As a high-capacity authoritarian regime, China has made immense efforts to exterminate the Falun Gong and other “evil cults.” However, cult activities persist throughout the country. This article seeks to explain why the extensive government repression in China failed to achieve its goal of eliminating “evil cults.” By examining how economic reforms in China have created a relatively safe space for illegal activities, the article highlights the importance of going beyond a focus on the conventional coercive apparatus, and adopting a broad concept of coercive capacity for understanding authoritarian durability. State penetration facilitated by grassroots institutions provides a particularly important foundation for the regime’s coercive power. This study draws on a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative study analysis uses a dataset compiled from 5,852 judicial cases in which 8,785 cult activities were prosecuted. The qualitative analysis is conducted as a case study based on fieldwork in a medium-size city in Hunan province.
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March 2025
Research Article|
July 15 2024
State Coercive Power and the War on Cults in China Available to Purchase
Xi Chen,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
email: [email protected]
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Jing Xu
Jing Xu
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
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email: [email protected]
Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2025) 58 (1): 53–76.
Citation
Xi Chen, Jing Xu; State Coercive Power and the War on Cults in China. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 1 March 2025; 58 (1): 53–76. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2024.2136353
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