Applying a qualitative framing analysis, this paper examines narratives of the right-wing populist parties Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands on religion. The paper argues that references of these populist parties to religion can be interpreted against the background of specific national context factors such as the respective history of nation building, the traditional role of religion in society and secularization processes. A rigorous examination of parliamentary documents published between 2017 and 2019 shows that whereas the PVV clearly defines Christianity in civilizational and not religious terms, the AfD takes a less clear-cut stance toward the religion framing it both as culture and faith. We contend that this difference can be explained by the lower degree of secularization and the greater role of Christianity as a collective identity marker in post-war Germany.

Low political support for religious minority groups in the United States is often explained as a matter of social distance or unfamiliarity between religious traditions. Observable differences between beliefs and behaviors of religious minority groups and the cultural mainstream are thought to demarcate group boundaries. However, little scholarship has examined why some practices become symbolic boundaries that reduce support for religious accommodation in public policy, while nearly identical practices are tolerated. We hypothesize that politics is an important component of the process by which some religious practices are transformed into demarcations between “us” and “them.” We conduct an original survey experiment in which people are exposed to an identical policy demand—women-only swim times at a local public pool—attributed to three different religious denominations (Muslim, Jewish, and Pentecostal). We find that people are less supportive of women-only swim times when the requesting religion is not a part of their partisan coalition.

We employ regression analysis of 2017 survey data from 4,067 Bangladeshis to exposit the lineaments of individual support for domestic Islamist violence. Our dependent variables derive from measures of public support for the stated goals and violent means of three Bangladeshi Islamist terrorist groups. Our study variables include participation in communal Friday prayer; indexed measures of other pietic practices; preferences for Shari'a and secularism; and gender. We include several well-established control variables. We find that participation in communal Friday prayers significantly correlates with diminished support for militant groups while having no effect upon support for their violent means. In four (of 10) models, we find that respondents who view Shari'a as being coterminous with scriptural literalism and harsh physical punishments are significantly more likely to support the groups' goals. Finally, we find women to be consistently more likely to support the goals and means of the militant groups.

As religiousness is declining across democracies, scientific interest in secular orientations and their political implications is growing. One specific and particularly important aspect of secular attitudes is political secularism. Political secularism is not merely the absence of religiousness, but rather a world view which holds that religious beliefs should play no role in politics. While there are hundreds of survey instruments that measure the strength and content of religiousness, there is no comparable measure that taps into political secularism. In this research note, I briefly review the concept of political secularism and present a cluster of items which target it. Utilizing data from four large population representative samples taken from the eastern and western states of Germany, I use confirmatory factor analysis to show that these items form a short but internally consistent scale. This scale also displays convergent and discriminant validity. It may be readily used in future surveys.

Despite intensive diplomatic efforts, achieving peace between the Palestinian and Israeli populations remains out of reach. This study investigates a recent campaign for religious peacebuilding, focusing on the political theology of Rabbi Menachem Froman and his fellow religious peacemakers, family members, and disciples. Froman's position is twofold: First, religion is necessary for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and second, Israeli settlements should not be considered an obstacle to peace, but rather “the fingers of Israel's outstretched hand for peace.” We argue that “the Froman peace campaign” advances pluralism in both Judeo-Islamic theology and politics. It constructs a synthetic theological view incorporating principles and rituals of both religions. Politically, it promotes a plan for two states in one united confederation. By comparing the peace campaign of Rabbi Froman with that of Rabbi Michael Melchior, another well-known peacemaker, this article contributes to a growing literature on the role of theology in religious peacebuilding

The Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB) runs more than 900 mosques in Germany and circulates Friday sermons in these mosques. Our analysis provides a nuanced depiction of the link to the homeland by conducting qualitative and quantitative content analyses of 481 sermons from 2011 to 2019. To what extent are relations with Turkey reflected in the sermons? And how is the concept of “home” reflected in those sermons? While homeland-related issues constitute a minority overall, the concept “home” occurs in five different contexts within these sermons: First, sermons directly refer to the homeland and norms connected to it. Second, implicit links are created by discussing events in Turkey. Third, leaving the homeland is described as an integral part of the history of Islam. The last two contexts discuss Germany as a “new home”, and build links to Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) through its foundation.

For autocrats ruling over religious populations as in many Muslim majority countries, threats of mass collective action and religious mobilization are risky to ignore, being potentially detrimental to authoritarian survival. Religious seasons, such as Ramadan, could raise the seriousness of such threats. Accordingly, incumbents might adopt expansionary fiscal policies to avoid the escalation of political discontent at these times. Focusing on Egypt's fiscal policy between 2006 and 2019, I find that although the religious season of Ramadan is associated with modest increases in government expenditure and welfare spending, this relationship is dependent on the level of political threats facing the regime. Government spending is higher in Ramadan's season when it is preceded by more episodes of anti-regime collective action. This evidence suggests that the interaction between the religious and political contexts could generate political budget cycles outside electoral seasons.

Building on previous quantitative and qualitative research on cross-country differences and similarities in regulation of religion, this paper employs data for 2000 and 2014 from the third round of the Religion and the State project and uses various cluster analysis techniques to identify country clusters based on the form in which countries regulate religion. The analysis separates between democratic and authoritarian countries. We further study if and how the clustering of the countries changes depending on the employed indicators and the employed cut-off points in defining democracy and autocracy. Overall, the results demonstrate the potential and limits of empirical classifications. In addition to the methodological and descriptive contribution, the results are compared and contrasted with previous work on state-religion relationships.

In Indonesia's political strategic environment, Islamic narratives have been among the main narratives, but have not always been dominant. The 2014 presidential election displayed the beginning of a rising trend of Islamic narratives within the political context in Indonesia. Since then Islamic narratives influenced the strategy of Indonesia's populist leaders, as particularly seen during the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election and 2019 presidential election. This paper analyzes how populism as a strategy was used in recent Indonesian elections. For this purpose, it uses the conception of populism as a political strategy proposed by Weyland. Building on this approach, the paper explains the strategic adjustments made in the use of populism from 2014, 2017, and 2019 in Indonesian political events. It argues that the strategic environment faced by populist actors in Indonesia's 2019 election affected their decision to choose Islamic narratives as an instrument for mass mobilization.

Christianity is in long-term decline in the United Kingdom, with decreasing levels of affiliation, practice, belief, and social authority. At the same time, however, Britain's churches and the faith they represent remain deeply embedded within culture and society. This paper offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of how the “sector” of UK Christian interest groups—that is, organizations with a Christian character that seek to influence government policy—operates within this changing socio-religious context. Based on survey and interview data, it examines the extent of Christian interest group activity in the UK, before assessing their issue agendas, lobbying strategies, and influence. The results indicate that the activities of Christian interest groups have been affected by decline, but also by Christianity's continued strengths within society. These findings provide a basis for deeper investigation of Christianity's political influence in the UK, and will also have implications beyond this case.

The article examines the development of state-paid salaries for the clergy introduced by the Communists in Czechoslovakia from their institution in 1949 until they were removed in a major change of church-state relations in 2012. In the initial years of Communist rule, it appears that the salaries were part of a “carrot and stick” strategy aiming to subject churches to the state. Later, the real value of salaries steadily decreased, leaving priests marginalized in the economic structure. Following the collapse of the Communist regime, the salaries of the clergy were significantly increased; although, in subsequent years, they followed a trend similar to the pre-1989 period. The similarity in the development of salaries in the Communist and post-Communist period and the reluctance to restitute the church property after 1989 reflects the attitudes of the Czech population and the political representation toward organized religion and the transition from assertive to passive secularism.

This study examines mechanisms and conditions under which ethnoreligious identification is related to support for out-group violence. It uses unique survey data collected among religious minorities and majorities in conflict and non-conflict regions in Indonesia and the Philippines. We find that strong ethno-religious identification is positively related to support for out-group violence. This relationship is fully mediated by the perception of out-group threat, suggesting that ethno-religious identification facilitates the perception of out-group threat, which, in turn, is positively related to support of violence. While the experience of communal violence increases support for interreligious violence, it does not influence the relationship between perceived group threat and support for violence. Interestingly, there is some evidence that the negative influence of intergroup contact on violence support is weaker for those who experienced communal violence.

There is one European state leader from the moderate Christian-democrat center right who has developed a discourse and policies showing his progressive move toward the radical right: Viktor Orbán. Can Christianity be considered from a Laclauian perspective, as a “nodal point” of Orbán's radical right discourse; that is, a key element around which his antagonistic narratives are structured? Based on an analysis of segments of Orbán's speeches between 2014 and 2019 that mention Christianity, the research reveals that this religion is a nodal point for three main reasons: (1) the density of Christian references used to shape a negative and antagonistic discourse, strategically adjusted to his audience; (2) the use of Christianity to ground the three ideological pillars of the radical right (populism, nativism, and authoritarianism); and (3) the mobilization of Christianity to organize a hegemonic struggle against the dominant political force that has defined the meaning of this religion in the European public sphere—the moderate center right.

Christian nationalist ideology was among the strongest predictors of Americans voting for Trump in 2016 and remained a strong predictor of intent to vote for him prior to the 2020 election. This study uses national data to examine whether Christian nationalism could potentially convert the previously-unconverted to supporting Trump or, conversely, prevent apostatizing from Trump. Among Americans who did not vote for Trump in 2016, Christian nationalism increased the likelihood that they intended to vote for Trump in 2020, but only those who earlier did not vote at all or voted third party. Conversely, among Americans who did vote for Trump in 2016, Christian nationalism reduced the likelihood that they planned on voting for a Democratic or third party candidate. Christian nationalism thus potentially inclined Americans who previously did not vote for Trump in 2016 to vote his way in 2020 and inoculated previous Trump-voters from considering other candidates in 2020.

Does the ethnic dimension of violence—religious versus tribal—shape whether individuals perceive national versus local issues as central? Based on survey data collected in Jos, Nigeria—a site of recurring ethnic violence since 2001—this paper argues that attribution to local versus national causes varies depending on whether individuals perceive the violence as religious or tribal. We also show that this has implications for peacebuilding, as views of the ethnic dimensions of violence also distinctly shape attitudes regarding national- versus local-level solutions. Broadly, this paper demonstrates the importance of a more nuanced approach to the study of ethnic conflict—specifically, the need to interrogate how perceptions of identity, conflict, and the locus of conflict interrelate.

Using two national general population and one clergy survey, we examined racial differences in the association between religious theology and health care policy attitudes. We find that controlling for religious faith, political partisanship, and social-demographic characteristics, religious theology more strongly associates with White health care policy attitudes than it is for Blacks and Hispanics. Whereas theologically liberal Whites are more likely than their conservative counterparts to support universal healthcare and/or Obamacare, we observed no such relationship among Blacks and Hispanics. This is true of both the general population and clergy.

The paper explores the relation between religion and populism in Israel. Jewish identity has been an important marker of citizenship and belonging in Israel since its inception. The founders of the Zionist movement and the dominant elites of early statehood remained dependent upon Jewish religion to demarcate national boundaries and legitimate territorial claims. With the establishment of the state, Jewish identity helped create and legitimate a segmented citizenship regime that secured privilege for Jews. Gradually, and especially in the past two decades, Jewishness became more contested, demarcating not only Jews from non-Jews but also “authentic” Jews from allegedly “cosmopolitan elites,” thus becoming part of populist politics, central to Israeli politics. The complex relation between religion and populism in Israel is demonstrated by the development of two populist parties; an “inclusive” one (Shas) and an “exclusionary” one (Likud). The study of the two parties shows the role of religious identities, tropes, and symbols in boundary-making and political strategies. In Israel, religion functions both as the positive content of the political community (the ethnos––the Jewish people—is conflated with the demos) and the demands for inclusion; and as the marker of a threat (non-Jewish citizens, asylum seekers, and allegedly disloyal secular elites).

To what extent is it possible for American Jews to maintain a deep emotional connection to Israel while criticizing the actions of the Israeli government? This long-debated question echoes earlier investigations of different forms of patriotism toward one's home country. Drawing on two 2019 surveys of American Jews, we find that, like Americans in general, Jewish liberals and conservatives express different forms of patriotism toward both Israel and America. Jewish conservatives tend to oppose criticism of Israel and America for any reason, while Jewish liberals view criticism as an important part of “caring” about both countries. Both forms of patriotism are positively associated with stronger emotional connections to the relevant country. These results suggest that emotional connection to Israel represents a form of social identification with Israel and that lower levels of connection to Israel among some American Jews are driven more by apathy than active criticism or hostility.

Why do clergy talk with congregants about elections to a greater extent in Mozambique than Indonesia, or in the United States than Taiwan? Arguing that context shapes religious actors' micro-level incentives to discuss or avoid electoral politics, we seek to explain variation in religious politicking—religious leaders' and organizations' engagement in electoral campaigns. Our framework integrates individual-level and country-level approaches, as well as theories of modernization, secularism, and religious competition. Drawing on survey data from 24 elections in 18 democracies in the Comparative National Elections Project, we find that human development depresses religious politicking, while secularism and religious pluralism boost it. However, “civilizational” differences in levels of religious politicking are muted and inconsistent. Finally, at the individual level, across the globe, citizens with higher levels of education are consistently more likely to receive political messages. Our results suggest the insights obtained from an approach emphasizing individuals embedded in contexts.