2004/09/01 by Cheris Shun‐ching Chan · 85 citations
Social Sciences · #Chinese history and philosophy #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #Ideology #China #Perspective (graphical) #Normative #Politics #Sociology #Context (archaeology) #Relation (database) #Cult #Sociological imagination #Political science #Social science #Law #History #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0305741004000530
published in The China Quarterly 179, 665-683 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2004/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This article offers a sociological perspective on the rise of and crackdown on the falun gong in relation to the social, cultural and political context of China. I specify from a sociological perspective that the falun gong is categorically not a sect but a cult-like new religious movement. Its popularity, I suggest, is related to the unresolved secular problems, normative breakdown and ideological vacuum in China in the 1980s and 1990s. Before the crackdown, the falun gong represented a successful new religious movement, from a Euro-American perspective. However, most of its strengths as a movement have become adversarial to its survival in the specific historical and political condition of China.