Navigating Uncertainty: The Survival Strategies of Religious NGOs in China

Abstract

This article looks at the strategies religious non-governmental organizations (RNGOs) with strong transnational linkages use to maintain a continued presence in mainland China. It does so by utilizing neo-institutional theory as an instrument for analysis, with an emphasis on outlining the coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures RNGOs face. One of the key findings of the study is that there is creative circumvention of isomorphic pressures by working with local agents, fostering trust with the local government, and keeping a low profile. Moreover, RNGOs dealt with the uncertain institutional environment in China through staff exchanges, denominational supervision, tapping into global platforms, and undergoing a professionalization process.

Key Words:

• China
• NGOs
• religion
• neo-institutional theory
• isomorphism

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Emily Hannum, Shawn Shieh, Thomas Breslin, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and valuable feedback. An earlier version of this article was presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, 16–19 August 2014 (San Francisco, USA).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For example, the Taiping rebellion (1850–1864) started as a religious movement based on a modified form of Christianity. This took place shortly after the first Opium War (1839–1842), crippling the ruling Qing empire internally.

2. The RAB generally lacks the resources to effectively keep up with daily administration, resulting in a visible disconnect between policies at the national level and practices at the local level (Vala, 2012).

3. Peggy Levitt (2007) presents the religious category ‘religious global citizens'—that is, those who view the world not in secular terms (e.g. the state), but in a religious landscape. Ultimately, such global religious citizens believe that they are accountable to a divine higher power that justifies the circumvention and even the undermining of secular authority. This largely characterizes the resilience and risk-taking for the goal of proselytization demonstrated by the evangelical RNGO actors within our sample.

4. Note isomorphic pressures are not always empirically distinct from each other. Notwithstanding, we have followed DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) and Hasmath and Hsu's (2014) lead for analysing organizational (i.e. RNGO) behaviour in this fashion.

5. The Three-Self Patriotic Churches are officially sanctioned by the state to restrict foreign influences on church leadership, foreign financing, and foreign missionaries. The three ‘self’ are self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation; while ‘patriotic’ denotes the church's loyalty to China and the ruling CPC.

6. Underground house churches are unofficial, unregistered assemblies of Christians who operate independently from state-control structures. Since members of the organization cannot independently own property, due to their legal status, they generally meet in private houses.

7. Data from ICCN suggest that 6–7% of the 80 million overseas Chinese are Christians; 5.2 million is a rough estimate of the midpoint: 6.5%.

8. This exact number is contested by several interviewees, but the general consensus is in the 20s for the government-sanctioned seminaries.

9. To illustrate the government's aversion to cults, after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake the government told the ‘illegal’ house churches to preach in the stricken areas because they needed to prevent cults from taking advantage of the situation and expanding. In fact, house churches' members providing relief were wearing apparel clearly identifying their church affiliation in public.