harvard international review mylonas spring 2013

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FEATURES

Revisiting the LinkPoliticizing Religion in Dem ocratizing Countries

Co n f l i c t a b o u t the r o l e of r e l i g i o n in

state affairs is acute in the Middle East,

Europe, and Africa. Are religious cleavages

more prone toviolent conflict than other

cleavages? W ha t is the relationship between

religion and political violence? These are i m p o r t a n t

questions in the study of politics but, more importantly,

the answers we give have impo rtan t imp lications for policy.Before we continu e with this discussion, it is important

to clarify certain concepts and set straight some common

misconceptions. Anyone who is studying the relationship

between "religion" and "political violence" has to confront

the conceptual ambiguity that arises from the common

usage of these term s. Eor example, different religious doc-

trines and faiths have a wide rang e of dispositions toward

the political sphere. Moreover, there is wide variation in

organizational structures (e.g. more or less hierarchical,

transnational, or state specific), practices (e.g. proselytiz-

in g or not), and goals (e.g. establishing a theocracy or

not) . Using "religion" as anunproblematic category of

analysis is tricky.

H A R R I S M Y L O N A

HARRIS MYLO NAS is Assistant Professor of

Political Science & International Affairs at Th

Elliott School of International Affairs, George

Washington University. He is the author of

The Politics ofNation-Building: Making Co-Na-

tionals, Refugee s and Minorities.

where the "religious cleavage" is salient but not the p

mary motivation, and conflicts that are fought with re

gious goals in mind . Eor instance, while the Che chen s

predominately Muslim and thus have a different relig

from the Christian Orthodox Russians, this religious d

ference has not been the main reason for the conflicts

Chechnya. In contrast, the Taliban in Afghanistan can

seen as primarily m otivated by religious goals. Related

the public perce ption of religious pohtical violence may

inflated. Several high profile conflicts, such as in N or th e

Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and Cyprus have been portray

as merely religious in n ature , when in fact issues of natio



FEATURES

these conflicts, rather than mere differences in religious

doctr ine .

Turning to the term "political violence," we face

similar challenges. The meaning of "pohdcal violence"

is not always unambiguous. We are all confronted in

our own personal experiences and tradidons with violent

incidents that we consider necessary or even acceptable.

T h e American W ar of Independ ence is one such instance.Vio lence is a tool tha t can serve very different goals. It is

no t clear that we want to oppose the use of violence und er

all circumstances. The difficulty lies in identifying the

cond idon s und er which p olidcal violence is jusdfied with

most cynics suggesdng that violence is good if it serves

your interests.

This árdele, after presendng the primary findings by

exisdng research, proposes a set of recommended policies.

Th ese policies come in the form of mod ificadons in po lid-

cal representadon and nadon-building, which can aid in

the establishment of "cross-cutdng cleavages"—a social

reality in which people of the same religious beliefs mayidendfy with different ethnicides, regions, or even personal

preferences and ideologies. Creadng connecdons across

the divide of one significant rift, in this case religious dif-

ference, can serve to dam pen th e effect ofth at rift en drely.

Religious Cleavages Prone to Violent Conflict?The type of state that religious groups inhabit, as

well as the content of the group's religious doctrine, sig-

nificandy impacts the relationship between religion and

polidcal violence. In this connecdon, Daniel Philpott 's

distincdon between "integrationist" and "differentiated"

states appears potendally useful. In his 2007 article in

American Political Science Review, Philpott terms countries

where separation of church and state has not taken place

as "integradonist," and countries in which it has as "dif-

ferentiated". Relatedly, he argues that the polidcal theol-

ogy of a society's dominant religious doctrine is crucial.

Eor instance, when the dominant religion is driven by

a doctrine that favors an integradonist state—one that

suppresses other faiths and officially promotes a specific

one—then polidcal violence becomes much more likely.

Th us , according to P hilpott, we are mo re likely to observe

political violence in integrado nist rathe r than differend-ated states.

M ovin g from the realm of polidcal theory to empirical

analyses, however, challenges any strong causal statement

about the reladonship between polidcal violence and the

status or nature of the predominant theological doctrine

of a state. After all, religiously motivated civil wars are

extremely rare, thus rendering stadsdcal analyses sensi-

dve to very few cases. In the rest of this secdon, I present

some of the main findings from the literature on religion

and political violence.

At a basic level, religious diversity is not a predictor

of civil war onset once we control for a country's wealth.Pro bab ly the m ost influential article on the causes of civil

ity, Insurgency, and Civil War," finds religious diversity

has no effect on civil war onset after controlling for per

capita incom e. Similarly Jon atha n Eox, in his "T he Rise of

Religious Nationalism and Conflict: Ethnic Conflict and

Revoludonary W ars, 1945-2001," finds hat the m ean level

of rebellion was not significandy affected by whether or

n ot a minority grou p had the same religion (or denom ina-

don ) as the core grou p of its host state. T h e way E earonand Laid n formulate and operado nalize their hypothesis is

rather basic: "Measu res of a cou ntry's eth nic and religious

diversity should be associated with a hig h risk of civil war."

Their negative finding is interpreted as evidence against

the view that "plural" societies are especially conflict-

prone due to ethnic or religious tensions and antagonisms.

How ever, the measure Eearon and Laidn use cannot fully

capture such a dynamic since it is based on a mere count

of the number of different groups in a society but not the

reladonships between them.

Eurther research indicates that the existence of re-

ligious heterogeneity should not have an impact on itsown. Civil war, conceptualized as an armed conflict that

involves mo re than 1000 battle deaths within a year, is a

product of a pre-exisdng conflict, and such a conflict has

to be ov er specific stakes. Eor religion to factor into such a

scenario, the simple existence of man y religious grou ps in

a country would not suffice. Th e polidcs surroun ding the

various religious groups, the access to state and non-state

resources, and the hierarchies of these groups are more

likely to be linked to conflict. As Andreas Wimmer has

convincingly dem onstrated in his most recent book. Waves

of War, the insdtudonal setdng within which religious

practices take place is equally, if no t mo re im po rtant , than

the heterogeneity index.

Consistent with the discussion above, a key distinc-

t ion, which I make in my new book. The Pol i t ics of

Nad on-B uilding , is between religious diversity and p olid-

cally mobilized religious differences. The politicizadon

of ethnic and religious differences, I argue, is often the

product of external powers interfering in other states by

supporting non -core groups - any aggregadon of individu-

als perceived as an ethnic grou p by the ru ling eh te of a state

- in an attem pt to destabilize enemies or annex territories.

According to my argument, the manner in which a statetreats a non -core group w ithin its own borders is largely

based on whether the state's foreign pohcy is revisionist

or wheth er it adheres to the international status quo, and

whether it is allied or in rivalry with that group's external

patron(s). Thus, assuming that religion is an important

part of the definition of the national Xype in a society,

religious minorities that have no external patrons and do

not pose a threat to the coimtry (or the regime) will be

accommod ated or gradually integrated into the dom inant

culture. In contrast, religious min oride s that have external

links to enemy powers will be targeted with exclusionary

policies that can even take the form of ethnic cleansing. Inmy framework, it is the latter scenario tha t is mo re likely



FEATURES

Recent analysis has also found that state discrimina-

tion against minority religions or languages does not lead

to higher risks of civil war. Fearon and Laidn attempt to

capture discrimination in favor of a particular grou p's

language or religion by coding, "by decade, indicators for

whether the state had an official religion, gave resources

to one religion, not available to other s, regulated mission -

ary acdvities, or singled out for or permitted harassmentof a pardcular religious group." Their measure of state

discriminadon against minority religions is not associated

with systemadcally higher risks of civil war onset. Fearon

and Laidn conclude, therefore, that the spread of state

tolerance for ethnic and religious minorides should be a

major foreign policy goal for its own sake, but not with

the expectadon that i t will bring peace.

Religious cleavages do no t by them selves explain civil

war. This is at least what Ragnhild Nordas finds when

studying the reladonship between religious heterogeneity,

regulations, and civil wars from 1990 to 2002. However,

she does find support for a more nuanced hypothesis thattakes into account the institudonal setdng and the state

reguladon of rehgious minorities. Nordas argues that in

countries that have a religious cleavage along world reli-

gions, the probability of conflict increases when the state

has an official state religion and persecutes religious mi-

norides. These findings contradict Fearon and Laidn 's but

corroborate Philpott 's f inding that "[cjommunal violence

is advanced by groups with in tegrado nist political theo lo-

gies, somed mes secular in character, who capture th e state

and impose integradonist insd tudon s upon minority faiths

who the n rebel, and by integradon ist religious groups w ho

take up opposition to states."

There is also evidence that the religious cleavage

seems to be increasingly more sahent in the last four

decades. Monica Duffy Toft has shown that the num

of religious civil wars has increased as a pr op or do n of

civil wars. Jon ath an Fox finds that religious mino rides t

puüTsued nad ona l self-deten nina don goals prod uced m

violence after 1995. A similar patte rn emerg es in the S t

Failure dataset (of the Po hdcal Instabihty Task F orce)

which, after 1965, conflict involving religious minori

becomes more violent than conflict that involves ottypes of grou ps. How ever, F ox's study finds no effect

religious minorities that fought conflicts for religi

ends. Thus, we are back to the disdncdon I made in

introducdon of this árdele.

Studies have also been con ducted to determ ine w he

er the intensity of violence in rehgious or non-religi

conflicts is high er. N ord as analyzed the effect of a conf

having a religious dimension o n the num ber of fatalides

conflicts acdve since 1989 (UCDP/PRIO Armed Confl

Dataset) and found that religious conflicts are not blood

overall. In her analysis, Islam does no t seem to be asso

ated with bloodier conflicts. Toft, however, looking atcivil wars in the second half of the 20th century, sho

that more than 80 percent of religious civil wars invo

Islam. She explains this over-rep resentado n by asserd

that, "Whereas the largely Chrisdan West has rejec

the idea that violence in the name of religion has a po

dve udlity and that the Church and the state should

the same, Islam and its adherents have not rejected su

nodons." This finding echoes Philpott 's argument ab

illiberal political theological doctrines and integradon

states. Finally, Ron Hassner suggests in War on Sac

Grounds that sacred sites may be particularly prone

conflict, since they provide valuable resources for b

religious and po litical actors but ca nno t be easily divid

This argument deserves more systematic tesdng.

Religious Con f lict A rou nd th e W o rldCurrent Religious Confl ict Zones (by country)



FEATURES

National Con stitutive Story and Religious IdentityReligious diversity exists worldwide; virtually no re-

ligious community lives in acountry without a religious

other. There are billions of Muslims and Christians, mil-

lions of Hindu s, Buddhists, and Jews dispersed throu gho ut

the world, but what is most important for our purposes

is that believers are not neatly arranged within particular

states. In oth er words, "religious unm ixing" has only par-tially taken place, and this has usually been a consequ ence

of nationalist self-determination movem ents. M oreover,

religious identities have not always coincided with national

identities. A Germ an can be Protestant or Catholic, an In-

dian can be Muslim or Hin du, an American can be Mush m,

Protestant, Cathohc, or Jewish, and so forth. There is a

complex religious geography across African countries, as

of crosscutting cleavages inthe study of the effects of

religion. Religious groups which are internally divided

along national, ethnic, class, or other lines are less likely

to mobilize than internally cohesive groups. I elaborate

on this in the following section.

From Overlapping to Crosscutting Cleavages

T he re are many religiously diverse societies in whichthe religious cleavage is not the most impo rtant. Class, eth-

nicity, caste, region o r nation m ight instead be the salient

cleavage. Why is there such avariation? A preliminary

answer is that som e societies have overlap ping cleavages,

where religion coincides with ethnicity, class, region, or

caste, rendering that cleavage an intense on e. Ot her societ-

ies have crosscutting cleavages, where people who share

"Religious diversity exists worldw ide. . .there are billions of

M uslims and Ch ristians, millions of H ind us, B uddhists, and

Jews dispersed throughout the world."

a recent Economist article, "The Danger in the Desert,"

makes resoundingly clear. Of course, prominent cases do

exist where reh gion and national identity are coterm inous.

Polan d, G reece , Israel, Pakistan, and S audi Arabia are just

a few states that come tomind. However, most people

in the world live in religiously diverse countries. Taking

this fact into account, the importance of the regulation of

religion becomes apparent both for social harmony and

the quality of governance.

Religious and natio n-state claims, while occasionally

complementing each other, are far more often at odds

with one another. I argue that the degree of congruence

between national and religious identity within state bo und-

aries largely accounts for the variation in the salience of

religio n in political life. Based on this rationa le I form ulate

the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: In countries where the vast majority of

the population shares the same national and religious

identity, religion is less likely to be an im port ant cleavageand religious conflict less likely to take place.

Hypothesis 2: i?eHgion is mo re likely to be an imp ortant

cleavage in countries where there is an official religion of

the state and there are also significant religious mino rities.

Hypothesis 3: Religion is more likely to lead to conflict

in countries where there is an official religion of the state

and discrimination against religious minorities.

Grievances and discrimination are necessary but not

sufficient conditions for political violence to occur. The

size of the religious minority, its spatial distribution, the

history of past conflict, as well as its capacity to mobilize

or receive important external support are crucial condi-tions that can render the necessary conditions sufficient.

In this endeavor, we should not neglect the importance

the same religion identify w ith different e thnic groups or

regions of a country. The latter type of a configuration

damp ens th e salience of the religious cleavage.

But how can a country move from a reality of over-

lapping to crosscu tting cleavages? W e can draw several

lessons from the vast hterature on political development.

Th e most common path proposed is that of modernization.

According tomodernization theorists, industrialization

will lead tourbanization, and then to increased social

mobilization. In this process, the population will move,

mingle, and start joining secondary associations (unions,

reading clubs, civic associations). This is where the pre-

existing cleavages will start losing their salience and new

ones will emerge.

Another path to crosscutting cleavages requires po-

litical engineering by the government of a country (with

or without the help of a great power). For instance, if we

are focusing on a democratic state, we know that certain

types of electoral systems lead to more or less incentivesfor intergroup cooperation across different electoral dis-

tricts. Proportional representation is a system that would

allow even small groups to be represe nted, yet witho ut any

real incentive to cooperate with other groups. Depend-

ing on the ethnic and religious landscape of a country, a

well-designed electoral system can provide incentives to

ethnic entrepreneurs for cooperation with other religious

and ethnic groups. More often than not, such aprocess

should lead to the creation of crosscutting cleavages and

decrease the salience of the religious cleavage.

A third path involves the development of a civil so-

ciety—g roupings of citizens coalescing for the pursu it ofcertain societal outcomes or to promote their common

interests—with orwithout the help of external actors.



FEATURES

However, such a move will only flourish in cases where

the society has reached a certain level of economic de-

velopment. This brings us back to the first path, that of

moderniza t ion.

Einally, the fou rth p ath is the creation of a new social

identity by mass schooling of the population of a country.

This path can be pursued with success in cases with a

largely illiterate population, as Keith Darden has recentlyargued. By schooling the population into a new co mm on

national identity, the effect of religious differences in a

society can be significantly moderated. Of course, for

this path to work, we are assuming that the content of

the national identity, what Rogers Smith has termed the

constitutive story of a nation, will not be favoring one

religion over oth ers.

Th ese are some policy recommend ations I presented

at The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World

Affairs, at Georgetown University, which I derived from

the social science literatu re. T h e success of these policies

is far from guaranteed and their applicability should bedecided based on a careful evaluation of practical reahties.

Conclusion

Religion has been o ne of the mo st imp ortant cleavage

dimensions in the world for centuries. T h e rise of nation-

alism and communism pushed the study of the religious

cleavage to the side for a long time. However, following

the end of the Cold War, Sam Huntington's "The Clash

of Civilizations," and the S eptemb er 11th attacks, the study

of religion and its efïects on political violence has been

Bosnian Muslims carry the coffin ofa

victim of the Sr-brenica massacre in P otocari, Bosnia and Hezegovina.The killings at Srbrenica were the worst religiously-

revitalized. Yet fundamental questions remain.

Man y of the problems in studying the relationship

religion on the onset of pohtical violence have to do w

issues of conceptualization and operationalization. Th

is a wide range of religious doctrines, and the elites of so

rehgion s are mo re wilhng and able than o thers to instig

violent actions from their followers. Some rehgions

hierarchical in their organizational structu re, with a strotransnational network (Catholic Church), while oth

have a more fluid and decentralized structure (Protest

churches). Moreover, there is wide variation in the w

that states regulate religion. Some states favor a spec

religion to the detrim ent of other faiths, while oth er sta

offer th e same oppo rtun ities to all religions. In this resp

studying religion bo th at a regional and global level mi

be beneficial. Eor instance, the role of Islam is differen

the Arab world than beyond the Arab world.

Moreover, in order to test the effect of church-st

relations on political violence, researchers would n

to code all religious groups per state across the woMost of the existing datasets have the state as their u

of analysis, thus hindering a study at the religious gr

level. It is possible that the new Min orities at Risk Proj

a sustained effort to collect systematic data on politica

active communal groups since the 1980s, might allow

to test such causal arguments.

Ano ther pro blem is that the direction of causality p

ited by many experts may actually be reversed. Given

lack of good data, many scholars have used rece nt measu

on religious institution s to captu re their effect on polit

violence or democratization. However, it is very likely

these institutions regulating religious life are the prod

of both democratization and political violence. Rob

global measures for state institutions regulating relig

around the world have only recently beco me available,

cover just the past decade. D irection of causality issues

some times only be addressed with careful process traci

Eor instance, this is the soundest way to know whet

political theologies have changed in response to a reg

type or economic development, or vice versa.

Einally, future research should look at other cleava

in society and how they interact with the religious cle

age. T he link between the national con stitutive story coun try and its religion is crucial for our purposes. Equa

an understandin g of the conditions und er which religi

identities become primary and trump other identificati

is necessary.

Religion plays a central role in many societies an

ofren p erceived as the cleavage around which conflict

curs. But beyond studying places where religion is sah

and /or religious conflict occurs, we should also study ca

where cro sscutting cleavages have been successfully c

structed and national integration achieved. Understand

the process of the pohticization and de-po hticizado n of

ligion and the co ndido ns un der which religious differenturn v iolent can help us prev ent future related conflicts



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