Research Summary
In both Russia and China, the transition from state-socialism has been accompanied by a growth in popular religiosity. Deep-rooted indigenous religious activities, such as shamanism, paganism, goddess worship and syncretic sects have resurfaced alongside more traditional forms of religious expression. This religious revival is as extensive as it is multifaceted. Over two-thirds of the Russian population now identify with a religious confession (a higher rate of belief than in Germany and the Netherlands), and China is now home to world’s second largest evangelical Christian population (behind only the United States).
My dissertation project will compare how regimes in transition from state-socialism are coping with the new religious and cultural realities they face. With a focus on the Volga region in Russia and Fujian and Jilin China, I address three sets of related questions. The first deals with the central control over religion. Why and how do Russia’s and China’s central governments seek to regulate religion? Both Moscow and Beijing have taken considerable efforts to shape and control religious groups and activities. At the central level, the state has attempted to create a more hospitable environment for religious expression by establishing a legal framework outlining acceptable confessions and setting parameters for religious activities.
Second, I examine how central religious policies are implemented at the local level. What factors shape local authorities’ attitudes and behavior toward competing religious groups? How and why do local elites attempt to exercise authority over religious groups? Under what conditions do local elites support, tolerate, or suppress local religious groups and communities?
Finally, I explore how religious groups and communities attempt to influence the regulation of religious activities. Under what conditions do religious groups align themselves with the local state, the central state or international actors? What do these relationships in the public sphere suggest in turn about the changing boundaries between public and private, cultural and political arenas of cooperation and contestation?
The implications of this research will speak not only to how different regimes in transition are dealing with growing religiosity within their borders, but also to how religious actors are shaping politics in a period of fundamental change.