Religion and Politics
POS 598
Spring 2005
Professor Carolyn Warner
Phone: 480-965-5201
Office: Department of Political Science, Coor 6690
Office Hours: Mondays noon-1:30 and by appointment
e-mail: carolyn.warner@asu.edu
This graduate seminar is an analysis of the fascinating, complicated, and often conflictual relationship between major religious faiths, religious activists and the secular state in the 20th and 21st centuries. Among the topics to be covered are: secularization theory and its problems; religion as a cultural or attitudinal variable in politics; the rationality of religion, organized religions and their activists; the bases for conflicts between major religions and the state; the terms of reconciliation and collaboration; the conditions under which religion is politicized, and religion becomes the basis of a political movement or party; and the means by which organized religions and/or their adherents seek to maintain an influence in 20th and 21st century politics and society. Due to its contemporary political significance, we will devote a bit more than a proportionate part of the course to Islam and politics.
One of the goals of this course is to achieve a better understanding of the above topics. Hence there will considerable attention to different theoretical analyses of politics and religion. A second goal is to assess some of the scholarship in the field, which ranges in approach from rational choice and economic theory to values and attitudinal emphases to institutionalist. A third goal is to exercise and develop your analytical and communication skills.
Requirements:
1) attend class and participate in discussions (10% of final grade)
The positive criteria by which you are evaluated are as follows:
-presence in class
-preparation-your contribution demonstrates you carefully read the readings and understand the key points
-quality of argument: you contribute accurate, relevant evidence with sound and insightful reasoning
-quality of expression: your contribution is clear, concise, audible and directed to your peers
-contribution to the discussion: you listen to others’ comments, build upon their ideas, respond to them, respectfully critique them, and/or ask constructive questions
Negative criteria that will lower your grade include:
-unresponsiveness
-disruptiveness: you disrupt discussion with social chatter, your contribution is unrelated to the current discussion and is distracting, you are insensitive to others, you attempt to dominate the conversation, or you arrive to class late or leave early.
2) Lead one seminar meeting. (15% of final grade)
The seminar discussion leader is expected to identify the main issues and questions (methodological, empirical, theoretical) in the readings. The discussion leader is not expected to answer those questions alone–that is the task of the entire class. In leading a discussion, you should expect to spend NO MORE than 15 minutes at the beginning of the seminar presenting the readings in a critical fashion: what are the main questions arising from the articles/books, what are the main problems, how do the works contrast with or complement each other? You must also prepare a list of 5 questions which the entire class may discuss, and a one page summary of the main points of the readings. You should post that list of questions by 5pm on the Sunday prior to the course blackboard &/or use email to send the questions to everyone. You may delay distribution of the abstracts of the readings until class.
3). Choose one of the following options:
1. –Write 3 short papers during the semester. (25% each of final grade)
The short papers should be, each, about 6-8 pages double-spaced. I will ask you to choose the weeks, but you must do the first paper no later than Feb. 28, 2005; the second paper no later than April 4, 2005, and the third paper no later than May 2, 2005. Failure to meet any one of those deadlines will result in an E for the course. It is not a good idea to do two or more papers in a row: I strongly discourage it. The papers are due on the Monday of the seminar, no later than noon, in my office or time-stamped and given to the department receptionist. The object of the papers should be to identify the central issues that the assigned readings of the week address, to locate the principal authors’ positions vis-à-vis those issues, and to comment critically on the state of the debate and the value of the individual contributions to it. You should keep the following questions in mind: What are the central issues at stake in this literature? What are the principal arguments of the works under study? What does each contribute to our understanding of the topic in question, or to the broader topic of “religion and politics”? What are the main theoretical or empirical strengths or weaknesses of the major studies? How valuable and viable is the theory that each proposes? Is the empirical evidence appropriate and convincing? In short, you are writing a brief review essay. It should go beyond summary of the readings toward critical commentary and a discussion of the issues that unite the works. Or, the paper may be a position paper, positing and supporting an explanation of a phenomenon.
Prose and style matter. Be focused, terse and selective, and USE SPELL CHECK and do your own, non-computer dependent PROOFREADING.
2. -Write a research paper on a topic to be arranged (75% of the final grade)
This should be on a substantive and/or theoretical question or set of questions which are related to the topics covered in the course, and approximately 25-35 pages in length, using a variety of academic sources and data. Prose and style matter. Be focused, terse and selective, and USE SPELL CHECK and do your own, non-computer dependent PROOFREADING. You must give me a two page outline of the proposed topic and likely sources no later than Feb. 28, 2005. Failure to meet that deadline will result in an E for the course.
The research paper is due in my office by 5pm on May 9, 2005.
-Be aware that if you slack off in the last few weeks of the course because you have finished the papers and have led a class discussion, your participation grade will plunge and have a deleterious effect on your course grade.
-in all activities and work pertaining to this class, you are required to adhere to the University Student Academic Integrity Policy. Plagiarism on any one assignment constitutes grounds for failure of the course.
Incompletes
Save dire emergency, an incomplete is not an option for this course if you choose the three paper option. You also must be in good standing. If you choose the research paper option, I might consider granting you an Incomplete, should it be absolutely necessary. Do not count on that in your strategy for doing the paper this semester. You also must be in good standing.
Readings
While some books are listed as “required” at the bookstores, purchasing them is up to you. Many of the readings are available from web sites on-line, including via ASU’s electronic journal subscriptions. For the other readings, I will provide photocopies a week in advance, in Sheryl Durlak’s office, which you may “check out” at your convenience. As a group, you may find it useful to organize that situation further. It is likely that the readings will be reduced in various weeks, and that there will be some changes to the materials as we proceed, as I find other sources.
Books available at the ASU campus bookstore:
Anthony Gill, Rendering Unto Caesar
Carolyn Warner, Confessions of an Interest Group
Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West Stanford Univ Press, 1997,
Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West Harvard Belknap, 2004.
Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah Columbia Univ Press, 2004
McGarry and O’Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland Blackwell: 1995
David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture Chicago Univ Press, 1986
Joel S. Fetzer & Christopher Soper Muslims and the State in Britain, France and Germany Cambridge University Press. 2005
Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terror: Thinking about Religion after September 11 Chicago: 2003
Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Pantheon, 2004.
We are not using the Managing Existence in Naples, the Religious Orthodoxy & Popular Faith or the Islamic Political Identity in Turkey books.
Other Materials
I will also be distributing, as appropriate, news articles for us to consider, and we may be viewing parts of some films/documentaries.
Week 1, Jan. 24 (starts at 2:10-4:30)
Religion and Political Science
Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors preface and pp. 1-8
Anthony Gill, “Religion and Comparative Politics” Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 117-38. Available on his web site (from a link at bottom of that web page). http://faculty.washington.edu/tgill/Research.htm
recommended:
Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural Symbol" in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, (Basic Books, 1973) pp. 87-125.
José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 11-66. On reserve at Hayden
Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Pp. 26-41
Week 2, Jan. 31 (meets 1:40-2:50)
Secularization Theory
Rodney Stark and Laurence R. Iannaccone, "A Supply-Side Reinterpretation of the `Secularization' of Europe" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion v. 33 , n. 2 (1994): 230-252.
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular Cambridge University Press 2004, chs 1,3
recommended
Laurence R. Iannaccone,, PRPES WORKING PAPER #10--Looking Backward: A Cross-National Study of Religious Trends , 4/25/02 . On line at http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/
Toby Lester, “Oh, Gods!” The Atlantic Monthly, 289/2 (Feb. 2002), pp. 37-45.
Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Pp 1-25.
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, PRPES WORKING PAPER #2--Beyond Church and Sect: Dynamics and Stability in Religious Economies, Date: 9/19/01. On line at http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/
José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, ch. 3 or 4 or 5 (your choice).
Religion and Values
Week 3, Feb. 7 (meet 1:40-2:50).
Religion and Values
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism read “author’s introduction” and chs. 1, 2, 3, 4 only up to “Pietism” section
Charles F. Keyes, “Buddhist Economics and Buddhist Fundamentalism in Burma and Thailand” in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds, Fundamentalisms and the State V. 3, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 367-409.
recommended
Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values” American Sociological Review 65 (Feb. 2000): 19-51.
Anthony Gill, “Religious Values” paper presented at the 1999 APSA meeting; available at:
http://faculty.washington.edu/tgill/Research.htm
“Political Values and Religious Cultures: Jews, Catholics and Protestants” 1967 Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
Joel S. Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper, (2002) “Religion and Politics in a Secular Europe: Cutting Against the Grain” forthcoming in Ted Jelen and Clyde Wilcox, eds. Religion and Comparative Politics: The One, the few and the many Cambridge University Press. Manuscript.
Carolyn M. Warner and Manfred W. Wenner, PRPES WORKING PAPER #18--Organizing Islam for Politics in Western Europe, 7/2/02. Available at http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/
Aristide R. Zolberg and Long Litt Woon, “Why Islam is Like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States” Politics & Society 77/1 (March 1999): 5-38. On line via ASU.
Week 4, Feb. 14
Research prep day–no class.
Week 5, Feb. 21
Religion and Rationality I
Robert B. Ekelund Jr. et al, Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm New York: Oxford , 1996, “How the Church Profited from the Crusades” , pp. 131-151.
Laurence Iannacconne, “Why Strict Churches are Strong” American Journal of Sociology, 99/5 (1994): pp. 1180-1211. Available on JSTOR.
Anthony Gill, Rendering Unto Caesar, pp. 192-202.
recommended:
Laurence Iannaccone, “Sacrifice and Stigma” Journal of Political Economy 100/2 (1992): 271- available on JSTOR.
Rodney Stark, “Gods, Rituals, and the Moral Order” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, December 2001, 40/ 4, pp. 619-636
Week 6, Feb. 28
Religion and Rationality II
Gill, Rendering Unto Caesar, entire except appendix
David D. Laitin, Hegemony and Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 1-20, 23-75, 109-135.
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990. Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. chs tba
recommended:
Title: PRPES WORKING PAPER #22--Democratization in Post-Colonial Societies: The Long-Term Influences of Religion and Colonial Governments Authors: Robert D. Woodberry Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2002. available at: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/.
Henri Gooren, “Catholic and Non-Catholic Theologies of Liberation: Poverty, Self-Improvement, and Ethics Among Small-Scale Entrepreneurs in Guatemala City” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41/1 (2002): 29-45 .
Steigenga and Coleman, “Protestant Political Orientations and the Structure of Political Opportunity: Chile, 1972-1991" Polity 27 (1995): 465-482. Not on-line
John Conway, "The `Stasi' and the Churches: Between Coercion and Compromise in East German Protestantism, 1949-1989" Journal of Church and State v 36 # 4 (Fall, 94), pp. 725-745
John C. Green, Mark J. Rozell, Clyde Wilcox, “Social Movements and Party Politics: The Case of the Christian Right” Journal for the Scientific Study of Church and State 40/3 (2001): 413-426.
Ted Daniels, ed. A Doomsday reader: prophets, predictors, and hucksters of salvation. New York: NYU Press, 1999.
Michelle Chin, Adam L. Warber, Phillip Hardy, “Compassionate Free-Riding: How Church Organization Structure Affects the Development of Civic Skills” manuscript. via e-mail
Week 7, March 7
Case study: assessing religion in conflicts
McGarry and O’Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland, entire
Martin Dillon, God and the Gun. The Church and Irish Terrorism London: Orion, 1997, chs. Tba.
Week 8, March 21
The Religious Market and Political Struggles
Carolyn M. Warner, Confessions of an Interest Group, entire
Stathis N. Kalyvas, "Commitment Problems in Emerging Democracies: The Case of Religious Parties," Comparative Politics, 2000 32/4, pp. 279-299.
Recommended:
Francis G. Castles, “On religion and public policy: Does Catholicism make a difference?” European Journal of Political Research 25 (1994): 19-40.
Goeran Therborn, “Another way of taking religion seriously. Comment on Francis G. Castles” European Journal of Political Research 26 (1994): 103-110.
PRPES WORKING PAPER #21--The Economic Ascent of the Middle East's Religious Minorities: The Role of Islamic Legal Pluralism Authors: Timur Kuran Date: 8/5/02. Available at: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/
Week 9, March 28
Religion and the State
Anthony Gill and Arang Keshavarzian, “State Building and Religious Resources: An Institutional Theory of Church-State Relations in Iran and Mexico” Politics & Society 27/3 (Sept. 1999): 431-465. On line at ASU.
Fetzer and Soper, Muslims and the State
Stephen Denney, “The Catholic Church in Vietnam”In Pedro Ramet, ed., Catholicism and Politics in Communist Societies (Duke Univ Press, 1990), ch. 12, pp. 270-295.
Recommended
Simon Schama, Citizens (1989), pp. tba.
Saurabh Sanghvi, “Crouching Tiger: Falun Gong Rising” Harvard International Review 23/3 (Fall 2001), pp 7-10, and various articles.
Adam Gopnik, "The First Frenchman" The New Yorker (Oct. 7, 1996): 44-48. .
Diego Gambetta The Sicilian Mafia. The Business of Private Protection (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1993) pp. 5-7.
Pierre Birnbaum and Ira Katznelson, Paths of Emancipation Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, ch8,
R.T. Naylor, Wages of Crime, (Cornell Univ. Press, 2002), pp. 164-84.
Mark Juergensmeyer, the New Cold War?, ch. 4.
“Religion in Schools”CQ Researcher (on line at ASU), Jan 12, 2001, 11/1, pp 1-24.
Kimberly J. Morgan, “Forging the Frontiers between State, Church, and Family: Religious Cleavages and the Origins of Early Childhood Education and Care Policies in France, Sweden, and Germany” Politics & Society 30/1 (March 2002): 113-148. On line at ASU.
Kathleen Sheldon, “I Studied with the Nuns Learning to Make Blouses” International Journal of African Historical Studies 31/3 (1998): 595-625. Access is through JSTOR.
Jarmo Houtsonen “Traditional Qur’anic Education in a South Moroccan Village” International Journal of Middle East Studies 26 (1994): 489-500. Access is through JSTOR
Week 10, April 4
Religion and the State and Society in Africa
Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Ter Haar, Worlds of Power. Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa, chs. Tba (most of book will be assigned)
Laitin, Hegemony and Culture, 136-169.
Week 11, April 11
Religious Bases of Conflict and Political Intolerance?
Edward W. Said, Orientalism, pp. 1-73, 113-123
Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West, pp. 79-233
S.P. Huntington, (1993) "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs Summer, pp 22-49
recommended:
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart “Islamic culture and democracy: testing the "clash of civilizations" thesis”. Comparative Sociology 1 (3-4), 2002: 235-263.
Michael Janofsky, “Public or Mormon Plaza? Battle Splits Salt Lake City” New York Times 27 Oct. 2002
Sarah Lyall “Rights Panel for Europe Stirs Anger in Britain” New York Times, 6 May 1998
Christopher Hitchens, “The Stupidest Religion” Free Inquiry Magazine 21/4
Alan Riding, “French Author Acquitted of Charges for Anti-Islam Comment” New York Times 23 Oct. 2002
Thomas Cahill, “The One True Faith: Is It Tolerance?” New York Times 3 Feb. 2002
Marlise Simons, “Did VW Mock the Gospel? French Bishops Sue” New York Times Feb. 1998
Marlise Simons, “Behind the Veil: A Muslim Woman Speaks Out” New York Times 9 Nov. 2002
Ian Buruma, "Poland's New Jewish Question" New York Times Magazine, v. 34 Aug. 3, 1997
Anthony Gill, “Political origins of religious liberty”. Working paper, available on his web site http://faculty.washington.edu/tgill/Research.htm
Week 12, April 18
Islam and Politics
Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah Columbia Univ Press, 2004
reading tba.
recommended:
Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West Harvard Belknap, 2004
Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War?, review chs 1-2, read chs 3 and 6.
Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002., chs 1 & 3
Bernard Lewis, “Religious Coexistence and Secularism” in Islam and the West, ch 1.
John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, , Islam and Democracy, skim pp 3-77; chs 7 & 8.
Sally Denton, "What Happened at Mountain Meadows?" American Heritage Oct. 2001.
Laurence Iannaccone, PRPES WORKING PAPER #16--Religious Extremism: The Good, the Bad, and the Deadly, 6/30/02 available at:
http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/
Week 13, April 25
Religion and Political Violence
Catherine McNichol Stock, Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage in the American Grain. Cornell Univ Press, 1996, pp. 121-163.
B. A. Dobratz, “The Role of Religion in the Collective Identity of the White Racialist Movement” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2001, 40/ 2, pp. 287-302.
Lincoln, Holy Terrors entire
Recommended
Thomas F. Madden, A Concise History of the Crusades Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. Pp. 1-38. Compare w/ Ekelund et al, “How the Church profited from the Crusades”
Tim Severin, “Retracing the First Crusade”, National Geographic 176/3 Sept. 1989.
Caroline Ford “Forum: Religion and Violence in Nineteenth-Century France. Violence and the Sacred in Nineteenth-Century France” in French Historical Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Winter, 1998), pp. 101-112.
Maureen Flynn: “Mimesis of the Last Judgment: The Spanish Auto de fe”
Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 22, No. 2. (Summer, 1991), pp. 281-297.
Week 14, May 2
Religion and Political Violence: case study of Islam and Terrorism
Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, PRPES WORKING PAPER #17--Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection? , 7/1/02 available at:
http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/prpes/
Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon, 2004)
additional reading possibly tba
recommended:
Berman, Eli and David Laitin, forthcoming. “Rational Martyrs vs. Hard Targets: Evidence on the Tactical Use of Suicide Bombing” in Eva Meyersson Milgrom, ed. Suicide Bombing from an Interdisciplinary Perspective, mss. for submission to Princeton University Press. Available on Eli Berman’s web site at UCSD Economics Department.