Authoritarian Containment

Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Churches in Urban China

Marie-Eve Reny

Provides a complex and nuanced picture of unregistered religious leaders' dealings with local state actors in China
Accounts for why public security bureaus tolerate unregistered Protestant churches in urban China despite the fact that they are considered illegal from the standpoint of the government
Demonstrates how authoritarian regimes have employed similar strategies to control the activities of informal religious organizations
Explores two Middle East cases secondarily: President Sadat's containment strategy toward the Muslim Brotherhood in 1970s Egypt and the Mukhabarat's containment of jihadi Salafists in a post-Zarqawi period

Authoritarian Containment

Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Churches in Urban China

Marie-Eve Reny

Description

In Authoritarian Containment, Marie-Eve Reny examines why local public security bureaus tolerate unregistered Protestant churches in urban China--an officially atheist country where religious practice is controlled by the state--when the central government considers them illegal. She argues that local states tolerate these churches to contain the underground practice of Protestantism. Containment necessitates a bargain between informal religious organizations and the state. Even though they are not regulated, unregistered churches are allowed to operate conditionally, so long as church leaders keep a low profile, share information as needed with local authorities, and agree that the state will not grant them formal institutional recognition.

Reny also considers authoritarian regimes other than China that employ a similar strategy to control informal religious communities. She focuses on two Middle East cases-President Sadat's control of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1970s Egypt and the Jordanian monarchy's containment of jihadi Salafists after 2006. By reducing the incentives for local religious leaders to politicize and inducing such leaders to willingly provide inside information, governments can avoid the heavy hand of coercion and forceful co-optation.

Based on extensive fieldwork, Authoritarian Containment offers insight into the way authoritarian regimes neutralize underground religious leaders and discourage opposition to the state.

Authoritarian Containment

Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Churches in Urban China

Marie-Eve Reny

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Explaining Authoritarian Containment
Informal Protestantism in China and Local Government Toleration
Why Public Security Bureaus Contain Protestant House Churches
Everyday Forms of Containment
Containment and Authoritarian Regime Resilience
Containment across Authoritarian Landscapes
Conclusion
Afterword
Bibliography

Authoritarian Containment

Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Churches in Urban China

Marie-Eve Reny

Author Information

Marie-Eve Reny is Assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Université de Montréal since June 2013. Her work primarily centers on the comparative study of authoritarian regimes, with a special interest for China.

Authoritarian Containment

Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Churches in Urban China

Marie-Eve Reny

Reviews and Awards

"Between violent repression and generous co-optation lies a fascinating gray area of state-society interactions in authoritarian regimes. Nobody has charted these everyday interactions more intimately or impressively than Marie-Eve Reny does in Authoritarian Containment. Whether one wants to learn more about the politics of religion in China specifically, or how dictatorships manage unwelcome pluralism more generally, this book delivers." -Dan Slater, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED), University of Michigan

"Why do autocratic states actors tolerate informal religious organizations? Why do China's local governments tolerate informal Protestant churches? Based on thorough fieldwork, Marie-Eve Reny proposes an answer both simple and profound. The conditional and bounded toleration of informal religious institutions is a rational choice to contain them and undermine their threat against the regime. This fascinating study makes a major contribution to the studies of religion and politics, and authoritarian regime resilience.>" -Juan Wang, McGill University

"Marie-Eve Reny forces us to rethink the nature of state-society relations in authoritarian regimes. The literature on authoritarianism has typically focused on the ways in which autocratic actors either coopt, or repress autonomous civil society activity. Through an analysis of Chinese state policies towards unregistered Protestant house churches, Reny by contrast shows that authoritarian regimes may also adopt a strategy of containment. Drawing on extensive interviews and observation, Reny offers us a fresh and unparalleled view of the subtle and informal workings of contemporary authoritarian rule." -Lucan Ahmad Way, Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto