An Uneasy Tango? Analyzing the Success of Tzuchi

As the territory of Tzuchi extended to a scaring scale in an amazing speed, it is expected to create a tension with the authoritarian regimes in 1980s when the regime was experiencing multiple challenges and essential transformation. Religious groups tend to threaten the power elites because of the zeal and willingness to sacrifice of the followers. When the subjects are not afraid of dying, the ruling class losses effective means to control them. Such recklessness of religious fanatics can be easily grasped by political opponents to create social turmoil and challenge the ruling legitimacy. The networking ability of the religious groups also imposes an immense threat to the authoritarian leaders who prefers individuals to be insulated from

conspirators’ mobilization. For these reasons, the ruling party, Kuomintang cracked down a famous religion, I-Kuan Tao (lit. the pervasive truth) in 1951, even though it was considered very faithful to the regime, while the Communist Party in Mainland China cracked down Falun Gong (lit. Dharma Wheel Practice) in 1999.

Several features of Tzuchi might explain why it has gone through a much smoother path. First and most important, it has followed the principle of depoliticization in a very strict manner. This principle, shown in its “Ten Commandments” that every volunteer has to obey, simply specifies that the volunteer should not participate in political activities nor take part in demonstration.¹² In practice, the implication of “political activities” ranges widely. Tzuchi always remains neutral in all levels of elections. It never supports any candidates or parties. Nor can any volunteer carry its symbol to claim or imply that Tzuchi is on his or her side. It assigns a spokesman to clarify any possible misunderstanding and to remind the misdemeanors this indispensable rule.

“No politics” principle also applies to public policy. A pluralistic democracy considers the lobbying activities of interest groups or their taking a stance in a specific policy as normal. Democratic theories even

encourage civil participation and public deliberation on policy debates. It is not the case in Tzuchi. The organization never comments on, criticizes against, or shows preference over any specific public policies, although the general principles, such as charity, environmental protection, or humanity might indicate its preferences implicitly.

12 Tzu Chi Foundation website. Available at http://tw.tzuchi.org/images/stories/videos/almanac/2011/index.html (Retrieved on October 2012)

Such political neutrality has been a long term commitment and such commitment earns long-term benefits only if it is credible. Siding on a specific party or politicians might gain instant rewards because of specific power struggles or elections, yet it may suffer from retaliating when the opponent camp comes to the power.

The neutrality is especially important in the authoritarian era because it is a valid indicator of political ambition. The fact that this it does not maintain strong connections to specific power holders effectively reduces the suspicion of other elites that the connection might be used against their interests in the future.

This organization can therefore keep the same distance to all potential power elites and welcome their supports in an indiscriminate manner.

An auxiliary principle to political neutrality doctrine is “No Criticism” policy. In carrying out charity missions, the volunteers would inevitably confront unfavorable conditions such as outdated policies, rad-tape,

stubborn decision makers, or even corrupted bureaucrats. They were trained to see a brighter side of the situation, to say something nice and encouraging, and show their sincerity and thankfulness in charity actions. A grace but principled attitude might not receive instant payoff in confrontations, but it proved to be useful in dissolving suspicion and antagonism of power elites as time lapses.

The second feature of Tzuchi’s development is its function-oriented approach in managing its relations with the public authorities. It targeted the areas that the governments failed to do well, and thus it was actually helping the governments to solve social problems, to maintain social stability, and to enhance its legitimacy.

According to above “No Criticism”, Tzuchi never assumed that those charity missions should have been done by the government, but just carried out the mission with a low profile. It just took the job with

thankfulness, as if it thanked the government for giving it a chance to serve the public. When it got extra helps from the governments, again it thanked the governments as if they were not supposed to offer these helps. Such humble and grateful attitude made them a perfect partner for the public authority because Tzuchi performed essential governing functions by mobilizing extra resources from the society and shared credits with them. Consequently, Tzuchi has been considered a wonderful alliance for the authoritarian regime. After democratization, since Tzuchi’s achievement could be shared by any ruling party, new government tended to maintain favorable policy toward it.

The third feature of Tzuchi’s development was its bottom-up networking pattern. Neither its organization nor its activities attracted attention of the public authority in early days. It started with a nun leading a small group of housewives to collect petty funds in marketplaces to deliver some help to the poor. As its network drastically extended at the grassroots level in early 1980s, it became an important political force that the ruling elites would like to ally with. It was an era when Taiwan broke diplomatic relations with the US, when rapid economic development created income disparity, when industrialization created abundant socially aloof and dislocated underclass, when opposition forces started to organize in elections, when the ruling party suffered from unprecedented electoral fiasco, and when the ruling party tried to promote landed elites to key leadership positions to change its image of an alien regime from the mainland. Tzuchi

with a good reputation in charity, an image of grassroots-based networks, formidable potential in mass mobilization, and a politically unambitious nature, was therefore a wonderful ally in governance.

A New Mode of NPO Development: Philanthropic Urban Regime

Literature of urban development has abounded in the discussing the powerful concept of “urban regime”, which points out the existence of a handful of economic elites that can always remain in the ruling coalition no matter whom or which party actually comes into the power. These elites share the same interests in keeping the city grow so that the businessmen can earn windfall profit through zoning and renewal projects while the politicians can earn votes by lower unemployment rate and more beautiful landscape (Stone, 1989). While such concept of pro-growth coalition fits largely in western democracy, literature in developing scenario has emphasized the dominant role of the politician in the coalition, depicting a patron-client relationship in which the politicians distribute the rent to the businessmen in exchange for their loyalty.

Although above theoretical perspectives make good sense in explaining the rapid urban expansion in the past decades, the picture is not complete without taking the rising influence of voluntary sector into account.

This sector, paralleling to the state and market, has become an important governing partner in recent decades. Considering interaction between state and society, when citizens depend on the state to supply public goods, their incentive to produce them naturally diminishes. If, however, the state stops providing the good- for reasons economic or political-independent organizations often step in. A burst of organizing in civil society can be the result. (Hadenius and Uggla, 1996: 1629). Yet how the voluntary organizations have actually interacted with the power holders to become a member in the ruling regime needs a systematic understanding.

The case in this study indicates how a seed of nonprofit sector can grow rapidly out of an adversary soil and turn the environment into a nursery to accomplish its ambitious philanthropic goals by allying with the political elites. By nature the power elites in authoritarian context were supposed to be suspicious about any rising new force. Once the ruling elites assured that the nonprofit organization was politically unambitious and could play essential function in strengthening the regime, they rendered favorable policies to let the organization to pursue its goals. Such policy favoritism deviates from understanding of patron-client theory because the voluntary organization did not pay loyalty to the political elites. It was politically neutral and thus could say no to the power elite. Since the organization fulfills significant governing functions by mobilizing external resources, it enjoys a much greater degree of independence than other coalition members.

As democratization proceeded and elections became more competitive, the dominance of political elites waned so that the coalition became more like western, urban regime style. This study indicates that

voluntary organizations representing the interests of disadvantageous classes might actually become a member of ruling coalition to balance the influence of business and political elites that represent self-interests of the prestigious classes in the ruling regime. It is therefore called “Philanthropic Urban Regime” to demonstrate a variant but encouraging mode.

It is true that the development path of Tzuchi in Taiwan has some idiosyncratic elements that might not be available in other cases, such as Master Cheng Yen as a charismatic leader, socio-economic conditions with new riches questing for spiritual fulfillment, and political opportunities in democratization demanding for social welfare provision and grassroots network. Nevertheless, a similar mode with the same principles and strategies has been experimented in different places with a great success. Tzuchi enjoys a breakthrough in its development in Mainland China indicates that some lessons can be learnt from its experiences.

Conclusion

If engaging the third sector has become an imperative for effective public governance nowadays, how to release this long oppressed sector from choking control of the governments becomes to be the most critical issue for many developing countries. The case of Tzuchi indicates how a civic-spirited voluntary organization groups could eventually emerged from harsh authoritarian rein and survived vicious party-competition in early democratic transition. Tzuchi phenomenon touches an interesting field of comparative study on the development of non-profit organizations in different settings of political regimes (Anheier and Seibel, 1990).

It indicates the deficiency of prevailing theories in depicting the power relationship in the ruling regime, in which non-profit organizations have no role to play.

More specifically, Tzuchi phenomenon responds to the recent concerns about the fate of emerging societal forces in the authoritarian regime, as the vest literature has been emerging on politics of the third sector in China. This study indicates that political power may be obtained via a depoliticized approach. Without direct contribution to political parties or election campaigns, Tzuchi still could gain the land rezoned for its projects, roads and public infrastructure constructed as it wished, and regulation revised as it demanded.

While such principle as depoliticization might be considered only a strategy-level factor, a thorough

understanding on why it has been so critical for the organization to survive the hostile milieu shed a light on possible theoretical development on capacity-building of the third sector in developmental countries.

This study challenged theory of clientelism describing civil group to get political resources but not to exchange allegiance. This sort of interaction model demonstrated further development of civil society.

Therefore, why the authoritarian regime would support a philanthropic group rather than a loyal group which raise money for charity as well? Scrutinizing the case of Tzuchi, the study found out a new mode between state and society: Philanthropic Urban Regime. Civil group gained political power by means of maintaining fidelity to depoliticization.

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