Invisible Power: The Resource Mobilization Of Social Work In Contemporary China

The topic of this article is the resource mobilization mechanism of social work services practice under the Transition Period, mainly focusing on the relations between resource mobilization practice and power, the key question is how power applied to the resource mobilization action of social work.China’s social work has developed rapidly in the context of social transformation, and is playing an increasingly important role in public services. One of the key factors in the functioning of social work is to mobilize social resources, and social workers often play the role of resource mobilizers. In the transition period of authoritarian background, the resource mobilization of social work will always be affected by the existing power structure, therefore it is necessary to clarify the relations between power and the resource mobilization of social work, and to identify the influence mechanism of power.This study mainly base on the theory of resource mobilization. The paper, with an innovative idea, apply the general framework for resource mobilization action to investigate the influence mechanism of power in social resources mobilization, and reference resource mobilization theory to extract social networks, action frame, legitimacy, career benefit these four elements, to build up the analysis framework of the resource mobilization actions of social work. Applying the framework to analyze the specific influence path of power.The main research method adopted is comparative case study. This paper chose the civic school set up by Communist Youth League of Chongqing, which is also a social work service platform, as observed object. Two sets of civic schools were compared under controlled conditions, for the case in which one group of civic schools are run by the Communist Youth League, and the other group of civic schools are run by social organizations.By comparative analysis, this paper find that the difference in resource mobilization results of two sets of civic schools varies considerably, the mobilization result of the civic schools run by Communist Youth League is better than that of the civic schools run by social organization. Thus we conclude the powers holed by Communist Youth League would affecting the result of resource mobilization. At the same time this article also find that the actor are mobilized still maintain their right to choose freely, the mobilization of two sets of civic schools are both operated in socialized way, which implying that the power is in a non-coercive manner and functions covertly. Take an in-depth analysis on the difference between the mobilization of these two sets of civic schools, this paper find that the Communist Youth League owns a set of branch organization system, standardize code of conduct, operations resources, resource allocation authority,which are the underlying causes result in the differences in resource mobilization between two sets of civic schools. In the process of resources mobilization, the power elements holed by Communist Youth League converted to mobilization elements of the civic schools,and functioned in a socialized way. Finally, the paper concludes: by covert its organization system and resource system to mobilization elements, the power can influence the socialized organization of civic school indirectly and covertly. The conclusion of this paper reveals a new mechanism of resource mobilization of social work in the current period. This new mobilization mechanism is neither traditional organized mobilization nor purely social mobilization, but in which the power play a role in invisible mode.This paper combine the resource mobilization of social work with the current institutional context of the power, to some extent, it reveals how the "invisible hand" of power affluence the practice of social work, and the finding of this paper also provide a reference ideas for thinking about the further development of social work in China.