社会建设视角下社会组织的情境合法性

The Situational Legitimacy of Social Organizations from the Perspective of Social Construction

社会组织可在社会建设过程中切实发挥作用,而实际效果如何取决于情境性因素。通过讨论社会组织和社区不同主体之间的互动,提出情境合法性这一概念,并以此为中心探究当前社会组织参与社会建设的一些特征。所谓情境合法性,是指享有总体合法性的社会组织在开展具体的项目时需要获取来自服务对象和基层精英的认可与支持。享有较高声誉的社会组织,往往比较容易获得项目支持,并与社区权力精英建立合作关系,甚至取得初步的绩效成果。但是,组织声誉并不一定有利于情境合法性的维系。高度的组织声誉一方面有可能提高服务对象的预期,约束组织的策略选择,使其绩效表现难以满足服务对象,进而失去他们的认可与支持;另一方面,高度的声誉使社会组织在项目开展过程中拥有相当的自主性和议价能力,但当这些优势发挥到超过社区权力精英能够容忍的程度时,权力关系将会恶化,社会组织的情境合法性逐渐流失。失去服务对象和社区权力精英的认可与支持,社会组织的项目无法持续,相应的社会建设也就难以推进。

Social organizations can indeed play a role in the process of social construction, but their actual effects depend on situational factors. We put forward the concept of situational legitimacy based on ananalysis of the interaction between social organizations and various community members and on this basis explore the characteristics of contemporary social organizations participating in social construction. Situational legitimacy means that when social organizations that enjoy overall legitimacy carry out specific projects, they need to get recognition and support from the recipients of their services and grass-roots elites. Social organizations with a high reputation usually have their projects supported;they develop cooperation with powerful community elites and even achieve initial results. But a social organization’s reputation does not always help it maintain situational legitimacy. On one hand, the organization’s good reputation may well raise the expectations of service recipients and constrain its strategic choices, thus leaving the recipients dissatisfied and losing their recognition and support;On the other, an organization with a good reputation possesses autonomy and bargaining power. However, when the exercise of these advantages exceeds the limits of tolerance of powerful community elites, the power relationship will deteriorate and the organization’s situational legitimacy will fade away. Having lost the recognition and support of both the service recipients and the powerful community elites will mean that the organization’s projects will not be sustainable and the corresponding social construction will be hard to take forward.