This book examines the growing diversity of religions and worldviews across East & Southeast Asia, and the factors affecting prospects for 'covenantal pluralism' in these regions. According to the Pew Religious Diversity Index, half of the world’s most religiously diverse countries are in Asia. The presence of deep religious/worldview difference is often seen as a potential threat to socio-political cohesion or even as a source of violent conflict. Yet in Asia (as elsewhere) the degree of this diversity is not consistently associated with socio-political problems. Indeed, while religious difference is implicated in some social challenges, there are also many instances of respectful multi-faith engagement, practical collaboration, and peaceful debate. Whether or not religious/worldview difference is part of a positive pluralism depends on a complex array of legal and cultural conditions. This book explores these dynamics and contingencies in Asia, structuring the inquiry according to the theory of 'covenantal pluralism'. Covenantal pluralist theory calls for (a) a constitutional order characterized by freedom of religion/conscience and equality of rights and responsibilities, combined with (b) a culture of practical religious literacy and virtues of mutual respect and protection. Volume I offers a pioneering exploration of the prospects for this robust and non-relativistic type of pluralism in East & Southeast Asia. (Volume II examines South & Central Asia.) The chapters in these volumes originally appeared as research articles in a series on covenantal pluralism published by The Review of Faith & International Affairs.

This book examines the growing diversity of religions and worldviews across South & Central Asia, and the factors affecting prospects for 'covenantal pluralism' in these regions. Going beyond banal appeals for mere 'tolerance', the theory of covenantal pluralism calls for a constitutional order of religious freedom and equal treatment combined with a culture of practical religious literacy and everyday virtues of engagement across lines of religious difference. According to the Pew Religious Diversity Index, half of the world’s most religiously diverse countries are in Asia. The presence of deep religious/worldview difference is often seen as a potential threat to socio-political cohesion or even as a source of violent conflict. Yet in Asia (as elsewhere) the degree of this diversity is not consistently associated with socio-political problems. Indeed, while religious difference is implicated in some social challenges, there are also many instances of respectful multi-faith engagement, practical collaboration, and peaceful debate. Volume II offers a pioneering exploration of the prospects for this robust and non-relativistic type of pluralism in South & Central Asia. (Volume I examined East & Southeast Asia.) The chapters in these volumes originally appeared as research articles in a series on covenantal pluralism published by The Review of Faith & International Affairs.

Explaining Religious Party Strength explores why religious political parties are electorally successful in some countries but not in others. Drawing on insights from political science and sociology, this book argues that religious parties are typically formed for defensive reasons, reacting against state-builders’ attempts to secularize public services such as education, welfare, and healthcare. Building on these findings, the author argues that the strength of religious parties is determined by the infrastructural power of the state. Weak states that fail to provide adequate public services open up space for religious communities to build a dense network of private schools, hospitals, and charities, which translates into votes for religious political parties. By contrast, strong states that provide efficient public services squeeze out private welfare providers, undermining the electoral strength of religious political parties. The author tests this theory through statistical analysis, using a new dataset on all religious parties which have participated in national parliamentary elections between 1800 and 2015. He includes comparative historical analyses of Roman Catholic political parties in France and Italy and Sunni Islamic political parties in Egypt, Turkey, and Albania. This book will interest students and scholars of religion and politics, specifically those interested in party formation, voting, and political activism, as well as policymakers.

Religion in Liberal Democracy as a Form of Life advances a theory to deal with the challenges connected to the liberal democratic ideal that all people are free to codetermine the future of their society and equally entitled to their religion and beliefs, given the historical bias towards Christianity in politics and culture within many European societies. Religious diversity and social and political participation are in fact fiercely contested issues. Critical scholars from philosophy and cultural theory contest that liberal political theories of freedom of religion can adequately deal with issues connected to an increasingly diversified and secularized religious field in historically Christian societies. Consequently, they claim that politics based on such theories cannot deliver on the promise to ensure conditions that allow all members of society equal religious freedom and political participation. By outlining historical developments, and by closely examining case studies of recent controversies about religious diversity in Germany and the Netherlands, this book identifies shortcomings of the currently predominant liberal account of freedom of religion or belief. Based on this analysis, the author proposes a more complex theory of liberal democracy as a form of life, with religion and religious freedom as components of it. This takes into account that informal norms, social structures, and predominant notions of belonging can function as powerful obstacles to freedom and equality, even if formal legal and political institutions prohibit discrimination based on religion. Construing liberal democracy as a “form of life”—that is, as a set of social practices, attitudes, and their institutional manifestations and material expressions—shifts the focus of critical analysis from the law to informal structures and components. This provides an understanding of the dynamics of (culturalized) religion in society, which has often been missing in political philosophical theories. The theory proposed in this book provides normative criteria for building liberal democracies that are tolerant with respect to religious differences and solidaric in terms of ensuring conditions that allow all members of society to codetermine, as equals, the future of society, irrespective of their religion or beliefs. This book will appeal to scholars of political theory, social and political philosophy, religious studies, sociology, and anthropology.

This third edition of the successful Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics provides a definitive global survey of the interaction of religion and politics. From the United States to the Middle East, from Asia to Africa, and beyond, religion continues to be an important factor in political activity and organisation. Featuring contributions from an international team of experts, this volume examines the political aspects of the world's major religions, including crucial contemporary issues such as religion and climate change, religion and migration, and religion and war. Each chapter has been updated to reflect the latest developments and thinking in the field, and the handbook also includes new chapters on topics such as religious freedom, religion and populism, proselytizing, humanism and politics, and religious soft power. The four main themes addressed are: • World religions and politics • Religion and governance • Religion and international relations • Religion, security and development References at the end of each chapter guide the reader towards the most up-to-date information on these key topics. This book is an indispensable source of information for students, academics, and the wider public interested in the dynamic relationship between politics and religion.

This book presents an innovative exploration of the rise of political forces that have coalesced around the anti-gender movement, shaping strategies that advocate novel intersections of religion, politicization of gender and sexuality, and radical and populist rejuvenation of conservative ideologies. Through an extensive examination of activist discourses and mobilizations, the author offers a comprehensive political analysis of anti-gender mobilization, encompassing a multidimensional examination of religious, activist, and political opportunity structures. This study unveils three distinct facets characterizing these emerging (Catholic) movements: their relative autonomy from the Church (extra-ecclesiastical), their divergence from conventional religious frameworks (extra-Catholic), and their party-political alignment within the far-right area. The author proposes a new perspective on this burgeoning Catholic cause, contextualizing it within the transnational dynamics underscored by the existing literature. Particularly noteworthy is the scrutiny of internal reshaping within the Italian political Catholicism realm between the 1990s and the 2000s set against the backdrop of the dissolution of the Christian Democratic Party. Through the lens of the Italian landscape, this study extends its analysis to offer broader insights into the contemporary political uses of religion within democracies, along with contentious issues arising from gender and sexuality debates, transcending the confines of the Italian context. This book holds significant relevance for scholars and students engaged in gender studies, religious studies, social movements, populism, political science, political sociology, political history, and Italian studies.

Religious diversity is a key feature of countries across the world today, but it also presents governments with very real challenges. Controversies around religious free speech, symbols, social values and morals, and the role of faith leaders as critical voices, are just a few of the issues that have given rise to fierce social, political and scholarly debate. So how do states include and accommodate religious diversity and should this change? What are the key difficulties facing states when it comes to governing religious diversity? Understanding this complex phenomenon means thinking through secularism, liberalism, multiculturalism and nationalism in theory and practice. In this new book, Tariq Modood and Thomas Sealy draw on original research to present new ways of analysing the governance of religious diversity in different regions of the world. Identifying the key challenges at stake, they also argue for a new statement of multiculturalism in relation to the governance of religious diversity, that of ‘multiculturalised secularism’, which represents a constructive and productive response to the reality of religiously plural societies.