Eyes wide shut::democratic reversals, scientific closure, and the study of politics in Eurasia

Objectives: The article examines the relationship between democratic reversals and scientific closure. It focuses on the effects that authoritarian and hybrid regimes are likely to have on the ways scholars study them and conduct their fieldwork.Method: Thematic content analysis of articles on Eurasian politics published over a ten year period, with particular attention paid to reported methods and fieldwork.  Results: Scientific closure had as much to do with research cycles in the discipline as with democratic reversals. Notions of the region as democratizing persisted into the 2000s as scholars recycled data and conceptual frames from the 1990s. Fieldwork-driven research was more likely to detect autocratization. Conclusion: While disciplinary consensus re-framed the region as autocratizing, the field remains vulnerable to scientific closure. Aside from the challenges posed by autocracies for fieldwork, the new disciplinary consensus may deter qualitative fieldwork and innovation in studying authoritarianism in Eurasia

Belief In Authoritarianism: Religious Revivals And The Local State In Russia And China

What are the political consequences of growing religiosity in Russia and China -- two countries that share a communist past and thus a long history of atheism, but have followed very different paths of political and economic liberalization since the 1980s? In this dissertation, which is based upon nearly two years of fieldwork in multiple sites within these two countries, I carry out a systematic comparison of the relations between religious communities, on the one hand, and the Chinese and Russian states, on the other. This comparison leads to five conclusions. First, there is compelling evidence that the emergence of a robust religious associational life is neither a force for democratization nor a sign of impending regime crisis in Russia and China. Instead, religious communities are reproducing elements of the political contexts in which they are embedded and reinforcing authoritarian structures of political rule. Second, religious groups are playing an increasingly important role in the political economy of both states. Third, while Moscow and Beijing have set the parameters on religious expression, it is at the local level where the interactions between religion and politics actually take place and where, as a consequence, the relationship between the two sets of players is defined. Fourth, in direct contrast to what the literature on civil society within authoritarian states suggests, church and local-state relations in both Russia and China are cooperative, not conflictual. Just as religious groups court those in power, local governments likewise rely on these groups to take on some of the responsibilities of governance. Finally, collaboration is not based on faith; rather, it is based on convergent interests, with bargaining between religious leaders and local state officials focusing on the distribution of money, power and prestige. Indeed, material, not spiritual concerns drive most the interactions

Religion and authoritarianism : cooperation, conflict, and the consequences

This book provides a rare window into the micropolitics of contemporary authoritarian rule through a comparison of religious-state relations in Russia and China - two countries with long histories of religious repression, and even longer experiences with authoritarian politics. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in multiple sites in these countries, this book explores what religious and political authority want from one another, how they negotiate the terms of their relationship, and how cooperative or conflicting their interactions are. This comparison reveals that while tensions exist between the two sides, there is also ample room for mutually beneficial interaction. Religious communities and their authoritarian overseers are cooperating around the core issue of politics - namely, the struggle for money, power and prestige - and becoming unexpected allies in the process

Heraldo de Castellón: Año XXXIX Número 11806 - 04 Enero 1928

Copia digital. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Subdirección General de Coordinación Bibliotecaria : Madrid, 201