Doctoral Dissertation Research: Control in Authoritarian States

为什么专制国家选择限制宗教自由？如何解释中国共产党（CCP）决定压制某些基督教会，同时允许其他基督教会运作？目前，中国共产党正式允许基督教会在政府登记的情况下运作。然而，最近的报道显示，中共对已登记和未登记的教会都进行了镇压，这表明已登记的教会并不安全，并不是所有未登记的教会都是镇压的对象。中国共产党既是宗教自由的保卫者，又是宗教自由的压制者，这让人质疑中国共产党认为宗教的哪些方面是允许的，哪些方面是有威胁的。尽管这一话题具有广泛的相关性和及时的重要性，但由于中国的限制性环境，这一话题在很大程度上仍未得到解决。通过在中国密集的实地考察，该项目试图解释中共对教会的选择性处理背后的思维过程，从而揭示中共更广泛的政治目标和威权国家的分散决策过程。在更广泛的层面上，该项目涉及历史遗产、国家-社会关系、人权和国际关系。为什么专制国家选择限制宗教自由？中国共产党既是宗教自由的保卫者，又是宗教自由的压制者，这让人质疑中国共产党认为宗教的哪些方面是允许的，哪些方面是有威胁的。这个项目通过解释中国共产党对待新教教会的不同方式来解决这些问题。它考察了当地威胁（国内因素）和对外国影响的担忧（国际因素）如何解释党对新教教会的镇压。由于中国的限制性环境，这一课题的研究在数据收集和研究方法上都存在局限性。本项目通过访谈、调查和档案研究相结合的方式，填补了这一空白，首先，建立了一个全面的、实地的政府对待教会的指数，其次，收集了可能影响中共对待教会的国内外因素的观察结果。了解政府选择压制哪些教会，有助于了解党的目标和威权国家的分散决策过程。此外，该项目强调了宗教的主题，这本身在现有的政治科学中经常被滥用和低估。这个项目雄心勃勃，但也合情合理，旨在通过深入的实地研究，以现有知识为基础，开辟新的知识和方法道路，填补文献中的重要空白。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Why do authoritarian states choose to limit religious freedom? What explains the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s decision to repress certain Christian churches while allowing other Christian churches to operate? Currently, the CCP officially permits Christian churches to operate contingent on registration with the government. However, recent accounts reveal that the CCP has repressed both registered and unregistered churches, suggesting that registered churches are not safe from repression, and not all unregistered churches are targets of repression. The CCP's position as both the guarantor and repressor of religious freedom calls into question which aspects of religion the CCP finds permissible or threatening. Despite the broad relevance and timely importance, this topic has remained largely unaddressed due to China's restrictive environment. Through intensive fieldwork in China, this project seeks to explain the thought process behind the CCP's selective treatment of churches, thereby shedding light onto both the Party's broader political objectives and the decentralized decision-making process of the authoritarian state. At a broader level, this project speaks to historical legacies, state-society relations, human rights, and international relations. Why do authoritarian states choose to limit religious freedom? The CCP's position as both the guarantor and repressor of religious freedom calls into question which aspects of religion the CCP finds permissible or threatening. This project addresses these questions by explaining the variation in the CCP's treatment of Protestant churches in China. It examines how local threats (domestic factors) and the concern for foreign influence (international factors) explain the Party's repression of Protestant churches. Due to China's restrictive environment, studies on this topic have suffered from limits in data collection and research methodology. Through a combination of interviews, surveys, and archival research in China, this project fills this gap by, first, developing a comprehensive, on-the-ground index of government treatment of churches, and second, collecting observations of domestic and international factors that may influence the CCP's treatment of churches. Understanding which churches the government chooses to repress sheds light onto the Party's objectives and the decentralized decision-making process of the authoritarian state. In addition, the project highlights the topic of religion, which itself has often been mistreated and underemphasized in existing political science. This project ambitiously, but justifiably, aims to fill important gaps in literature by building upon existing knowledge and paving new intellectual and methodological roads through intensive field research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.