Revisiting the Link: Politicizing Religion in Democratizing Countries

Author(s): HARRIS MYLONAS

Source: Harvard International Review , SPRING 2013, Vol. 34, No. 4 (SPRING 2013), pp.
48-52
Published by: Harvard International Review

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/43746143

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Revisiting the
Politicizing Religion in Dem
HARRIS MYLONAS

state affairs is acute in the Middle East, HARRIS MYLONAS is Assistant Professor of
Europe, and Africa. Are religious cleavages Political Science & International Affairs at The
more prone to violent conflict than other Elliott School of International Affairs, George
Conflict state more Europe, cleavages? affairs pronecleavaagnesd?aWhaboutt isWhathe relt Afriationschai.ptobetweenis acute violent the is the Are role in relationship conflict religious the of Middle religion than cleavages between other East, in Washington University. He is the author of
religion and political violence? These are important
The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Na-
questions in the study of politics but, more importantly,
tionals, Refugees and Minorities.
the answers we give have important implications for policy.
Before we continue with this discussion, it is important
to clarify certain concepts and set straight some common where the "religious cleavage" is salient but not the pri-
misconceptions. Anyone who is studying the relationship mary motivation, and conflicts that are fought with reli-
between "religion" and "political violence" has to confront gious goals in mind. For instance, while the Chechens are
the conceptual ambiguity that arises from the common predominately Muslim and thus have a different religion
usage of these terms. For example, different religious doc- from the Christian Orthodox Russians, this religious dif-
trines and faiths have a wide range of dispositions toward ference has not been the main reason for the conflicts in
the political sphere. Moreover, there is wide variation in Chechnya. In contrast, the Taliban in Afghanistan can be
organizational structures (e.g. more or les hierarchical, seen as primarily motivated by religious goals. Relatedly,
transnational, or state specific), practices (e.g. proselytiz- the public perception of religious political violence may be

i
ing or not), and goals (e.g. establishing a theocracy or inflated. Several high profile conflicts, such as in Northern
not). Using "religion" as an unproblematic category of Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and Cyprus have been portrayed
analysis is tricky. as merely religious in nature, when in fact issues of national
Furthermore, we should distinguish between conflicts self-determination and political power definitely motivate

[48] HARVARD INTERNATIONAL R E V I E W • Spring 2013

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 these
ity
doctri
has
Turn
cap
simil
Rel
is not
Rev
our ofow
incide
not
The A
tio
Violen
and
not cl
rat
all cir
div
condit
The
the
most
your pro
This How a
existin cap
These of
calrel re
Further research indicates that the existence ofes
the re-
ligious heterogeneity should not have an impact on its
reality
own. Civil war, conceptualized as an armed conflict that
identi
prefe
involves more than 1000 battle deaths within a year, is a
product of a pre-existing conflict, and such
the di a conflict has
to be over specific stakes. For religion to factor into such a
ferenc
scenario, the simple existence of many religious groups in
Relig
a country would not suffice. The politics surrounding the
The
various religious groups, the access to state and non-state t
resources, and the hierarchies of these groups are more a
well
likely to be linked to conflict. As Andreas Wimmer has
nifica
politi
convincingly demonstrated in his most recent book, Waves
of War, the institutional setting within which religious
distin
states
practices take place is equally, if not more important, than
the heterogeneity index.
Amer
where Consistent with the discussion above, a key distinc-
as tion, which "in
I make in my new book, The Politics of
Nation-Building,
feren is between religious diversity and politi-
cally mobilized religious differences. The politicization o
ogy
For in
of ethnic and religious differences, I argue, is often the
a doct
product of external powers interfering in other states by
suppr
supporting non-core groups - any aggregation of individu-
one
als perceived as an ethnic group by the ruling elite of a-state
- in
Thus, an attempt to destabilize enemies or annex territories.
According to my argument, the manner in which a state
politic
ated
treats a non-core group within its own borders is largelys
based on whether the state's foreign policy is revisionist
Movin
or whether it adheres to the international status quo, and
analys
about
whether it is allied or in rivalry with that group's external
patron(s). Thus, assuming that religion is an important
status
ofpart of the definition ofa
the national type in a society, s
religious minorities that have no external patrons and do
extrem
not pose a threat to the country (or the regime) will
tive t be
accommodated or gradually integrated into the dominant
some
and p
culture. In contrast, religious minorities that have external
Atlinks to enemy powers will be targeted
a with exclusionary b
of civ
policies that can even take the form of ethnic cleansing. In
my framework, it is the latter scenario that is more likely
Proba
to lead to violent conflict.
war o

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 Recen dec
tion of a
to civ
hig
captu pur
langua vio
wheth Fai
to wh
one
arybecomes more violent than conflict that involves
ac other
of a
types of groups. However, Fox's study finds no effect for p
religious minorities that fought conflicts for religious
discri
ends. Thus, we are back to the distinction I made in the
with
introduction of this article.
and L
tolera Studies have also been conducted to determine wheth-
er the intensity of violence in religious or non-religious
major

R conflicts is higher. Nordas analyzed the effect

the
Religi
ex of a conflict
having a religious dimension on the number of fatalities in
conflicts active since 1989 (UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflicts
war.
Dataset) and found that religious conflicts are not bloodier
study
overall. In her analysis, Islam does not seem to be associ-
regul
ated with bloodier conflicts. Toft, however,
she do looking at all
civil wars in the second half of the 20th century, shows
takes
that more than 80 percent of religious civil wars involve
regul

H count
Islam. She explains this over-representation by asserting
that, "Whereas the largely Christian West has rejected
gions,
the idea that violence in the name of religion
has an has a posi-
tive
noriti utility and that the Church and the state should be
the
corro same, Islam and its adherents have not rejected such
is notions."
adv This finding echoes Philpott's argument about
illiberal
gies, political theological doctrines and integrationist s
andstates. Finally, Ron Hassner suggests in War
im on Sacred
whoGrounds that sacred sites may be particularly prone t to
conflict, since they provide valuable resources for both u
take
There
religious and political actors but cannot be easily divided.
seems
This argument deserves more systematic testing.

Religious Conflict Around the World

Current Religious Conflict Zones (by country)

I Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 20 1 1.

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 of
Natio
rel
Religi
alo
ligiou
to
other
on
lions
the w
is Fr
tha
Th
states
the
tially
of na
nic
cle
religio
identi
ans
dian
whc
Prote
cas
ies
compl

"Re
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a rece
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makes
reg
dam
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Poland
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a few
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the
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with
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aries l
An
religio
theliti
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the p
are
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andfor
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therea
st
ing
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in we
cou
andeth
d
and
Griev
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suffic
dec
size of
A
histort
or rec
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tions
In int
th

Spr

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 revitalized. Yet fundamental questions remain.
Howe
the so
Many of the problems in studying the relationship of
religion on the onset of political violence have to do with
velopm
modernization. issues of conceptualization and operationalization. There
Finally, the fourth path is the creation of a new social is a wide range of religious doctrines, and the elites of some
identity by mass schooling of the population of a country. religions are more willing and able than others to instigate
This path can be pursued with success in cases with aviolent actions from their followers. Some religions are
largely illiterate population, as Keith Darden has recently hierarchical in their organizational structure, with a strong
transnational network (Catholic Church), while others
argued. By schooling the population into a new common
national identity, the effect of religious differences in a have a more fluid and decentralized structure (Protestant
society can be significantly moderated. Of course, forchurches). Moreover, there is wide variation in the ways
this path to work, we are assuming that the content of that states regulate religion. Some states favor a specific
the national identity, what Rogers Smith has termed the religion to the detriment of other faiths, while other states
constitutive story of a nation, will not be favoring one offer the same opportunities to all religions. In this respect,
religion over others. studying religion both at a regional and global level might
These are some policy recommendations I presentedbe beneficial. For instance, the role of Islam is different in
at The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and Worldthe Arab world than beyond the Arab world.
Affairs, at Georgetown University, which I derived from Moreover, in order to test the effect of church-state
the social science literature. The success of these policies relations on political violence, researchers would need
is far from guaranteed and their applicability should be to code all religious groups per state across the world.
decided based on a careful evaluation of practical realities. Most of the existing dataseis have the state as their unit
of analysis, thus hindering a study at the religious group
Conclusion level. It is possible that the new Minorities at Risk Project,
Religion has been one of the most important cleavage a sustained effort to collect systematic data on politically
dimensions in the world for centuries. The rise of nation-active communal groups since the 1980s, might allow us
alism and communism pushed the study of the religiousto test such causal arguments.
cleavage to the side for a long time. However, following Another problem is that the direction of causality pos-
the end of the Cold War, Sam Huntington's "The Clash ited by many experts may actually be reversed. Given the
lack of good data, many scholars have used recent measures
of Civilizations," and the September 1 1th attacks, the study
of religion and its effects on political violence has been
on religious institutions to capture their effect on political
violence or democratization. However, it is very likely that
these institutions regulating religious life are the product
of both democratization and political violence. Robust
global measures for state institutions regulating religion
around the world have only recently become available, and
cover just the past decade. Direction of causality issues can
sometimes only be addressed with careful process tracing.
For instance, this is the soundest way to know whether
political theologies have changed in response to a regime
type or economic development, or vice versa.
Finally, future research should look at other cleavages
in society and how they interact with the religious cleav-
age. The link between the national constitutive story of a
country and its religion is crucial for our purposes. Equally,
an understanding of the conditions under which religious
identities become primary and trump other identifications
is necessary.
Religion plays a central role in many societies and is
often perceived as the cleavage around which conflict oc-
curs. But beyond studying places where religion is salient
and/or religious conflict occurs, we should also study cases
where crosscutting cleavages have been successfully con-
structed and national integration achieved. Understanding
the process of the politicization and de-politicization of re-
Bosnian Muslims carry the coffin of a victim of the Sre-
brenica massacre in Potocari, Bosnia and Hezegovina. ligion and the conditions under which religious differences
The killings at Srbrenica were the worst religiously- turn violent can help us prevent future related conflicts. ID
motivated massacre since World War II.

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