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How State Capacity Matters: a Study of the Cooptation and Coercion of Religious Organizations in Southeast Asia and Beyond

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Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 6-5-2019 How State Capacity Matters: A Study of the Cooptation and Coercion of Religious Organizations in Southeast Asia and Beyond Adam Howe [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Politics Commons Recommended Citation Howe, Adam, "How State Capacity Matters: A Study of the Cooptation and Coercion of Religious Organizations in Southeast Asia and Beyond" (2019). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4267. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/4267 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida HOW STATE CAPACITY MATTERS: A STUDY OF THE COOPTATION AND COERCION OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND BEYOND A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in POLITICAL SCIENCE by Adam E. Howe 2019 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs This dissertation, written by Adam E. Howe, and entitled How State Capacity Matters: A Study of the Cooptation and Coercion of Religious Organizations in Southeast Asia and Beyond, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. _______________________________________ John F. Clark _______________________________________ Tatiana Kostadinova _______________________________________ Steven Vose _______________________________________ Barry S. Levitt, Major Professor Date of Defense: June 5, 2019 The dissertation of Adam E. Howe is approved. _______________________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs _______________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2019 ii © Copyright 2019 by Adam E. Howe All Rights Reserved iii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Friday. This project would not have been possible without her love, patience, and tireless support. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the members of my committee for their dedication, feedback, and encouragement. My major professor, Dr. Barry Levitt, believed in this dissertation from its inception and graciously guided me through multiple draft versions of this project. Dr. John Clark provided valuable feedback on case study chapters, while Dr. Tatiana Kostadinova helped me work through important methodological questions. Finally, Dr. Steven Vose brought a unique perspective to this dissertation, resulting in a more thorough examination of religious organizations in Southeast Asia. I would also like to acknowledge the Morris and Anita Broad Fellowship, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Library and Archives, and the Florida International University Graduate School’s Dissertation Year Fellowship for generous research support. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION HOW STATE CAPACITY MATTERS: A STUDY OF THE COOPTATION AND COERCION OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND BEYOND by Adam E. Howe Florida International University 2019 Miami, Florida Professor Barry S. Levitt, Major Professor This dissertation examines the complex relationship between state capacity, authoritarian regimes and religious organizations in Southeast Asia and beyond. Through an interdisciplinary synthesis of secondary literatures in Comparative Politics, Sociology, and Religious Studies, complemented by archival research conducted at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, this dissertation argues that relative state capacity endowment shapes the strategies that authoritarian regime elites employ against domestic religious organizations as a means of ensuring regime survival. Through typological theory-building and a comparative case-study methodology I argue that state capacity, imagined in terms of both bureaucratic/administrative and coercive components, influences whether authoritarian regime elites decide to pursue policies of cooptation vi (bribery, patronage, and political appointments) or coercion (incarceration, threats, violence) vis-à-vis religious organizations. Comparative case-study analysis of the relationship between authoritarian regimes and religious organizations in Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Poland, and Nicaragua reveals clear variations in regime elite strategies across time and space. Specifically, my findings demonstrate that authoritarian regime elites in states with strong bureaucratic/administrative capacity and strong coercive capacity have relied on cooptation as their preferred strategy for containing threats posed by religious organizations, while regime elites in states with weak bureaucratic/administrative capacity and strong coercive capacity have instead tended to employ violence against these groups. Finally, regime elites in states with weak bureaucratic/administrative capacity and weak coercive capacity have cycled, unsuccessfully, between policies of cooptation and coercion in the hopes of containing powerful domestic religious organizations. The comparative analysis in this dissertation provides a nuanced explanation for how authoritarian regime elites leverage state resources to counter threats posed by symbolically-powerful religious groups and contributes a new mid-range theory of state-society relations with implications for authoritarian regimes far beyond the region. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND TYPOLOGY ................................................20 III. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................59 IV. BURMA .......................................................................................................................97 V. THAILAND AND MALAYSIA…………………………………………………... 131 VI. CAMBODIA, LAOS, VIETNAM .............................................................................172 VII. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO, POLAND, NICARAGUA ........211 VIII.CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................238 LIST OF REFERENCES................................................................................................ 251 VITA............................................................................................................................... 272 viii LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1. State Power and Regime Strategy...............................................................................37 2. Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia............................................................................46 3. Religious Organizations in Southeast Asia.................................................................48 4. National Military Capabilities.....................................................................................52 5. Worldwide Governance Indicators..............................................................................54 6. Government Regulation of Religion............................................................................56 7. Government Effectiveness...........................................................................................234 8. Military Expenditures as % of GDP............................................................................235 9. Military Personnel....................................................................................................... 235 10. State Power in Southeast Asia and Beyond...............................................................241 11. Summary of Results...................................................................................................242 ix LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. State Capacity, Regime Capacity, and Religious Organization Strategy.................44 2. National Military Personnel in 100,000’s (Southeast Asia) ....................................49 3. Military Expenditures as % of Annual GDP............................................................51 4. Government Effectiveness (1995-2017) ..................................................................55 x I. INTRODUCTION This dissertation examines how state capacity shapes the relationship between authoritarian regimes and religious organizations across Southeast Asia. While much of the recent political science literature has focused extensively on authoritarian institutions (Gandhi and Przeworski 2007; Boix and Svolik 2013), this research proposes that state capacity has a powerful influence on the behavior of regimes and religious organizations alike. It begins with the assumption that regimes inherit their states, and thus vary in their ability to exercise power over society. It then argues that authoritarian regimes will attempt to co-opt, or alternatively, coerce religious organizations in order to remain in power. Whether these regimes pursue strategies of coercion
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