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Thomas E. Kellogg

Advisor to the President and Program Director for China and Northeast Asia at the Open Society Foundations in New York. He has written widely on the Chinese legal system and legal reform in China. Open Society Foundations, 400 West 59th Street, 4th floor, New York, NY 10019 (tkellogg@sorosny.org).

Western Funding for Rule of Law Initiatives in China:The importance of a civil society based approach

ABSTRACT: Religious groups can reinforce, complement, or undermine authoritarian domination. This article investigates whether high-status Protestant churches act as democratising civil society organisations by gathering hundreds of Protestants openly outside state structures to change church registration policies. In so doing, they also seek to curtail state domination over religion and, by extension, over all groups in society.

KEYWORDS: civil society, Protestant Christianity, house churches, authoritarianism.