Corporate environmental philanthropy and state-society relations in China

Abstract

In recent years, the role of Chinese entrepreneurs in state-society relations has become a popular topic in research on China. Aided by China’s new Charity Law, corporate environmental philanthropy has become an important catalyst to foment social change. But how are state-society relations shaped in this field? China’s government and private business seem to have different agendas regarding the promotion of corporate giving but there is a shared consensus among them regarding its benefits. While civil society is seen to be in the doldrums amidst an ever stronger growing Chinese state, some topic areas such as the ‘environment’ have opened up new spaces for Chinese social organizations to negotiate, with Alashan SEE and the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) being prominent examples. The last 12 years saw Chinese entrepreneurs emerge as a distinct group of potential mediators between the state and civil society, the logic of which defies conventional theories of both top-down corporatism as well as bottom-up civil society transformation.

Bio Constantin Holzer

Before starting his career at University College Cork (UCC) as Lecturer in Chinese Business, Constantin Holzer graduated with a PhD in Political Economy from Renmin University of China and an MA in International Relations from Peking University. His research focuses on Chinese entrepreneurship and business ethics with a focus on entrepreneurs as actors in environmental governance as well as state-society relations and economic reform in China. During his time in China he worked as a trainee in the section ‘Science, Technology and Environment’ at the European Union Delegation in Beijing and was awarded the Marietta-Blau Fellowship from the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research and Economy for his research on entrepreneurship and corporate environmental responsibility in China.