This book examines religious activism-Christianity, Buddhism, and Taoism-in China, a powerful atheist state that provides one of the hardest challenges to existing methods of transnational activism. The author focuses on mechanisms used by three kinds of actors: protesters, advocates and opportunists, and uses regional, inter-faith, and international comparisons to understand why some foreign advocates can enter China and engage in illegal aid and missions to empower local activists, while the same groups cannot conduct the same activities in another geographically, economically and politically similar location. The stories in this book demonstrate a more inclusive and bottom-up approach of transnational activism; they challenge the conventional spiral theory paradigm of human rights literature and the narrow views about GONGOs in civil society literature. This new knowledge helps to sustain a more optimistic view and offers an alternative way of promoting human rights in China andcountries with similar authoritarian environments.

Ray Wang is Associate Professor at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. His major research interests focus on human rights, religious freedom and transnational advocacy networks, and he is the recipient of an Excellent Young Scholar Research Fund from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (2018-2021).

Autorentext

Ray Wang is Associate Professor at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. His major research interests focus on human rights, religious freedom and transnational advocacy networks, and he is the recipient of an Excellent Young Scholar Research Fund from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (20182021).

Klappentext

This book examines religious activismChristianity, Buddhism, and Taoismin China, a powerful atheist state that provides one of the hardest challenges to existing methods of transnational activism. The author focuses on mechanisms used by three kinds of actors: protesters, advocates and opportunists, and uses regional, inter-faith, and international comparisons to understand why some foreign advocates can enter China and engage in illegal aid and missions to empower local activists, while the same groups cannot conduct the same activities in another geographically, economically and politically similar location. The stories in this book demonstrate a more inclusive and bottom-up approach of transnational activism; they challenge the conventional spiral theory paradigm of human rights literature and the narrow views about GONGOs in civil society literature. This new knowledge helps to sustain a more optimistic view and offers an alternative way of promoting human rights in China and countries with similar authoritarian environments.

Ray Wang is Associate Professor at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. His major research interests focus on human rights, religious freedom and transnational advocacy networks, and he is the recipient of an Excellent Young Scholar Research Fund from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (20182021).

Inhalt

1          Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1         Argument in Brief: Marketing Activism under Authoritarianism

1.2         Religious Protesters, Advocates and Opportunists

1.3         Methods and Mechanisms

1.4         Approach to this Topic

2          Chapter 2 Facilitating Activism in a Strong Authoritarian State

2.1         The "Secret Handshake in an Authoritarian State

2.2         Network Spiral and Opportunity Spiral: The Debates

2.3         Marketing Transnational Religious Activism: Internalization

2.4         Opportunity, Incentives, and Cheap Talk

3          Chapter 3 China's Religious Affairs Policy

3.1         Anti-imperialism and the Three-Self Doctrine

3.2         Christian Disobedience in the Reform Era

3.3         Sinicization in Xi's Time

4          Chapter 4 United Front Work and Religious Affairs Institutions

4.1         The Source of Rigidity: Religious Affairs Institutions

4.2         The Source of Opportunity: the Discourse of Religious Freedom

5          Chapter 5 A Tale of Four Cities: Transnational Christian Activism in the Heartland

5.1         Christian Activism in Two Directions

5.2         City H & W: From Outdoor Worship to Backdoor Listing

5.3         City T & S: Activism from the Establishment

5.4         Is Catholic Activism Different?

6          Chapter 6 Buddha vs. Jesus: The Transnationalism of Traditional Religions

6.1         Christian and Buddhist TANs in Comparison

6.2         Humanistic Buddhism and Tzu-Chi's Global Activism

6.3         Taoism and Yiguandao's Evasive Resistance

6.4         Revisiting the TAN Paradigm

7          Chapter 7 Go Beyond Religion and China

7.1         Religious Affiliations of Chinese Political Prisoners

7.2         Social Activism in Nine Provincial Regions

7.3         Comparing Christian Transnationalism in China and Vietnam

  8          Chapt...