Cooperation Meeting for Family and Community Supporting Services in Macao: An Approach to Corporatism?

Abstract

Macao’s social welfare services originated in 19th century when Catholic Church from Europe started offering a wide range of charitable work. At the same time, traditional Chinese organizations have been providing different social services and welfare to the Chinese community. However, there is a lack of coordination among social services providers in the society. In 2012, the Department of Family and Community Service of the Social Welfare Bureau launched a “Cooperation Meeting for Family and Community Supporting Services”, aiming at collaboration between the government department and non-governmental organizations. This paper applies the theory of corporatism to analyse this collaboration platform. It will examine the capacity of the Cooperation Meeting serving the purposes for a platform for dialogue between the government and the civil society, and for the development of family and community services as well as for the promotion of civil society.

Keywords:  Cooperation Meeting for Family and Community Supporting Services, Corporatism, Civil society, Macao