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2022, Palgrave Macmillan
This book presents the welfare regime of societies of Chinese heritage as a liminal space where religious and state authorities compete with each other for legitimacy. It offers a path-breaking perspective on relations between religion and state in East Asia, presenting how the governments of industrial societies try to harness the human resources of religious associations to assist in the delivery of social services. The book provides background to the intermingling of Buddhism and the state prior to 1949; and the continuation of that intertwinement in Taiwan and in other societies where live many people of Chinese heritage since then. The main contribution of this work is its detailed account of Buddhist philanthropy as viewed from the perspectives of the state, civil society, and Buddhists. This book will appeal to academics in social sciences and humanities and broader audiences interested by the social role of religions, charity, and NGOs, in social policy implementation. It explores why governments turn to Buddhist followers and their leaders and presents a detailed view of Buddhist philanthropy. This book contributes to our understanding of secularity in non-Western societies, as influenced by religions other than Christianity.
Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 2012
This paper explores the possibility that Chinese Buddhist institutions can represent a source of alternate civility conducive to a more open political system. The paper starts to explore the issue from a comparative perspective and considers three area of contention between the state and religious authorities in which the latter can advance the interests of society: education, health care, and relief. After a brief survey of social policies and the role granted by the state to religious institutions as providers of services in recent years, the essay considers the philanthropic activities of Buddhist institutions. This survey looks at some of their achievements and their shortcomings, and notes that they have adopted the same cautious attitude as their co-religionists in Taiwan, which may nurture an alternate civility, but does not sustain necessarily political reform.
Archives Des Sciences Sociales Des Religions, 2012
Modern Chinese Religion II, 1850-2015, volume 2, edited by Vincent Goossaert, Jan Keily, and John Lagerwey, Boston & Leyden, Brill, 2015
Religious philanthropy has grown steadily as a social force in post-Mao China. This article explores the interactions between religious policy and religious philanthropy to understand the transformations at the levels of the state, religious groups, and individuals. State policy toward religion has shifted significantly since the 1980s; however, religious groups initiated philanthropic practices in various forms long before state policies were in place. Recent regulations calling on the "religion sector" to contribute to the larger society have not only aimed at shedding the burdens of the socialist state but also demanded more transparency and accountability of religious groups. Based on fieldwork in Jiangsu province from 2006 to 2014, this article argues that religious groups have experienced increasing bureaucratization and professionalization with this turn to philanthropy, and these same processes have led individuals to participate in new forms of religious moral subjectmaking that draw on and go beyond "doing good deeds.
Routledge, 2004
Laliberté looks at a relatively unexplored aspect of modern Taiwan: the influence of religion on politics. This book offers a detailed survey of three of the most important Buddhist organizations in Taiwan: the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC), the Buddha Light Mountain (or Foguanshan) monastic order, and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association (or Ciji). It examines their contrasting approaches to three issues: state supervision of religion, the first presidential election of 1996, and the establishment of the National Health Insurance. This study analyzes the factors that explain the diverse paths the three organizations have taken in the politics of Taiwan. Based on an in-depth examination of Buddhist leaders' behaviour, The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan compels us to question conventional views about the allegedly passive aspect of religious tradition, deference to authority in societies influenced by Confucian culture and the adverse legacy of authoritarian regimes.
Asian journal of social science, 2015
Working Paper Series of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2020
This paper is part of broader research on social welfare, understood in its broadest sense as social security, education, and health care, which the state has taken over gradually from religions as it has established its authority and thereby the ontological and the teleological legitimacy of secularity as a pillar of modernity. The paper explores the Chinese Communist Party’s evolving attitude towards religious affairs and philanthropy.
Journal of Asian Social Sciences, 2015
This essay argues that differences in religious ecologies, between China and the polities of Taiwan and Hong Kong are necessary but insufficient explanations for their different approaches to the reliance on religious actors for the delivery of social services. I discuss briefly two other explanations for the differences in policy outcomes: the legacies of colonial and semi-colonial rule, and the influence of ruling party ideologies, before I shift to an historical neo-institutional approach, which contrasts the path dependency of past policies of usurpation directed by the CCP at religious institutions between 1949 and 1978, and the policies of cooptation adopted in Taiwan and Hong Kong during the same period. I argue that although the Chinese government has affirmed with increasing clarity in recent years its interest in an approach that encourages the cooptation of religious institutions, the previous approach of usurpation has undermined the resources of religious institutions, left many religious actors distrustful of authorities, and continues to influence many constituencies that could oppose the approach of cooptation. To substantiate this argument, the essay proceeds as follows: it first discusses the different strategies available to states as they accumulate symbolic power, underlining the role of religious institutions in that process; then it contrasts the results achieved by religious philanthropy in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the provision of a wide array of services, on the one hand, with the difficulties faced by their counterparts in the delivery of social services in China, on the other; and finally it reviews some of the explanations for the discrepancies observed.
When Deng Xiaoping started his Reform and Opening Up (gaige kaifang) policies in 1978, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also ushered in a period of tolerance for religious practice, guided by a strong modernist belief that religion would disappear by itself as a result of economic development. At the level of political ideology, the Chinese party-state continues to preach strict secularism and atheism. Nevertheless, at another level of discourse, there are indications that point in another direction, at least for Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. A speech by President Xi Jinping in March 2014 seemed to confirm the trend of the preceding decade towards an increasingly positive official appraisal of the role of Buddhism in Chinese society. The significance of this latest development is underscored by the multitude of Chinese articles appearing in Buddhist publications that optimistically herald a new era for Buddhism in China. This chapter argues--and in this way gives some credence to the optimism of Buddhist leaders and intellectuals--that the Communist Party, in tact with its transition from a Marxist to a nationalist party, is now gradually relaxing its program of secularism. In doing so, it is especially looking towards Buddhism, co-opting it in its gargantuan task of governing China, and at the same time allowing it to re-enter sectors of Chinese society that until very recently were strictly off limits to religion.
Nicole Yu, 2020
International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE), 2021
Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes
Revista Española de Geriatría y Gerontología, 2008
The Impact of Small Business Financing on The Digital Palestinian Economy, 2024
Научна коференция „Хармония в различията“, София, УниБит, 2022
PARFOR PESQUISAS, EXPERIÊNCIAS E CONTRIBUIÇÕES - UMA JORNADA TRANSFORMADORA NA FORMAÇÃO DOCENTE, 2024
Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 2014
Obesity Reviews, 2021
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2014
Allergy, Asthma & Respiratory Disease, 2015