At present, China's non-governmental organizations have played an active role in mobilizing social resources, expressing interests, making up for government failures and adjusting political structure, but there is still room for further development. Institutional environment, management system, organization's own ability and values are the main factors that restrict the effective play of social functions of Chinese NGOs. To enhance and promote the social functions of China NGOs in an all-round way, the promotion of the ruling party is the leading force, the reform of government management system is the prerequisite, the perfection of social supervision mechanism is the external driving force, and the transformation of control, suspicion and dependence is the deep-seated conceptual driving force. Keywords: non-governmental organizations; Social function; Dual management system Since 1970s, with the trend of China's reform and opening up and the influence of globalization in the world, various types of NGOs in China have gradually grown up. In the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it is proposed to "strengthen social construction in improving people's livelihood and innovating management". Giving full play to the social functions of non-governmental organizations is obviously the meaning of strengthening social construction. Undeniably, China's non-governmental organizations have exerted great influence on social construction, economic development, political reform and other fields, such as environmental protection organizations, the Red Cross and other non-governmental organizations in China can be seen everywhere in our real life. But at the same time, China's NGOs have encountered many difficulties in their work, and many people are still skeptical about whether NGOs can effectively exert positive energy. Then the question is, to what extent do the social functions of non-governmental organizations in China play at present, and is it possible to further expand them? What factors affect the effective play of social functions of non-governmental organizations in China? How to promote China NGOs to play their social functions effectively? Explaining and answering the above questions is of great practical significance and theoretical value to the national construction and social development of China today. I. Presentation and Evaluation of Social Functions of Non-governmental Organizations in China As an organization type, non-governmental organizations naturally have their specific organizational structure and corresponding social functions, such as mobilizing social resources, providing public services, social coordination and governance, and policy advocacy and influence. [1] Non-governmental organizations in China have developed gradually after the reform and opening up, but their social functions are different from those in western countries because China is still in the transition period. Generally speaking, at present, China's non-governmental organizations present the following basic conditions in playing their social functions. It has played a great role in mobilizing social resources, but there is still room for further expansion. At present, the social resource mobilization function of non-governmental organizations in China is mainly reflected in mobilizing charitable donations and voluntary services. For example, on the evening of June 12, 2008, civil organizations such as Nanjing amity foundation, Jet Li One Foundation, Friends of Nature, Greenpeace, and Green Home Volunteers took action in succession, urgently purchasing relief materials, launching fund-raising and launching a "small action+many people = big difference" earthquake relief operation. [2] These actions fully show that China is not. Of course, there are still many problems in the mobilization of social resources by non-governmental organizations in China at present, mainly as follows: (1) At present, the proportion of charitable organizations in China is more to assist the government to perform some social management and service functions, while the proportion of self-government in realizing social welfare is less; (2) Charity and voluntary social fund donations are unsustainable. 20165438+1After the "Guo Meimei" incident in late October, the number of donations from social organizations and charitable organizations in China dropped sharply. (3) The self-organization and specialization of voluntary activities are not strong. In our country, many voluntary activities in non-governmental organizations are organized from top to bottom through administrative means, not entirely from the voluntary activities of the people. In addition, volunteers in China are mostly amateurs, and most of them lack the skills and knowledge needed for service work; (4) Voluntary activities are not widely accepted by the society. In the mid-1990s, voluntary action in China was often regarded as a non-mainstream behavior, and it was considered unusual for volunteers to go to the countryside to teach and provide free services in the community. [3](P 16) It can be seen that there is still room for further development of the functions of Chinese NGOs in social resource mobilization. Organizational carriers have been established in various fields, but the substantive function of carrier interest expression is still very limited. At present, China's NGOs have established corresponding organizational carriers in the political, economic, cultural and social fields. According to a survey conducted by Wang Ming 200 1, among them, NGOs in the field of social services account for 44.63%, NGOs in the field of investigation and research account for 42.5 1%, and trade associations account for 39.99%. 34.62% in the field of culture and art, 24.54% in legal consultation and service, 265.438+0.54% in policy consultation and 205% in poverty alleviation. [4](P 13) But the problem is that the function of China NGOs in actively representing the interests of their members and expressing their interests to the party and the government through legal channels is still very limited. Taking environmental protection organizations as an example, according to our interviews and investigations, most victims of environmental pollution do not think of expressing their interests to the government through formal non-governmental organizations in the process of safeguarding their rights. At the same time, environmental NGOs actively participated in the petition activities of environmental pollution victims. This shows that there are still some shortcomings and defects in the function of environmental NGOs to express and aggregate residents' environmental interests. It can be seen that non-governmental organizations in China have their own specific organizational forms and carriers in various fields of the country, but the substantive function of this carrier to express interests is still very limited. To some extent, it makes up for the failure of the government, but the function of assisting the government is not enough. In China, non-governmental organizations have played a supplementary role in government management. Firstly, non-governmental organizations undertake certain microeconomic management functions, thus promoting economic development. Take Ningbo Trade Association as an example, it undertakes some microeconomic management functions for the government. By formulating industry norms, it has promoted industry self-discipline, coordinated business practices among peer enterprises, maintained industry reputation, restricted some illegal activities, carried out activities including qualification evaluation and recognition, shared the functions of government market supervision, made up for the shortcomings of government functions, and promoted the "slimming" of the government. [5](P204) Secondly, NGOs can supplement the government's social security. For example, China Disabled Persons' Federation organizations at all levels have carried out a lot of work to help the disabled with rehabilitation, education, employment and disability prevention. Third, NGOs can expand employment channels and increase employment opportunities. But at the same time, we also see that due to the late growth and some problems in their own strength and ability, the phenomenon of "voluntary failure" will inevitably occur in Chinese non-governmental organizations, and it is difficult to give full play to their social functions of making up for government failure and assisting government management. It has played a role in adjusting the political structure, but it cannot play a fundamental role. Some scholars have theoretically summarized the performance of NGOs in adjusting the state power structure. For example, non-governmental organizations have effectively restricted the expansion of state power and laid a solid foundation for the realization of constitutionalism and the rule of law; Non-governmental organizations have created organizational conditions for political democracy and promoted the development of democratic politics; The separation of non-governmental organizations and political countries leads to the separation of power, which provides a prerequisite for the differentiation of political structure; Non-governmental organizations are the driving force for the sustained stability of democratic political system. [6] However, objectively speaking, China's NGOs can't play a fundamental role in the adjustment of China's political power structure for three reasons: (1) The leading forces of China's political reform are the * * * production party and the whole people. (2) Non-governmental organizations are only a part of civil society in the western concept, and their main function is not political function, but service function in the field of public affairs. (3) As an organizational force, the NGOs in China are not strong enough. They are only the auxiliary forces for the Party and the government to achieve the national development goals and carry out modernization. (4) Market organization is an important force to adjust the political power structure, and non-governmental organizations cannot replace the political functions brought about by the development of market economy. The above four points determine that China's non-governmental organizations can't be the fundamental force to adjust the political power structure. Second, the current constraints of China's non-governmental organizations to effectively play their social functions From the perspective of histology, any organization must have its own conditions in order to effectively achieve its organizational goals and play its organizational functions. From a macro point of view, three conditions can be roughly distinguished: first, the institutional environment; The second is the management system; Third, the ability of the organization itself; The fourth is values. These four conditions are the preconditions for the effective development of weaving function. As far as China's non-governmental organizations are concerned, the restrictive factors that cannot effectively play their social functions are mainly reflected in four aspects. Limitations of the legal system At present, there are still three problems in the legal protection of non-governmental organizations in China: (1) The legal system is not perfect. As far as the management of non-governmental organizations in China is concerned, although the state has formulated comprehensive legal norms, it lacks a programmatic basic law, which leads to the dilemma of citing legal basis in the process of government management of non-profit organizations. In addition, the laws and regulations related to the management of non-governmental organizations have a low degree of convergence, and various legal bases are not matched. These legal defects weaken the government's supervision of various behaviors of non-governmental organizations, and many non-governmental organizations misbehave in the absence of effective supervision, which eventually leads to the lack of social functions. (2) Laws and regulations are too principled and not operable. For example, there are no specific operational norms to guide the political participation of non-governmental organizations, and there are no specific operational norms to coordinate the relationship between the party, non-governmental organizations and the government. (3) The legislative level is not high. The national laws and regulations governing non-governmental organizations are mainly based on the Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations promulgated by the State Council, the Provisional Regulations on the Registration and Management of Private Non-enterprise Units, the Regulations on the Management of Foundations, and local laws, regulations and normative documents formulated by various localities themselves. Obviously, these legislative levels are limited, and the low legislative level will directly affect the authority of non-governmental organizations to play their social functions. In a word, due to the imperfect legal system, strong principle and low legislative level, the social function of Chinese NGOs is greatly restricted. At present, in China, "the primary goal of government management of non-governmental organizations is to limit their development and avoid possible political risks by restricting access through double examination and approval." [7] It is of course necessary to control non-governmental organizations, but the dual management system is, after all, the product of omnipotent politics under the planned economy. After the reform and opening up, China's market economy has been cultivated and developed, the space of market and society has gradually opened, and the government is no longer an all-powerful government. Obviously, the traditional dual management system in China has been out of touch with the times, which greatly restricts the effective play of the social functions of non-governmental organizations in China. For example, there are actually double thresholds for the registration of non-governmental organizations, thus creating a large number of "illegal" non-governmental organizations; For another example, the three Regulations on the Administration of Non-governmental Organizations in China have the characteristics of being too principled, overlapping and vague in the division of responsibilities between the registration authority and the business supervisor, which is easy to lead to the situation that the responsibilities are not divided, and the result will lead to the separation of the government and society, thus weakening the independence of non-governmental organizations. [8] (P254) In short, the high threshold limits the number of non-governmental organizations in China, does not distinguish between government and society, and has poor independence, so it is difficult to reflect the dominant position of non-governmental organizations in China. In this way, the social function of non-governmental organizations in China will inevitably be seriously negatively affected. The dilemma of self-construction and ability of organizations is the internal condition and main foundation for NGOs to effectively play their social functions. However, at present, there are still many bottlenecks and difficulties in the self-construction and capacity-building of non-governmental organizations in China: First, their independence is not enough. At present, China's non-governmental organizations are actually subordinate institutions of the competent units, which leads to the fact that non-governmental organizations are too dependent on the government, with strong official color and insufficient independence; The second is the lack of development funds. Due to the shortage of welfare funds in China, it is difficult to distribute them to non-governmental organizations that are not really included in the government welfare system. In addition, the development of non-governmental organizations outside the system mainly depends on self-financing (mainly through foreign aid), a small amount of social donations and certain service charges. Due to the lack of public welfare tradition, the government's measures to encourage individuals and enterprises to donate are limited, and the number of private donations is very small; Third, there is a shortage of human resources. At present, due to the lack of funds, non-governmental organizations in China cannot provide good economic conditions for talents, so they cannot attract high-quality talents; Finally, at present, the internal governance of non-governmental organizations in China actually lacks corresponding institutional norms, and there is a widespread problem of poor governance. In short, at present, China's non-governmental organizations, no matter people's ideas, the number and scale of non-governmental organizations, and more importantly, their overall ability and role, still can't keep up with the needs of social and economic development, which greatly restricts the effective play of social functions of non-governmental organizations in China. Cultural values are the deep-seated factors that affect the social functions of NGOs. At present, different subjects in our country still have many restrictive ideas about the functions of non-governmental organizations, which are embodied as follows: (1) The party and the government still hold certain control ideas about non-governmental organizations. After the reform and opening up, although the Party and the government began to realize the importance of non-governmental organizations to the transformation of government functions, and emphasized the role of non-governmental organizations as bridges and ties, the path dependence of an all-round country often made government officials regard non-governmental organizations as a potential threat to social and political order and a challenge to government authority, thus failing to fully trust them. In reality, some non-governmental organizations often accept foreign funds, and these foreign funds may be attached with some conditions, which will attract the attention of the government and provide a basis for strictly controlling non-governmental organizations. (2) The public is still skeptical about NGOs. "For the third-sector organizations with strong official nature, the China public often regards them as the second government; For weak grass-roots organizations, the public is often skeptical about their ability, thus ignoring their existence or insisting on careful evaluation. In addition, in this centralized society, the public can't really understand what impact the existence and development of the third sector will have on their lives. " [9] Because the public is skeptical about the ability and development of non-governmental organizations, this makes non-governmental organizations lack public support and participation in our country, and their social functions are negatively affected. (3) NGOs in China hold the concept of relying on the government. As mentioned above, the dual management system makes NGOs have to rely on the government, and their independence will definitely be seriously affected. Third, the path choice to promote the effective social function of non-governmental organizations in China Some scholars believe that under the logic of modern civilization, the development of non-governmental organizations in China poses a new challenge to the party's governance: (1) The development of non-governmental organizations has crowded out the traditional space and organizational foundation of political parties; (2) Non-governmental organizations have replaced the functions of political parties in some fields; (3) The tension between NGOs and political parties affects the ability of political parties to integrate society. Faced with these challenges, our party has adopted four countermeasures: first, control; The second response is to regulate social groups; The third response is to strengthen the leadership and guidance of various social groups through the power of party organizations to ensure political influence on social groups; The fourth countermeasure is to integrate social groups and give full play to their functions. These four actions are a continuous action process, and the emergence of new response actions does not replace the previous one, thus forming an action framework for the development of Chinese production party NGOs. [10](P4 18) It can be seen that our party is trying to bring non-governmental organizations into its institutional framework and make them the social foundation of our party's governance. On this premise, we can further integrate and develop the social functions of non-governmental organizations. * * * The production party is the most powerful social organization force in contemporary China. In the process of political integration, if the relationship between the ruling party and non-governmental organizations is not handled well, non-governmental organizations and political parties may form an antagonistic relationship, either political parties restrict the development of non-governmental organizations, or non-governmental organizations replace the functions of political parties or even gain political power in some fields; If handled well, NGOs may form a cooperative and complementary relationship with political parties. Therefore, under the current situation in our country, only under the impetus of the party can our party truly recognize and integrate the role and status of developing non-governmental organizations, so as to fully ensure that non-governmental organizations can effectively play their social functions in our country. Reforming the government management system is the premise for non-governmental organizations to effectively play their social functions. For the current development of non-governmental organizations in China, we should continue to promote and improve the reform of government management system. Only in this way can China's NGOs develop healthily, effectively and truly realize their social functions. First of all, the government should continue to decentralize appropriately. In the political sense, the process of China's reform and opening-up for more than 30 years can be said to be a process from a high degree of integration to gradual differentiation between the state and society, such as the government's decentralization to society, the separation of government and enterprise, and the gradual relaxation of government's management of citizens, which have provided a good environment for the birth of non-governmental organizations. Therefore, the government's continued decentralization is of great benefit to the emergence and development of non-governmental organizations, and it also frees up due space for non-governmental organizations to play their social functions. Secondly, the government should further transform its functions. New China was in a highly centralized planned economic system mode at the beginning of its gestation, and the government has always been an all-powerful government. Today, the inertia of the all-powerful government still profoundly affects the behavior of contemporary governments. Therefore, only by further transforming the functions of the government can we hand over the problems that the government could not manage well and the market could not solve in the past to non-governmental organizations. When non-governmental organizations assist the government in governance and make up for the government's failure, that is, when their social functions can be effectively played. Third, reform the dual management system. The trend of reforming the current dual management system is to reduce the direct contact and specific management of the government to non-governmental organizations, strengthen the post supervision and restriction on the behavior of non-governmental organizations, and finally realize a single registration system. In a word, deepening the reform of the government management system is an important prerequisite for effectively exerting the social functions of non-governmental organizations in China. At present, the non-governmental organizations in China can't undertake the heavy responsibility of public service functions transferred by the government from their own abilities and meet the needs of society. In this regard, strengthening the capacity building of NGOs is the internal motivation for NGOs to better solve some long-term social problems, meet social needs, gain recognition from the government and the public, and truly release social functions. Non-governmental organizations in China should strengthen their own capacity-building in the following aspects: (1) Strengthening the construction of human resources. Both full-time staff and temporary volunteers in non-governmental organizations should attract high-quality talents by strengthening training, improving treatment and optimizing project design, so as to improve the current situation of insufficient human resources in non-governmental organizations in China as a whole. (2) Improve the governance structure. Improve the internal governance structure of non-governmental organizations, whether it is the establishment of board of directors, financial institutions, human resources institutions, etc. There is a direction. We can learn from the governance structure model of western NGOs. When the structure is completed, the corresponding responsibilities of the structure should be improved, so that NGOs can have good missions and goals, and more importantly, they should have a responsibility system to complete their missions and goals. (3) Improve the internal system. These systems include legal person system, financial system, personnel management system, board system and volunteer recruitment system. Only when the internal system is perfect can the external behavior of non-governmental organizations be based on the system and play its social function reliably. (4) Improve the system of board of supervisors. It is necessary to expand the authority of the board of supervisors and clarify the rules of procedure of the board of supervisors, and so on. Self-construction is the subject's self-behavior and internal motivation. Therefore, strengthening self-construction is the inherent requirement for NGOs to give full play to their social functions. The perfection of social supervision mechanism is the external motive force for non-governmental organizations to effectively play their social functions. Social supervision is an important part of the supervision mechanism of NGOs. Giving full play to the role of social forces is not only conducive to changing the government's long-term direct management mode of NGO business, but more importantly, it is conducive to improving the management efficiency of NGOs and enhancing the social credibility of non-profit organizations. When the self-management efficiency of non-governmental organizations is improved and the social credibility is enhanced, non-governmental organizations will have external guarantee to play their social functions. Generally speaking, the improvement of social supervision mechanism of non-governmental organizations in China today can be carried out from the following aspects. (1) Strengthen the supervision of the public, especially the donors. On the one hand, the public's supervision of NGOs should be changed from passive to active. On the other hand, non-governmental organizations and their management institutions should unblock social supervision channels and strengthen public supervision from two aspects; (2) Strengthen media supervision. With the development and progress of science and technology and economy, the media has now become the "fourth power", which has a wide popularity and great influence, and has a strong guiding and deterrent effect. Therefore, strengthening the supervision of the media on NGOs can effectively restrain and guide the management behavior of NGOs; (3) Strengthen the supervision of independent third-party evaluation. Self-evaluation of non-governmental organizations and government evaluation of non-governmental organizations are two common evaluation subjects. If we join the supervision of independent third-party evaluation, the evaluation system of NGOs will be more perfect, and the credibility of NGO evaluation will also increase.