The dominant role of the authoritarian state in Chinese volunteerism has been noted but little examined in the scholarly literature. This study illuminates the ways in which the Chinese state controls and administers volunteerism and volunteering through a detailed analysis of the governance of volunteering in Beijing. Drawing on participant observation, interviews and archival research, we analyse how Beijing administers volunteering and its structures through the work of its administrative authority for managing volunteering in regulation and public policy, management structure, resources, internal operations, monitoring and evaluation. We argue that Beijing has built a comprehensive apparatus to manage and control volunteering through a Party- and state-controlled, multi-layered and centralized management structure. However, this state corporatist structure carries within it the seeds for over-formal controls and conflicts between official, professional service providers and the increasing number of volunteers throughout Chinese society.

Regarding the causes of the Sewol ferry accident that claimed 304 lives in April 2014, some scholars have blamed neoliberal reforms such as deregulation and privatization for the safety regulatory failure. Others have highlighted the role of industry influence and corruption. Our analysis shows that regulatory capture was the crucial causal factor; moreover, this capture was institutionalized from the state-corporatist arrangements of the authoritarian period rather than reflecting new arrangements under the democratic era or corruption per se. The delegation of the critical safety regulation enforcement to the shipping industry association was not introduced as a neoliberal reform but in the context of state corporatism of the Park Chung-hee regime. Democratic governments continued to protect the monopoly of the lucrative Incheon–Jeju ferry business, contrary to neoliberal logic. The legacies of state corporatism persist despite post-financial crisis reform.