Religion and Regimes: Support, Separation, and Opposition

Mehran Tamadonfar · Ted G. Jelen

marras 2013 · Lexington Books

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This work is a collection of essays that describe and analyze religion and regime relations in various nations in the contemporary world. The contributors examine patterns of interaction between religious actors and national governments that include separation, support, and opposition. In general, the contributors find that most countries have a majority or plurality religious tradition, which will seek a privileged position in public life. The nature of the relationship between such traditions and national policy is largely determined by the nature of opposition. A pattern of quasi-establishment is most common in settings in which opposition to a dominant religious tradition is explicitly religious. However, in some instances, the dominant tradition is associated with a discredited prior regime, in which a pattern of legal separation is most common. Conversely, in some nations, a dominant religion is, for historical reasons, strong associated with national identity. Such regimes are often characterized by a “lazy monopoly,” in which the public influence of religion is reduced.

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Mehran Tamadonfar is associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of The Islamic Polity and Political Leadership and numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on Islamic law and politics.

Ted G. Jelen is professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles on religious politics, and is the founding coeditor of Politics and Religion and the former editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.