This article compares the growth trajectories of Catholicism and Protestantism in modern China and tackles a puzzle: Why did Catholicism, which maintained a substantial numerical advantage in Chinese converts over Protestantism before 1949, come to lag so far behind Protestantism today? The article identifies three crucial differences in the institutional features of Catholicism and Protestantism, but shows that an institutional argument alone is insufficient to explain their reversal of fortune. It argues that the growth trajectories of Catholicism and Protestantism changed (...) less because their institutional features have experienced major changes, but more because their institutional features played out differently in the sociopolitical contexts of pre-1949 China, Maoist China, and post-Mao China. The article advances a new approach that combines the currently dominant institutional argument with a historical perspective that stresses the importance of political forces in order to understand the growth dynamics of religions. It concludes by making some preliminary observations on the generalized patterns of how institutional features of Catholicism and Protestantism play out under different kinds of political structures, shaping their waxing and waning in a global context. (shrink)

A particularly important topic for Marxist theory is that of popular politics: the ways in which the underclasses of society express their interests and values through collective action. Classical Marxism postulates a fundamental conflict of interest among classes. It holds that exploited classes will come to an accurate assessment of their class interests, and will engage in appropriate collective actions to secure those interests. The result is a predicted variety of forms of underclass collective action: boycotts, rent strikes, tax and (...) food riots, rebellion, and revolution. Underclass members of society instigate and support such protests because it is in their material class interest to do so. It will emerge, however, that this account is too schematic to provide a basis for explanation of popular politics. The microfoundations approach to Marxist theory will prove useful in this context because it directs us to some of the resources needed to provide a more adequate account of popular collective action. (shrink)

A particularly important topic for Marxist theory is that of popular politics: the ways in which the underclasses of society express their interests and values through collective action. Classical Marxism postulates a fundamental conflict of interest among classes. It holds that exploited classes will come to an accurate assessment of their class interests, and will engage in appropriate collective actions to secure those interests. The result is a predicted variety of forms of underclass collective action: boycotts, rent strikes, tax and (...) food riots, rebellion, and revolution. Underclass members of society instigate and support such protests because it is in their material class interest to do so. It will emerge, however, that this account is too schematic to provide a basis for explanation of popular politics. The microfoundations approach to Marxist theory will prove useful in this context because it directs us to some of the resources needed to provide a more adequate account of popular collective action. (shrink)

When the city of Wuhan was severely locked down on January 23, 2020 for 76 days due to the coronavirus outbreak, many residents started writing “lockdown diaries.” This article argues these diaries constitute a kind of performance art for their authors, specifically, an 'art of endurance' as described by Shalson (2018). Keeping a diary requires a plan, but the following through of the plan is a contingent process requiring efforts and endurance. The challenges become particularly daunting for authors of online (...) diaries in pandemic times. The article analyzes multiple types of endurance associated with the Wuhan lockdown diarists, showing that in digitally-driven environments, where potential collective responses are a key context, the lockdown diaries of Wuhan, like works of endurance art, engage with meanings that reach far beyond their original experience and context. Their stories of endurance are an allegory of the endurance of the entire city of Wuhan. (shrink)