The Failure of Political Rituals in China's Cultural Revolution.

There has been much research on the powerful functions of political rituals to mobilize people into social movements. This paper studies a neglected topic: the failure of political rituals. Erving Goffman's interaction ritual theory and Randall Collins' sociology of emotion provide the theoretical framework for this analysis. By looking at the beginning years of China's Cultural Revolution, this paper examines the emotional dynamic of political rituals during that charged time period and posits that forced political rituals can create negative emotions which alienate people from the movement. Since private backstage is important in sustaining people's performances on a political frontstage, the elimination of the backstage produced even more alienation from the central symbol of their frontstage performance. The negative effects of these political rituals contributed to their disillusionments and the decline of people's enthusiasm for the Cultural Revolution. Thy have had profound influence in China's politics in subsequent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]