Explaining Civic Action and Inaction: Philanthropy, Volunteerism and the Altruistic Citizen

• In Event: Emerging from Crisis: New Developments in Civil Society and Civic Action in China

Abstract

China is experiencing increased socio-economic inequalities and reported social discontent in the 2020s (CSIS 2022). At the same time, the Chinese state has reimagined the desired characteristics of a model citizen in the domain of philanthropy and volunteerism.

To incentivize greater charitable donations, concepts such as “common prosperity” (gongtong fuyu) and “tertiary distribution” (sanci fenpei) have been employed in arguing that it is the moral responsibility of Chinese citizens to financially contribute to those who are less well off (see e.g. Hsu et al. 2023).

The state has also signalled that it expects citizens to do more in the realm of volunteerism. Key policy documents such as China’s last two Five Year Plans (2015-2020; 2021-2025) have elevated the importance of voluntary activities amongst the citizenry to participate in social governance and national social development initiatives.

Given the Chinese state’s strong signaling to suggest that a morally good citizen is one who engages in charity work and volunteerism, the question remains why do we witness relatively high levels of citizen inaction in this domain?

Leveraging data from the 2023 Chinese Altruistic Behaviour Survey, a national survey conducted by the authors that develops a socio-psychological profile of the altruistic citizen, this paper delineates behavioural attributes of the citizenry that accounts for their philanthropic and voluntary action or inaction. The paper further discusses the implications of these findings for state and society relations, and more acutely, for the state’s strategies for increasing philanthropic and voluntary action amongst the citizenry.

Hasmath, R., Hildebrandt, T. and Hsu, J.Y., 2019. Conceptualizing government-organized non-governmental organizations. Journal of civil society, 15(3), pp.267-284.

Authors

• Reza Hasmath, University of Alberta

• Timothy Hildebrandt, London School of Economics