"Incomplete Collaboration": The Strategy for Chinese NGO Alliance: Case Study of NGOs' Joint Action during the Wenchuan Earthquake Relief.

Since the 1990s', Chinese NGO' s burgeoning development has attracted much attention from both the overseas and Chinese domestic academia, which shows a general shift of research focus from structural debates of the "State-NGO" relationships to exploration of NGOsy specific action strategies. However, as one of the key phenomenon of Chinese NGOs' growth and development, the issue of NGO collaboration has not been richly tapped on. Taking NGOs' joint disaster relief action during the Wenchuan Earthquake as the study case, this research tends to explore the "incompleteness" of NGO collaboration in China. It is contended that incomplete collaboration is a subjectively selected action strategy by NGOs when faced with externally institutional and internally organizational limitations. The strategic mechanisms of NGO incomplete collaboration are demonstrated by self-constrained joint action objects, organizations' limited engagement in the alliances and flexible organizing forms of alliances. The incomplete collaboration is induced by limited political opportunities, informal NGO networks and incomplete corporative willingness of NGOs. The authors further point out that, within the general limited political environment of authoritarian China, it is this kind of incomplete collaboration that enables NGOs, alliance during the disaster relief, which shows effectiveness of the action strategy. Meanwhile, because of its incompleteness, incomplete collaboration also leads to the fragility and weak internal control of NGO alliance, which shows the limitations of the action strategy. More stable and lasting NGOs' corporation in the future calls for other collaborative models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]