Explaining Authoritarian Containment

This chapter defines the concept of containment, explains how it translates in practice, and accounts for why state actors contain informal religious organizations. Containment is the conditional and bounded toleration of a religious organization outside the formal reach of the state. It is conditional insofar as actors must conform with a set of rules to be tolerated. It is bounded to the extent that religious actors conforming such bargain cannot ask the authorities for more than informal autonomy. State actors contain informal religious organizations because their interests are reconcilable with authoritarian regime resilience, and organizations are part of incohesive networks. Containment also sustains authoritarian rule in three ways: it depoliticizes religious leaders, creates divisions among compliant and dissident religious leaders, and generates information that local state actors use to make local governance less coercive and less co-optive.

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