Solidarity or Division? Co-Optation and Demobilization of Chinese Christians

• In Event: Evolving Patterns of State-Society Relations Across Post-Communist Eurasia

Abstract

Why, when facing state-backed oppression, do groups sometimes band together in solidarity and sometimes fail to do so? This paper contributes to literature on repression by studying how and why repressed groups react to repressive incidents, focusing on how co-opted state civil society organizations affect outcomes. Specifically, drawing on a year ethnographic field work conducted in Chinese Christian Churches in Shanghai and five other Chinese cities, it studies the impact of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Cross Demolition Campaign on patterns of solidarity and victim-blaming among Christian Churches. Based on evidence from 64 elite and mass interviews, it finds that, while co-opted organizations can provide conditions ripe for rightful resistance, they also enable dynamics of victim-blaming that hinder solidarity in response to selective toleration and repression.

Author

• Harris Doshay, Princeton University