the right decision, customers must make full use of information and collect as much information as possible. Coleman believes that the possible losses and gains also affect the scope and efforts of customers seeking information. The greater the loss or gain that may be caused by giving trust, the more the client will try to seek information to judge the trustworthiness of the trustee.
3. Analysis of trustee's behavior
Coleman believes that the trustee's behavior is very important in the trust relationship. He can choose between keeping his promise and breaking it. The key problem is how to restrain the trustee's behavior. Coleman listed three methods: the first method, using intangible moral concepts to restrain people's behavior, is weak. The second method is to punish the trustee for breach of contract. There should be norms, laws and punishments within the society. When deciding whether to trust the trustee, the client should not only consider the trustworthiness of the trustee, but also pay attention to the effect of the punishment measures. The third way is to make the trustworthy trustee benefit from the trust of the client or other interested parties, that is, there is a positive incentive to be trustworthy. Coleman believes that this positive incentive is very important in actions involving social trust or political trust, because there is no direct liability for compensation. In this case, we should create a social structure, in which the trustee can only benefit if he keeps his promise. The main form of this social structure is closely related organizations (such as trade associations and trade associations). ), legal contracts and other legal provisions. After realizing the benefits of keeping the promise, the trustee will carefully plan some actions to win the trust of the client. In addition, Coleman also pays attention to the influence of the number of transactions on the trustee's behavior. He believes that in a one-time transaction, the loss of the trustee's breach of contract is small, and it is easier to breach the contract, while in repeated and continuous transactions, the loss of the trustee's breach of contract is large, and the trustee is more likely to keep his promise.
In short, the process of continuous trust can be simply described as: the client first decides whether to give trust, and in this process, he will collect a lot of information from the trustee. If the client thinks that the trustee's reputation has a great influence on his own interests, he will also try to establish some social norms and systems to improve the trustee's trust. When the search for information is over, the customer should decide whether to trust the trustee. If the principal decides to give trust, then the problem facing the trustee is to decide whether to keep credit. If the trustee is morally bound, or worried about the punishment after breach of contract, he will keep his promise. Another important way to urge the trustee to keep his promise is for the trustee to realize the benefits of keeping his promise. When the trustee realizes that gaining the trust of the client will bring him benefits, he will provide the client with relevant information to urge the client to believe in himself. After the first round of trust behavior, the client will revise his estimate of the trustee's trustworthiness according to the trustee's performance, and then decide the next action, and the long-term game behavior will continue like this.
Second, the trust relationship between the government and non-profit organizations: the application of rational choice theory
Coleman's research on trust provides us with a conceptual tool and an analytical framework, which allows us to analyze the trust relationship between the government and non-profit organizations more deeply, rather than just describing the current situation or summarizing the lack of analysis process. In Coleman's theory, he regards the principal and the trustee as a kind of voluntary negotiation and transaction, without paying attention to the influence of the power relationship between the principal and the trustee on trust. (Note: This is closely related to the influence of new institutional economics on Coleman. How the system came into being is a complex problem, and there are different theories on this issue. At one extreme, it can be considered that the system is "spontaneous" on the basis of self-interest of decision makers. At the other extreme, the system may be completely organized by a central organization. Generally speaking, the supporters of new institutional economics tend to assume that the institutional structure spontaneously arises (evolutionary rationalism). See Eirik G.Furubon and RudolfRicher's New Institutional Economics: An Evaluation, in Philubboton and Richter's New Institutional Economics, translated by Sun Jingwei, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Press, 1998, p. 3. ) When we analyze the trust relationship between the government and non-profit organizations in China society, it is worth noting that in China, the government, as the trustor of trust, has unilateral coercive power. As Weber pointed out, the important feature of the country is that it is a "ruling group that monopolizes legal violence and compulsory institutions", an organization that legally uses violence and the only source of "rights" to use violence. [8](P730) At the same time, the basic services provided by the state are the basic rules of the game. [9] The special status of compulsory power and rule-making makes the government in an absolute dominant position in the comparison of political power and resource allocation power.
Due to the historical tradition of centralization for thousands of years, the non-profit sector in China is underdeveloped. After 1949, the state concentrated important economic and social resources in its own hands through a series of policies, and established an absolute dominant position in social life. It can even be said that by the middle and late 1950s, a relatively independent and autonomous social field no longer existed. Since [10](P242) 1990, the formation and development of China's non-profit organizations have occurred under the premise of the transformation of government functions and the transfer of rights. From this perspective, we can regard the government and non-profit organizations as principals and trustees in Coleman's analytical framework, and the government's permission and encouragement for the existence and development of non-profit organizations can be regarded as the government's trust in non-profit organizations. (Note: Of course, in the political structure of different societies, the government has different rights to decide the survival of non-profit organizations. For example, in the United States, the government has no right to interfere in many activities of non-profit organizations because the Constitution gives them greater autonomy. But the situation in China is different. As the power is concentrated in the hands of the government, I think the government can be regarded as the principal when studying the non-profit organizations in China. Moreover, this trust relationship is repeated and continuous. Coleman's trust theory helps us to understand the internal logic of government's trust in non-profit organizations. Specifically, this trust relationship has the following characteristics: first, in the expectation of the government as the principal, the possible benefits (that is, G in Coleman's calculation formula) from developing non-profit organizations are great. Therefore, the government needs to give trust very much. When Coleman studied trust behavior, he observed that the possible gains or losses contained in trust behavior are different for actors with different trust needs. Some actors urgently need to trust others. For example, some people in despair have an extremely strong demand for trust, because they can't get out of trouble without foreign aid. In this case, the possible gains are very attractive to the actors. [ 1 1](p 1 16)
Since 1990, with the transition of economic system and the overall transformation of social structure, China's government governance model and public service system, including social security and education, are facing structural adjustment. In the mode of government governance, the government began to change from "all-round" government to "limited" government and "service-oriented" government. The scale of government agencies is getting smaller and smaller, and the scope of government's role is gradually narrowing. In terms of social security system, the most important feature of China is the transformation from a state-centered model to a diversified welfare model. [12] Under the original system, the state monopolized most social resources and played an absolute leading role in the provision of national welfare. However, for a long time, there is a big gap between the government's welfare commitment to the people and the government's actual supply capacity. In particular, the transformation from planned economy to market economy has directly changed the institutional basis on which the original welfare model relied. When the financial capacity of the government is far from fulfilling its commitment to the people's welfare, the government began to actively seek alternative strategies for reform. Under this institutional background, the non-profit sector, as an alternative provider of government functions and public services, has begun to receive extensive attention from government departments. Because the government expects non-profit organizations to obtain private resources, participate in the management of public affairs, and even rely on the resources held by non-profit departments to some extent, it is necessary to give trust to non-profit organizations.
Secondly, if the behavior of non-profit organizations exceeds the expected scope of the government, the government will suffer losses. Therefore, the government's trust in non-profit organizations is a risky behavior. There is a certain degree of principal-agent relationship between the government and non-profit organizations. Because the interests and goals of non-profit organizations may be different from those of the government, the more the government delegates power to non-profit organizations, the farther the gap between the interests and goals of non-profit organizations and the government, and the more difficult it is for the government to implement projects. The emergence of non-profit organizations means that there is a new force outside the system outside the control field of the government. Although such organizations appear in the form of public welfare, if there is not enough information disclosure and supervision mechanism, it may be difficult for the government to accurately judge the impact of the survival and development of non-profit organizations on China society. In this case, we say that it is risky for the government to give trust to non-profit organizations.
Therefore, whether the government should give trust to non-profit organizations is contradictory: on the one hand, it depends on non-profit organizations to obtain resources, help them solve social problems and alleviate the legitimacy crisis; On the other hand, they worry that the emergence of new external forces will be detrimental to social management. There is a persistent conflict between the government's demand for resources and the demand for social control. [13] In Coleman's view, among the three factors that affect trust giving, the probability P that the trustee is trustworthy is the most difficult to understand. But this is the key to deciding whether to give trust. Because the trust behavior of the government may involve great benefits or losses, in order to make an accurate judgment, the government will try its best to collect relevant information to judge the trustworthiness of non-profit organizations. It can be seen from the relevant systems of the emergence and operation of non-profit organizations in China that the government mainly adopts two sets of mechanisms to improve the credibility of non-profit organizations, that is, the P value of the trustee's credibility in Coleman's trust formula. First, the government directly appoints current or retired government officials as the heads of non-profit organizations through monopoly power, and reserves the right to revoke the trust at any time according to its performance after the first trust act (that is, to replace the heads of non-profit organizations). This is based on personal trust in government officials. We can observe from the operation of non-profit organizations in China that quite a few non-profit organizations are directly led by government officials. 1994, considering that the direct appointment of government officials as the heads of non-profit organizations may affect the participants' judgment on the legitimacy of non-profit organizations, the government issued relevant regulations (Minshe Letter [1994]No. 123), stipulating that the heads of competent departments cannot be the heads of associations. In view of this provision, in practice, most non-profit organizations, especially those separated from government departments, are now headed by retired party and government officials. We can imagine that if a real non-profit organization is in charge, then the government can only restrict and supervise the operation of the non-profit organization by establishing a certain social structure, and judge whether the person in charge of the non-profit organization is trustworthy through repeated game processes after the first trust behavior is implemented. Although the government, as the principal, can punish the non-profit organization or revoke its trust when it realizes that the trustee is not trustworthy, there are still risks in the first trust. If current officials or retired party and government cadres are in charge of non-profit organizations, the probability of trusting trustees can be greatly improved for the government. Because these people have been the backbone of the party and the government for many years, they have been proved to be trustworthy in party spirit and loyalty in the past games. Making them directly responsible for the operation of non-profit organizations can minimize the opportunistic behavior of deliberately hiding and distorting information. Therefore, the p value in Coleman formula can be greatly improved, thus prompting the government to give trust. At the same time, due to the monopoly position in the power structure, the government almost completely controls the punishment and reward of the trustee-non-profit organization, which makes the person in charge of the non-profit organization realize that only by maintaining loyalty to the client and keeping promises can we benefit from repeated transactions. The dual existence of positive incentive and punishment mechanism further urges the responsible persons of non-profit organizations to maintain credit.
Second, establish social structure, establish strict reward and punishment system, and supervise and restrict the operation of non-profit organizations. This is based on institutional trust. As the government is a special organization with monopoly power, it can unilaterally make rules of the game, so it will create a social structure to punish non-profit organizations for their breach of contract and reward them for their compliance with credit. From September 1950 "Interim Measures for the Registration of Social Organizations" and September 10/989 "Regulations on the Registration of Social Organizations" to June 1998 and 1998 "Regulations on the Registration of Social Organizations".
The Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations establishes a "two-tier management system", which stipulates that the management of social organizations shall be jointly undertaken by the organization and management organs and the competent business departments. At present, the organization of China is managed by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People's Republic of China and local civil affairs departments at or above the county level. The competent department of business is a government organ that directly guides and manages the business activities of associations. The civil affairs department shall bear the responsibilities of registration, supervision and management of associations according to law, and the competent business department shall be mainly responsible for the business guidance and specific daily management of associations. Civil affairs departments and business departments should perform their respective duties and cooperate with each other in the management of mass organizations. The so-called hierarchical management means that different levels of associations are managed by different levels of registration management organs according to the actual situation such as the distribution of members and the geographical scope of activities. Through the dual hierarchical management system, the government brings almost all the daily activities of social organizations into the government management system and weakens the decision-making power of social organizations as much as possible. With the business authorities becoming more familiar with and aware of the society, the government can obtain as much effective information as possible by entrusting this better-informed and trustworthy third party.
The government has expanded the scope of information collection by keeping all the activities of non-profit organizations in the hands of management departments as much as possible. Community management is divided into three forms: registration management, daily management and supervision management, involving community management organs and business departments to formulate laws and regulations, inspect and guide daily activities, adjust internal organizational structure and internal personnel management of social organizations. In addition to listing laws and regulations, the Regulations on the Administration of Registration of Social Organizations stipulates the great powers of the administrative organs and the competent business organs, and also adopts the residual method to bring endless contents into the management scope of the administrative organs. "In short, the daily management of social organizations is extremely rich, including personnel management, financial management, business activity management, party organization management and other aspects. With the deepening of community management practice, the content of daily management activities will continue to expand. [14](P45) In the management of community activities, "the business management of social organizations should be carefully and strictly managed and guided to prevent omissions and deviations". [ 14](P88)
The government has also increased the frequency of information collection and shortened the time difference between information transmission and feedback by stipulating the annual inspection system and the regular and irregular inspection system. In order to cooperate with and improve the supervision system, the state has also given the community management department the power to modify and supplement the system according to the loopholes found at any time. According to the regulations, the management organs and business departments of associations can formulate new policies and regulations in a timely manner according to the objective needs of the development and changes of associations, and constantly improve and concretize laws and regulations related to citizens' associations and activities. The competent business department is the direct maker and executor of the country's principles, policies and regulations in this field. Therefore, these principles, policies and regulations have the most power of interpretation. In addition, the competent business department is also the planner and planner of the business development direction in this field or industry. [ 14](P44)
Due to the implementation of two mechanisms based on personal trust and institutional trust to maintain trust, the government believes that the expected income will far exceed the loss, so it can give trust to non-profit organizations, which is one of the important reasons for the rapid growth of non-profit organizations in China in the short term. If the government directly appoints current or retired officials as the heads of non-profit organizations without power, then the government's judgment on the trustees can only be realized by creating some social structure. Relatively speaking, the probability that the trustee is reliable will decrease. In this case, the government may decide not to give trust.
This paper analyzes the relationship between the government and non-profit organizations in China society, focusing on the logical causes of the trust relationship between the government and non-profit organizations in China from the perspective of rational choice, without normative explanation of the consequences and legitimacy of this trust relationship. In fact, from the previous analysis, it can be seen that in China, the government's trust in non-profit organizations is very low, so there are such complicated rules to restrict it. The establishment of these social structures not only improves the credibility probability of non-profit organizations, but also has a negative impact on their autonomy and organizational performance. Limited by space, these issues will be further discussed in other studies. (Note: See Tian Kai: Inconsistency of Constraints and Organizational Operation-A Case Study of the Relationship between Charitable Organizations and Government in China [M], Commercial Press, 2004. )
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For reference only, please learn by yourself.
I hope it helps you.