Anthropology 563/International Relations 563
Prof. Robert (Bob) Hefner
Spring 2018, CAS 233
Thursday, 3:30-6:15
Syllabus:
RELIGION AND POLITICS ACROSS CULTURES
A Secular Age? Religion, Politics, and Modernity. In the aftermath of the Second World War,
policy analysts and social scientists alike subscribed to the notion that the more a society becomes
“modern” the less religion figures in public life. Where it did not disappear entirely, modern religion
was assumed to become a matter of private personal belief – not something that can or should be drawn
into politics or the public square. This was the core premise of the “secularization theory” that
dominated Western policy and social science from the 1950s to the 1990s. The assumption was in turn
linked to another widespread still today in policy circles and some academic disciplines, including
International Relations: Where a society does not secularize in this manner, the influence of religion in
public life is a serious obstacle to the achievement of democracy, gender equality, and tolerance, and
may even become a catalyst for a “clash of civilizations.”
Public Religion Resurgent. Since the 1970s, however, developments in many societies have
shown that, rather than declining, religion has remained strong or become even more societally
influential. The world-wide Islamic resurgence, the growth of Hindu nationalism in India, the revival of
Confucianism and Buddhism in China, the Christian right and civil-rights progressivism in the United
States, Buddhist nationalism in Southeast Asia, and the wildfire spread of Pentecostal Protestantism in
Latin America, Africa, the Pacific region, and, now, China – these and other developments indicate that
“religion” in many national settings is not a declining influence, but a growing one. The global
resurgence of religion raises questions as to how we are to understand religion, politics, and public life
today. Is the resurgence a peculiar and broadly “democratizing” cultural effect of modernity? Or does
public religion lead to intolerance and contradict the secularism required for democracy, gender
equality, and freedom? Can we live together peaceably in a world where religion has gone public?
Our Goals. The first goal of this course is to understand and critically evaluate the changing
role of religion in modern politics and public life. Few issues are more fiercely debated today than this
one, and few are more important for students aspiring to a career in government, international ngos, or
academic fields dealing with issues of religion and public policy.
The second goal of this course is to understand these issues, not just in the modern West, but in
countries and civilizational traditions around the world. A generation ago, Western countries were
assumed to be the model of political and cultural development for all societies undergoing
“modernization.” We now realize that there are multiple modernities, not one, and this plurality is
especially striking on matters of politics, secularism, and religion. Even in the “West,” there is and
never was just one but always several models of state-society-religion relations. This plurality becomes
all the more striking as we compare Western countries with those in other parts of the world.
Our case-studies and civilizational comparisons this semester include the politics of secularism,
gender, and citizenship in the U.S., France, and Turkey; Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity and
democracy and gender politics in the global South; Muslim politics and the challenge of modernity in
the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, with special attention to Muslim democracy, radicalism, and Islamic
populism; the politics and culture of the religious resurgence in China and East Asia; new Buddhist
movements in Thailand and Southeast Asia; Hindu nationalism and the “dark side” of democratization
and citizenship in India. Along the way, we will make many side comparisons, including to Israel and
Judaism, Orthodox Christianity and Eastern Europe, modern “non-religious” spiritualism, feminist
religious ethics, and the new atheism. In the course of examining these and other cases and issue, we
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come back again and again to ask, Why are some societies and some polities deeply religious, and
others not? And what does this variation imply for the future of citizenship and modern politics?
Our third and final goal in this course is to understand the implications of modern religions and
politics for a variety of political and ethical issues: citizenship and how to live together in
multicultural/multi-religious societies; the prospects for gender and sexual equality in different political
and religious traditions; the different varieties of democracy, and their implications for tolerance, coexistence, and human flourishing. Over the entire length of our course we return again and again to the
question, What are the implications of religion “gone public” for modern pluralism, tolerance,
citizenship, and gender equality?
Requirements and Grading. In light of the breadth of our readings and discussions, the first
requirement of this course is to attend all classes and participate actively in discussion.
1) Attendance and Participation: Classroom attendance and participation will comprise 25% of your
grade. Each class member will be asked to present one or two five-minute critical summaries of our
weekly readings, roughly equivalent to a one page outline of key points. These presentations will
account for about half of your participation grade (or about 12% of your full grade).
2) Readings: The other half of your participation will be based on class attendance and class discussion,
including discussion of readings; so keeping up with the reading and “being there” for the class and your
classmates are very important.
3) Take-Home Essays & Final Paper: There are no in-class examinations for this course. The written
portion of your grade will be based on a take-home midterm essay (25% of your grade), a final takehome exam reflection (25%), and one outside reading report or research paper of approximately 2500
words (roughly ten double spaced pages) in length (25% of grade). The paper topic should reflect your
own interests – something you are excited to pursue more deeply – in relation to some theoretical issue
from the course, and be worked out in consultation with me, sometime prior to mid-semester. The paper
will be due on April 23.
Consultation. This course welcomes people from all disciplinary backgrounds – you don’t have to be
an IR specialist, anthropologist, or political sociologist. I also welcome and encourage discussion
outside of class. My office hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 1:00-2:20. My office is
located at the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, 10 Lenox Street, second floor (tel: 39050; email: rhefner@bu.edu). Come on by!
A Note On Academic Conduct. The University has also asked all professors to remind students of the Boston University Academic
Conduct Code. If you are not familiar with the code, please read it. Copies are available on-line at
http://www.bu.edu/cas/students/graduate/forms-policies-procedures/academic-discipline-procedures/
http://www.bu.edu/academics/resources/academic-conduct-code/
More generally, remember that handing in someone else’s work or ideas as your own – even if at some point you worked as a group –
constitutes plagiarism. Using someone else’s ideas or paraphrasing passages from an on-line source without proper attribution also
constitutes plagiarism. The University takes plagiarism very seriously, and requires faculty to report any and all infractions of the
Academic Conduct Code to the Dean for resolution by the Academic Conduct Committee.
Texts. You will read parts of the following books in this course, as well as several articles. All of the
book are available at the BU Bookstore; I will provide PDF copies of the articles.
Ahmet Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey.
Robert Weller, Alternate Civilities: Democracy and Culture in China and Taiwan.
Rachelle M. Scott, Nirvana for Sale? Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakaya Temple in
Contemporary Thailand.
Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India.
Vedi R. Hadiz, Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East.
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Jonathan Laurence, The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims: The State’s Role in Minority
Integration.
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Schedule of Topics and Readings
The reading for each week is listed in the first line of each week’s “Reading” below. The “Outside Referenced
Reading” are not at all required – and not expected to be read this semester as such. However, I refer to these
readings in our seminar discussion, and I list them here so that students interested in pursuing a particular issue
further may look into them whether this semester or sometime later.
Week 1: Secularism & Secularization in Western Societies: The West as Model or Exception?
Reading (PDFs): Al Stepan, “The Multiple Secularisms of Modern Democratic and non-Democratic Regimes,” in
Craig Calhoun, M. Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Rethinking Secularism, pp. 114-44; and Jose Casanova,
“The Religious Situation in the United States, 175 Years after Tocqueville,” in In Miguel Vatter, ed., Crediting God:
Sovereignty and Religion in the Age of Global Capitalism (Fordham University Press, 2011), pp. 253-72; and Jose
Casanova, “The Religious Situation in Europe,” In Hans Joas and Klaus Wiegandt, eds., Secularization and the World
Religions, Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2009, pp. 206-227.
Outside Referenced Readings (non-required reading, but for those interested in exploring the issues of this week more
deeply): José Casanova, “Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective,” in Hedgehog Review, Special
Issue on “After Secularization” (Spring/Summer 2006), pp. 7-22. Grace Davie, “Is Europe An Exceptional Case?” in
Hedgehog Review, pp. 23-34. Talal Asad, “Religion, Nation-State, Secularism.” In Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehman,
Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, pp.178-96.
See also Craig Calhoun, M. Juergensmeyeer, and Jonathan Vanantwerpen, Rethinking Secularism (Oxford 2011), and
McLeod, Hugh. “Introduction,” in Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf, eds., The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe,
1750-2000, (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 1-26.
Week 2: Varieties of Secularity, Religious Governance, & Citizen Ethics
Reading: Kuru, Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion, pp. 1-102.
Outside Referenced Reading: Michael Warner, Jonathan van Antwerpen, and Craig Calhoun, eds., Varieties of Secularism in
a Secular Age, especially Introduction, Chs. 8-12.
Week 3: Varieties of Secularity: Passive versus Assertive Secularism, and the Problem of State
Secularisms and Religious Freedom
Reading: Kuru, Secularism and State Policies, pp. 103-246.
Outside Referenced Reading: Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics World Wide, pp.
3-132. Paul Heelas, “Challenging Secularization Theory,” Hedgehog Review, pp. 46-58.
Jonathon Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State.
Week 4: Public Christianity in the Non-Western World: Implications of the Global Surge of
Evangelical-Pentecostal Christianity for Citizenship, Women, and Social Class.
Reading: Hefner, “The Unexpected Modern: Gender, Piety, and Politics in the Global Pentecostal Surge,” in Hefner,
ed., Global Pentecostalism in the 21st Century, pp. 1-36, and Paul Freston, “The Many Faces of Evangelical Politics in
Latin America,” in Freston, ed., Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America. Pp. 3-36.
Outside Reference Reading: Joel Robbins, “The globalization of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity.” Annual review of
anthropology (2004), pp. 117-143.
Week 5: Pentecostalism, Gender, & Politics
Reading: Bernice Martin, “Tensions and Trends in Pentecostal Gender and Family Relations,” in Hefner, ed., Global
Pentecostalism, pp. 115-148; and Terence O. Ranger, “Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa,” in Ranger,
ed., Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa, pp. 3-36.
Week 6: Muslim Traditions of Religion and State: From Caliphate Rule to Democratic Populism
Reading: Hadiz, Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East, pp. 1-115.
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Outside Referenced Reading: Alfred Stepan with Graeme Robertson, “An Arab more than a Muslim Democracy Gap,”
Journal of Democracy, July 2003, pp. 30-44. Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, “The True Clash of Civilizations” in
Foreign Policy, March 2003. Al-Azm, Sadik, “Is Islam Secularizable?” At
http://www.secularislam.org/separation/isisislam.htm.
Week 7: The Islamic Resurgence and Modernity: The Great Exception or the Fourth Wave of
Democratization? Wherein Too the Place of Muslim Women?
Reading: Hadiz, Islamic Populism, pp. 116-189.
Outside Reference Reading: R. Hefner, “Human Rights and Democracy in Islam: The Indonesian Case in Global
Perspective,” in T. Banchoff and R. Wuthnow, eds., Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights, pp. 39-70; Lila AbuLughod, Do Muslim Women Need Saving? pp. 1-80
Week 8: Is East Asia Different? Religious Resurgence and Democratization in China and Taiwan.
Reading: Robert Weller, Alternate Civilities: Democracy and Culture in China and Taiwan (read full book).
Outside Referenced Reading: Religion in China Today, ed. Daniel L. Overmyer, China Quarterly Special Issue No. 3 (2003)
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Week 9: Buddhism, the State, and Religious Resurgence: A Different Modernity?
Reading: Rachelle M. Scott, Nirvana for Sale? pp. 1-87.
Week 10: Women’s Religiosity and the New Middle Class
Reading: Nirvana for Sale, pp. 89-187.
Outside Referenced Reading: Ingrid Jordt, Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural
Construction of Power, pp. 1-95.
Week 11: Hinduism and Religious Nationalism: Illiberal Democratization in the World’s Largest
Democracy?
Reading: Hansen, The Saffron Wave, pp. 3-89.
Outside Referenced Reading: Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India, pp. 1-105.
Rajeev Bhargava, “Rehabilitating Secularism,” in Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan Vanantwerpen,
Rethinking Secularism (Oxford 2011), pp. 92-113.
Week 12: India Compared: Democratization, Religious Resurgence, and “Uncivil Society”
Reading: Hansen, Saffron Wave, pp. 134-238.
Outside Referenced Reading: Nachman Benb-Yehuda, Theocratic Democracy: The Social Construction of Religious and
Secular Extremism [a discussion based on research in Israel], Prologue & Chs. 1, 2, 11.
Week 13: Religion and Citizenship in the Late-Modern West: Liberalism, Minorities, and the
Struggle for a New Civic Pluralism
Reading: Jonathan Laurence, The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims, Chs. 1-4.
Jose Casanova, “Immigration and the New Religious Pluralism: A European Union-United States Comparison, in Geoffrey
Brahm Levey and Tariq Modood, Secularism, Religion, and Multicultural Citizenship (Cambridge 2009), pp. 139-163.
John Bowen, Can Islam be French?
Week 14: Religion & Western Modernity Revisited: Is Multiculturalism Possible? Is the Liberal
Secular Model of Citizenship Exhausted?
Reading: Jonathan Laurence, The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims, Chs. 5-8.
Outside Referenced Reading, “Religion and Modernity Worldwide,” by Robert W. Hefner, in Peter B. Clarke, ed., The
Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, pp. 152-172.
Jonathon Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State.