Religious identity

Question 1

Religious identity in politics

Answer 1

• 80% of the world’s states have religious minorities

- Smith = nationalist ideologies are linked to religious identity

Question 2

3 key theories on nationalism and ethnicity which can be applied to understand religious identity:

Answer 2

Primordialism
Instrumentalism
Constructivism

Question 3

Primordalism = Ray 2012 =

Answer 3

• religious issues are culturally embedded within identity groups
• religion has a primordal origin and is deeply rooted in human evolution
• conflicts based on primordal grievences have been continuing for generations

Question 4

example of primordal feud:

Answer 4

Israeli-Arab conflicts

Question 5

Criticism of primordalism:

Answer 5

1) is culturally deterministic - certain religious groups are prone to fighting due to their inherent cultural differences
2) (Sian 2013) In primordalist literature, historical processes have no significant impact on the identity of a people

Question 6

Instrumentalism =

Answer 6

• religious identities have existed in society but have nit been relevant to politics
• a political actor seeks to activate religious politics
• involves a political actor seeing religious identity as an untapped resource that can provide an effective path to power and influence (Chandra 2004)
• instrumentalism appears a more nuanced theory as it recognizes the relevance of political and socio-economic structural dynamics to account for temporal and geographical variations in the occurrence of ethnic conflicts.

Question 7

Criticism of instrumentalism:

Answer 7

1) suggests political actors have to power to influence religious identities
2) it cannot independently explain why people easily, cooperatively, and effectively mobilize along religious lines - It must draw on the wisdom of primordialism in recognizing the power of religion to perpetuate a sense of ‘common blood’ (Che 2016)

Question 8

Constructivism =

Answer 8

• religious identity is not simply fixed but constructed

- it links a number of local ethnic and religious identities into a larger identity

Question 9

Constructivism = Smith 1998 =

Answer 9

people will share…

• a collective name
• a shared history
• disctincive shared culture
• sense of solidarity
• association with specific territory

Question 10

Constructivism = Marx and Freud =

Answer 10

also view religion as a constructed entity

Question 11

Constructivism = Che 2016 =

Answer 11

religious identity chages and shifts according to political and social climates. The conecpts of power, democracy and agency have been shown to manifest differently around the globe.

Question 12

Media and political commentary =

Answer 12

suggets that specific religions are prone to more conflict

Question 13

Huntington 1996 =

Answer 13

Islam is a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power

Question 14

Kimball 2002 =

Answer 14

more evil is perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history

Question 15

Armstrong 2009 =

Answer 15

9/11 has speared the debate around religion and violence in contemporary society

Question 16

Criticism - secularists ignore some of the darkest aspects of modernity

Answer 16

Asad 2003 = we owe the most terrible examples of coercion in modern times to secular totalitarian regimes

Question 17

Cavanaugh 2007 expands on Asad =

Answer 17

secularist ideologies can be just as absolutist and irrational as religion: Nazism and Stalinism

Question 18

Criticism - is a reductive idea that all of those in a religious category are prone to violence

Answer 18

Aslan in a CNN interview = it is only the radical who are prone to violence.

Question 19

Criticism - Cavanaugh 2007 on secular-religious dichotomy =

Answer 19

• religious violence is a myth which has been used to maintain a separation of church and state
• (Thomas 2005) secularisation is a myth created by western intellectuals based on their desires rather than empirical relaity

Question 20

Criticism - religion can never provide an all-encompassing explanation of conflict because…

Answer 20

1) there is no religious group all of whose members have always been engaged in conflict
2) religiouns universally justify peace

Question 21

Criticism - there is too much of a heavy focus on Islam promotiong violence - it is not the only religion to have violent fundamentalists…

Answer 21

• Buddhism is classically known as a pacifist religion however it has been used to justify violence
• the extremist group Buddhist power force founded in 2012 killed/injured 84 muslims in 2014