While the political aspect of the traditionalist quest for prescriptive Christianity has been central to the story from the start, this chapter examines, first, the complicated way that religious and political norms are intertwined in American history and dependent on whether the Christian community is in a position of power or not. Second, the chapter examines two aspects of Christian identity that are especially important in understanding contemporary American politics: (1) a global Christian identity that understands Christians as those persecuted by godless secular society, and (2) an antignostic identity that understands Christians as those who wage war against “gnosticism,” a term applicable to whatever conservative Christians are currently combatting in the political sphere.

Chapter 3 analyzes how economic decay and aspirational neoliberalism justify anti-Bangladeshi xenophobia in Assam. This xenophobia relies on the view that East Bengalis have historically – at least since colonial times – been a source of "economic threat," real or imagined. The segregation of Bengali Muslims in Lower Assam sustains the perception of their outsider, even illegal, status, maintaining this view of the economic threat. While Assam’s desire for national self-determination characterized its relationship with mainland India in the initial decades since (Indian) independence, in recent years fractious politics and separatist movements found resolution in anti-Bangladeshi sentiments, as it served as the common cause that would unite the various ideologically opposed sections of society. The most recent example of this is the mobilization surrounding khilonjiya or indigenous interests in the context of population registration (NRC) and the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (2019). They underscore how anti-establishment claims fit alongside nationalist ideas of strict border control and the expulsion of those deemed foreign, i.e., Bangladeshi. In effect, anti-Bangladeshi sentiments become the glue that holds together the Indian nation state.

The same sense of Britain’s lapsed capacity to deliver on the promise of global reach was viewed as a rare opportunity by Scottish and Welsh separatist parties, whose stunning rise to electability between 1961 and 1979 cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader implications of imperial decline. Here, the end of Britain was the avowed political prize, persistently and effectively packaged in the aspirational politics of ‘stopping the world’ so that older nationalities might be retooled for a post-British age. The chapter considers the electoral breakthrough of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party during these years, both of whom won surprise electorial victories respectively at Carmarthen (1966) and Hamilton (1967). Contemporaries were quick to conflate the two events, detecting deeper ruptures in the tumult of Hamilton and Carmarthen. To this day, they mark the onset of ‘devolution’ as a major theme of contemporary British politics, but the connnections to the wider context of global decolonization are poorly understood. This chapter takes seriously the idea that the end of empire was heavily implicated in the rise of separatist political parties in the UK.

This chapter covers the turbulent period of the de facto independent Chechnya in the 1990s, characterized by the resurgence of traditionalism and religion. The war that broke out between Moscow and Chechen separatists in 1994 reduced state capacity to rubble and made the ideology of political Islam dominant among Chechen politicians. After the end of the First Chechen War in 1996, the victorious separatist leaders enacted Sharia. This chapter contends that promotion of Sharia in independent Chechnya was not driven by ideology or demand by the population. It shows that this strategy was used by incumbents to increase their legitimacy by association with religion and tradition, through distance from the Kremlin, and with concessions to the powerful constituency of former rebels. At the same time, the incumbents were wary of strengthening the non-state forums too much, because they were afraid that powerful legal systems based on tradition and religion would become arenas of political contestation and ultimately be hijacked by the opposition. The rulers turned to promotion of Sharia and custom only when they were directly challenged and needed to reinforce political control regardless of the costs.

This address to the Rosenwald Economic Conference in 1933 brings together in a single analytic frame the struggles of African Americans under relentless racial oppression in the United States and those of independent Black states such as Liberia and Haiti. Focusing on African Americans’ dire economic condition during the Depression, it argues that even if they were able to found an independent state they would be unable to escape the domination of concentrated capital. While expressing admiration for communism in Russia, it rejects the Communist Party in the United States as ill-equipped to tackle the role of racism in maintaining African Americans’ economic privation. It proposes instead that African Americans resist participating in the white American economy and pioneer an economic revolution consisting of non-profit industry; collectively funded provision of services, especially medical and legal; and “intelligent cooperating consumers” committed to buying only goods produced by fairly compensated labor.

In what sense and to what extent did antisemitism (or anti-Judaism) exist in the pre-Christian world? The attitudes of numerous pagan writers and various episodes of oppression are explored in order to ascertain whether Jews encountered hostility on ethnic, religious, ideological, or political grounds, and whether any of these experiences amounted to antisemitism.

This chapter addresses what appears to be a puzzling paradox. The Romans enjoyed a reputation for broad-mindedness in matters of religion. Their empire contained a multitude of diverse peoples with varied and sometimes outlandish rites, beliefs, and gods. Far from suppressing such practices, the Romans even imported alien cults and made them part of their own extended system of honoring divine powers. Acceptance and embrace of a wide range of modes of worship characterized Roman image and practice. Could this liberal attitude toward religious pluralism extend even to the Jews, notorious as an exclusivist monotheistic sect? The evidence, on the face of it, suggests hostility among Roman intellectuals toward Jewish separatism and offers disturbing examples of official actions against practitioners of the religion itself. How does one account for this apparent exception to general Roman policy? This chapter questions many of the assumptions behind this ostensible paradox. It argues that Jews were not as separatist as often thought, that their diaspora communities in the empire were acknowledged and supported by Roman authority, that official actions against the religion were decidedly exceptional and not at all characteristic, and that abusive comments by Roman intellectuals were no more meaningful than those expressed about numerous other cults that flourished in the empire.

This chapter presents the theoretical framework for understanding the evolution of postcolonial liberation wars. The book uses theory as a lens through which to examine postcolonial liberation struggles. It employs ideas from theories of practices and roles in international politics to shed new light about the evolution of postcolonial separatist violence, and about our understanding of colonialism and decolonisation.

The formation of postcolonial states in Asia, Africa and the Middle East gave birth to prolonged separatist wars between separatist groups in the periphery and the new, still insecure central governments. This book explores these liberation wars, aiming to provide new insights into their roots and evolution. Rather than focusing on the causes of conflict, the book focuses on the governments’ and insurgents’ strategies and policies. The book’s central argument is that we could best understand these strategies as having been shaped by the struggle against European colonialism. The practices and roles that emerged during that period survived into the postcolonial era, moulding the identities, aims and strategies of both governments and rebels. Therefore, the book suggests that theories of practice and roles in international politics serve as a sound theoretical framework for the empirical analysis of the case studies. The book examines two cases of postcolonial separatist wars: the conflict in Northern Iraq between the government and Kurdish separatists and in Southern Sudan between black separatists and the government in Khartoum. The analysis of these two cases relies on extensive field and archival research. Thus, the book sheds new light on the history and nature of these separatist conflicts.

As the Iraqi Kurds and Southern Sudanese became disillusioned with their prospects of integrating into the postcolonial states on an equal basis, they began to challenge their governments and seek new solutions, ranging from federalism to secession. This chapter details how these movements developed this anti-colonial identity, and how they used the very ideas, strategies and methods employed by the first-generation liberation movements against them.

This chapter addresses what appears to be a puzzling paradox. The Romans enjoyed a reputation for broad-mindedness in matters of religion. Their empire contained a multitude of diverse peoples with varied and sometimes outlandish rites, beliefs, and gods. Far from suppressing such practices, the Romans even imported alien cults and made them part of their own extended system of honoring divine powers. Acceptance and embrace of a wide range of modes of worship characterized Roman image and practice. Could this liberal attitude toward religious pluralism extend even to the Jews, notorious as an exclusivist monotheistic sect? The evidence, on the face of it, suggests hostility among Roman intellectuals toward Jewish separatism and offers disturbing examples of official actions against practitioners of the religion itself. How does one account for this apparent exception to general Roman policy? This chapter questions many of the assumptions behind this ostensible paradox. It argues that Jews were not as separatist as often thought, that their diaspora communities in the empire were acknowledged and supported by Roman authority, that official actions against the religion were decidedly exceptional and not at all characteristic, and that abusive comments by Roman intellectuals were no more meaningful than those expressed about numerous other cults that flourished in the empire.