Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-23T09:01:48.445Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - A Comparative Perspective on Religious Claims and Sacralized Politics

An Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2021

Nadim N. Rouhana
Affiliation:
Tufts University, Massachusetts
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Queen Mary University of London
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the impact of the fusion between religious claims and nationalism on state policies – domestically, regionally, and internationally. It offers a comparative perspective on the extent to which religious claims bestow sacredness on the state’s workings of power – or what we define as sacralized politics. The chapter analyzes how, through hegemonic nationalism, states invoke religious claims to legitimize political and national strategic goals in domestic and international politics. To trace the matrix of power that sacralization of politics mobilizes, and when looking comparatively at various case studies, the chapter points to three main (among other) modes of sacralization’s profound impact on politics. The first operates through managing consciousness, including the construction of self-identity in relation to others; the second, through territoriality and the politics of land claims; and the third via political governance, using violence and a necropolitical regime of control. While each mode can operate separately, all operate through mutual reinforcement and each with elements of sacredness, resulting in an emergent power structure that is self-sustaining, religiously infused, and resistant to change.

Type
Chapter
Information
When Politics are Sacralized
Comparative Perspectives on Religious Claims and Nationalism
, pp. 1 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abulof, Uriel. 2014. “The Roles of Religion in National Legitimation: Judaism and Zionism’s Elusive Quest for Legitimacy.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53, no. 3: 515–33.Google Scholar
Abulof, Uriel 2016. “Public Political Thought: Bridging the Sociological–Philosophical Divide in the Study of Legitimacy.” British Journal of Sociology 67, no. 2: 371–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amara, Ahmad. 2013. “The Negev Land Question between Denial and Recognition.” Journal of Palestine Studies 42, no. 4: 2747.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 2nd ed. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Appleby, R. Scott. 2000. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Appleby, R. Scott, Omer, Atalia, and Little, David, eds. 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Augusteijn, Joost, Dassen, Patrick, and Janse, Maartje. 2013. “Introduction: Politics and Religion.” In Political Religion Beyond Totalitarianism, edited by Augusteijn, Joost, Dassen, Patrick, and Janse, Maartje, 111. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Beckford, James A. 2017. “Religion and Power.” In In Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism in America, edited by Robbins, Thomas and Anthony, Dick, 4360. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bellah, Robert N. 1987. “Legitimation Processes in Politics and Religion.” Current Sociology 35, no. 2: 8999.Google Scholar
Bellah, Robert N. 1998. “Religion and Legitimation in the American Republic.” Society 35, no. 2: 193201.Google Scholar
Berger, Peter. 1967. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Bhargava, Rajeev, ed. 1998. Secularism and Its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Billings, Dwight B., and Scott, Shaunna L.. 1994. “Religion and Political Legitimation.” Annual Review of Sociology 20: 173202.Google Scholar
Bishara, Azmi. 1995. “The Israeli Arab: Readings in a Truncated Political Text.” [In Arabic.] Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya 24: 2654.Google Scholar
Bishara, Azmi 2005. From the Jewish State to Sharon: A Study in the Contradictions of Israeli Democracy [in Arabic]. Beirut: Dar al-Shorouk.Google Scholar
Beshara, Azmi. 2018. What Is Salafism? [in Arabic]. Doha: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies.Google Scholar
Beshara, Azmi 2019. Religion and Secularism in a Historical Context. Pt. 2, vol. 2. Doha: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2012. “Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches.” Nations and Nationalism 18, no. 1: 220.Google Scholar
Burrin, Philippe. 1997. “Political Religion: The Relevance of a Concept.” History and Memory 9, no. 1/2: 321–49.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Chuman, Joseph. 2006. “Does Religion Cause Violence?” In Religion, Terrorism, and Globalization: Nonviolence: A New Agenda, edited by Kuriakose, Karikottuchira K., 1530. New York: Nova Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 2011. “Some Theses on Secularism.” Cultural Anthropology 26, no. 4: 648–56.Google Scholar
Cragun, Ryan T., Manning, Christel, and Fazzino, Lori L., eds. 2017. Organized Secularism in the United States: New Directions in Research. Religion and Its Others 6. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demerath, N. J. III., 2007a. “Secularization and Sacralization Deconstructed and Reconstructed.” In The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by Beckford, James A. and Demerath, N. J. III, 5780. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Demerath, N. J. 2007b. “Religion and the State; Violence and Human Rights.” In The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by Beckford, James A. and Demerath, N. J. III 2007, 381–95. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
DeVotta, Neil. 2007. “Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology: Implications for Politics and Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka.” Policy Studies, no. 40. Washington, DC: East-West Center.Google Scholar
Earner-Byrne, Lindsey, and Urquhart, Diane. 2018. The Irish Abortion Journey, 1920–2018. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ebaugh, Helen Rose. 2002. “Presidential Address 2001: Return of the Sacred: Reintegrating Religion in the Social Sciences.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41, no. 3: 385–95.Google Scholar
Forman, Geremy, and Kedar, Alexandre. 2004. “From Arab Land to ‘Israel Lands’: The Legal Dispossession of the Palestinians Displaced by Israel in the Wake of 1948.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22, no. 6: 809–30.Google Scholar
Friedland, Roger. 2001. “Religious Nationalism and the Problem of Collective Representation.” Annual Review of Sociology 27: 125–52.Google Scholar
Friedland, Roger, and Moss, Kenneth B.. 2016. “Thinking through Religious Nationalism.” In Words: Religious Language Matters, edited by van den Hemel, Ernst and Szafraniec, Asja, 419–62. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1994. Encounters with Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gentile, Emilio. 2004. “Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion: Definitions and Critical Reflections on Criticism of an Interpretation.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 5, no. 3: 326–75.Google Scholar
Gentile, Emilio 2005. “Political Religion: A Concept and Its Critics – A Critical Survey.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6, no. 1: 1932.Google Scholar
Ghanem, As’ad, Rouhana, Nadim, and Yiftachel, Oren, 1998. “Questioning ‘Ethnic Democracy’: A Response to Sammy Smooha.” Israel Studies 3, no. 2: 253–67.Google Scholar
Gorski, Philip S. 2000. “Historicizing the Secularization Debate: Church, State, and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ca. 1300 to 1700.” American Sociological Review 68: 138–67.Google Scholar
Gorski, Philip S. 2017. American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gorski, Philip S., and Altınordu, Ateş. 2008. “After Secularization?Annual Review of Sociology 34: 5585.Google Scholar
Hall, John R. 2013. “Religion and Violence from a Sociological Perspective.” In The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence, edited by Juergensmeyer, Mark, Kitts, Margo, and Jerryson, Michel K., 363–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hasan, Mushirul. 2002. “The BJP’s Intellectual Agenda: Textbooks and Imagined History.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 25, no. 3: 187209.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Bruce. 2006. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Jabareen, Yosef. 2017. “Controlling Land and Demography in Israel: The Obsession with Territorial and Geographic Dominance.” In Israel and Its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State, edited by Rouhana, Nadim N., 238–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jamal, Amal. 2002. “Beyond ‘Ethnic Democracy’: State Structure, Multi-cultural Conflict and Differentiated Citizenship in Israel.” New Political Science 24, no. 3: 411–31.Google Scholar
Jones, David Martin, and Smith, M. L. R.. 2014. Sacred Violence: Political Religion in a Secular Age. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Comparative Studies in Religion and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Juergensmeyer, Mark, Kitts, Margo, and Jerryson, Michel K., eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kamat, Sangeeta, and Mathew, Biju. 2003. “Mapping Political Violence in a Globalized World: The Case of Hindu Nationalism.” Social Justice 30, no. 3: 416.Google Scholar
Kanaaneh, Rhoda Ann. 2002. Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lusthaus, Jonathan. 2011. “Religion and State Violence: Legitimation in Israel, the USA and Iran.” Contemporary Politics 17, no. 1: 117.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. 2017. “Secularism, Sovereignty, and Religious Difference: A Global Genealogy.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35, no. 2: 197209.Google Scholar
Marvin, Carolyn, and Ingle, David W.. 1996. “To Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64, no. 4: 767–80.Google Scholar
Marvin, Carolyn, and Ingle, David W. 1999. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. Cambridge Cultural Social Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille. 2003. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15, no. 1: 1140.Google Scholar
Memmi, Albert. 1991. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Metcalf, Barbara D. 1995. “Presidential Address: Too Little and Too Much: Reflections on Muslims in the History of India.” Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 4: 951–67.Google Scholar
Moallem, Minoo. 2005. Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nahman, Michal Rachel. 2013. Extractions: An Ethnography of Reproductive Tourism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Nigam, Aditya. 2006. The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular Nationalism in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa, and Inglehart, Ronald. 2010. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Omar, A. Rashied. 2015. “Religious Violence and State Violence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding, edited by Appleby, R. Scott, Omer, Atalia, and Little, David, 236–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ophir, Adi, and Rosen-Zvi, Ishay. 2018. Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Perica, Vjekoslav. 2002. Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Portuguese, Jacqueline. 1998. Fertility Policy in Israel: The Politics of Religion, Gender, and Nation. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Al-Rasheed, Madawi. 2014. A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics, and Religion in Saudi Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Riis, Ole. 1998. “Religion Re-emerging: The Role of Religion in Legitimating Integration and Power in Modern Societies.” International Sociology 13, no. 2: 247–72.Google Scholar
Rouhana, Nadim N. 1997. Palestinian Citizens in an Ethnic Jewish State: Identities in Conflict. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rouhana, Nadim N. 2015. “Homeland Nationalism and Guarding Dignity in a Settler Colonial Context: The Palestinian Citizens of Israel Reclaim Their Homeland.” Borderlands 14, no. 1: 137.Google Scholar
Rouhana, Nadim N., and Sabbagh-Khoury, Areej. 2006. “Force, Privilege, and the Range of Tolerance.” [In Hebrew.] In Knowledge and Silence: On the Mechanism of Denial in Israeli Society, edited by Lahad, Kinneret and Herzog, Hanna, 6274. Tel Aviv: The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Sarkar, Sumit. 2002. Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Sells, Michael A. 1998. The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Shah, Timothy Samuel, Stepan, Alfred, and Toft, Monica Duffy, eds. 2012. Rethinking Religion and World Affairs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera. 2015. Security Theology, Surveillance and the Politics of Fear. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera 2017. “The Occupation of the Senses: The Prosthetic and Aesthetic of State Terror.” British Journal of Criminology 57, no. 6: 1279–300.Google Scholar
Shenhav, Yehouda. 2007. “Modernity and the Hybridization of Nationalism and Religion: Zionism and the Jews of the Middle East as a Heuristic Case.” Theory and Society 36, no. 1: 130.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 2008. The Cultural Foundations of Nations: Hierarchy Covenant and Republic. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Smooha, Sammy. 1997. “Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype.” Israel Studies 2, no. 2: 198241.Google Scholar
Soper, J. Christopher, and Fetzer, Joel S.. 2018. Religion and Nationalism in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Spohn, Willfried. 2003. “Multiple Modernity, Nationalism and Religion: A Global Perspective.” Current Sociology 51, no. 3–4: 265–86.Google Scholar
Stern, Jessica. 2004. Terror in the Name of God: Why Militants Kill. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Sultany, Nimer. 2017. “The Legal Structures of Subordination: The Palestinian Minority and Israeli Law.” In Israel and Its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State, edited by Rouhana, Nadim N., 191237. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley J. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1998. “Modes of Secularism.” In Secularism and Its Critics, edited by Bhargava, Rajeev, 3153. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Toft, Monica Duffy. 2012. “Religion, Terrorism, and Civil War.” In Rethinking Religion and World Affairs, edited by Shah, Timothy Samuel, Stepan, Alfred, and Toft, Monica Duffy, 127–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, Bryan S. 1991. Religion and Social Theory. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
van der Veer, Peter. 1994. Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Yabanci, Bilge. 2020. “Fuzzy Borders between Populism and Sacralized Politics: Mission, Leader, Community and Performance in ‘New’ Turkey.” Politics, Religion and Ideology 21, no. 1: 92112.Google Scholar
Yiftachel, Oren. 2006. Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×