Nonprofit-Government Relations in Authoritarian China: A Review and Synthesis of the Chinese Literature

This study provides a comprehensive review and synthesis of the Chinese literature on nonprofit-government relations. A total of 1,222 nonprofit research articles have been examined. It assesses the key insights and contributions of nonprofit-government relations studies across macro-, meso-, and micro-level. It identifies three important limitations of extant research: the lack of autonomy (i.e., it is state-guided), indigeneity (i.e., it is largely an exercise of applying Western theories), and sophistication (i.e., it has limited theoretical depth and methodological rigor). The middle-range approach to theory building is suggested as a most appropriate future direction to advance research in this area.