Article on NGO registration in China

When authoritarian states control civil society, we picture crackdowns. The more common tool is quieter: the registration form.

In “The Safety Tether” (Governance, open access), Blake Miller and I present the first large-N quantitative study of NGO registration in China, analysing all 861,042 historical registrations (until 2018). After a 2013 reform, local governments loosened the rules where they needed NGOs’ help and held firm where civil society looked like a threat. The centre sets the length of the rope; localities decide how tautly to hold it.