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Since the early years of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese state has sought to regulate the practice of religion. The institutions it created for that purpose were meant to ensure that religious practice would not happen outside the supervision of the state. Since the 1990s, however, unregistered religious sites have proliferated in China, and those include Protestant house churches. China is said to have more unregistered churches than registered ones. Unregistered churches have, for the most part, deliberately chosen not to register with the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and they have also bypassed a number of other central government regulations on religious activities. Despite the fact that they are illegal, local public security bureaus have tolerated those churches. The text argues that they have done so to contain the influence of Protestantism in Chinese cities.

The NLD was reelected in 2020 with more seats than it won in 2015. Myanmar's transition is not regressing, but many priorities remain before the state truly democratizes: conducting transparent trials of military officers who were involved in the killings of Rohingyas, solving the conflict between the Arakan Army and the Tatmadaw in Rakhine State, ensuring that enduring armed conflicts do not undermine citizens' ability to vote, making sure the National Ceasefire Agreement prevents the resurgence of old animosities, demilitarizing the constitution, and restraining the military's ability to sue opposition for defamation.

Myanmar began a transition in 2011 that ended almost 50 years of military rule. During the transition, a nationalist movement called for protecting Buddhism from an "Islamic threat." Anti-Islam nationalism was not new in Burmese history, yet the timing of its resurgence deserves attention. I argue that the incumbents' anticipated electoral weakness in transitional elections was the primary reason for its resurgence. The incumbents sought to maximize societal support, and they faced a strong contender, the National League for Democracy, whose probability of winning was high. Social opposition was also significant by the time military rule ended. In a campaign to pass reforms to better "protect" Buddhism, the incumbents used monks to cast doubt on the NLD's ability to represent Buddhist interests and to recruit former regime opponents who were nationalists. The incumbents garnered wide support for the reforms, yet it was insufficient for an electoral victory.

AbstractAuthoritarian regimes seek to prevent formal and informal organizations in society from engaging in mobilized dissent. What strategies do they use to do so, and what explains their choices? I posit that state actors in autocracies use four mechanisms to control societal organizations: repression, coercion, cooptation and containment. How they control these organizations depends on whether they think they might undermine political stability. Two factors inform that assessment. First is whether state actors think societal organizations' interests are reconcilable with regime resilience. Second is whether groups are in national or international networks that are either cohesive or incohesive. While the irreconcilability of interests influences state actors' perceptions of groups as subversive, network cohesion shapes organizations' capacity for large-scale mobilization.

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

Since the early years of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese state has sought to regulate the practice of religion. The institutions it created for that purpose were meant to ensure that religious practice would not happen outside the supervision of the state. Since the 1990s, however, unregistered religious sites have proliferated in China, and those include Protestant house churches. China is said to have more unregistered churches than registered ones. Unregistered churches have, for the most part, deliberately chosen not to register with the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and they have also bypassed a number of other central government regulations on religious activities. Despite the fact that they are illegal, local public security bureaus have tolerated those churches. The text argues that they have done so to contain the influence of Protestantism in Chinese cities

ObjectiveThis article examines the ways the authoritarian nature of the regime in the People's Republic of China constrains the conduct of political science research. It further seeks to identify ways in which researchers have circumvented authoritarian controls.MethodsThe article examines existing scholarly literature and curricula pertaining to Chinese politics to identify methodological and technical tendencies in the research field. It then conducts a deeper, theoretical investigation to show how researchers exploit loopholes and blindspots in the authoritarian system to generate novel research.ResultsThe study finds a marked propensity in the study of Chinese politics toward qualitative research. Research on local politics is considered less sensitive and thus is more prevalent than studies of the central government. Government restrictions have forced scholars to imperfect data for empirical support.ConclusionAlthough it is easier to generate new findings in politically open settings, the authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime does not necessarily hinder advancement in social science. Quantitative research that relies on government‐issued data is useful, but remains liable to government restriction. Qualitative and ethnographic research gives the researcher opportunities to bypass restrictions imposed by the regime. These opportunities depend upon the researcher's ability to immerse herself in the relevant communities, find reliable and context‐aware collaborators, and develop creative ways of collecting information about state behavior.

In 1986, Kenneth Lieberthal observed that the study of China in the United States had had little effect on the evolution of political science. Over twenty years later, its impact on the core debates in comparative politics seems to have been no more significant. Why have some of the most influential books in the study of contemporary Chinese politics not been significant in the discipline of comparative politics? Based on a quantitative overview of forty-two comparative politics syllabi, my argument is twofold. First, China scholarship has isolated the study of Chinese politics by primarily publishing in area journals, building analyses around debates exclusive to Chinese politics, and generating knowledge with limited contemplation of its potential for generalization outside China. Second, comparative politics seems to have been caught in a "democratic prism," which has impeded scholars' ability to adapt some of the debates to empirical changes associated with China's rise and development.