ReligioWest Project
Workshop
Who Owns Religion?
Religion Between Populism and Faith-Communities
Theatre, Badia Fiesolana
via dei Roccettini, 9 – San Domenico di Fiesole
Programme Florence, 31 May – 1 June 2012
Thursday, 31 May
14.00-16.00 Welcome
Olivier Roy
Is there a Catholic Populism? (Peut-on parler d’un populisme catholique?)
Jean-Louis Schlegel
National Orthodoxy: Religion as an Identity Formation Process, and the
Greek Orthodox Populist Discourse
Pantelis Kalaitzidis
Discussant:
Olivier Roy
16.00 -16.30 Coffee break
16.30-18.00 Anti-Islam Discourse in the Tea Party
Nadia Marzouki
Religion and Populism in Britain: An Infertile Breeding Ground?
Tim Peace
Discussant: Pasquale Annicchino
Workshop-dinner
Consortium for Applaid Research
on International Migration (CARIM)
Co-financed by the European Union
Funded by European Research Council
7th Framework Programme
Friday, 1 June
09.00-10.30 Passively Christian, Actively Anti-Islam: The Lega Nord and Religious Identity
Duncan McDonnell
Populism and Christianity in Swiss Politics: The Case of the SVP
Oscar Mazzoleni
Discussant: Kristina Stoeckl
10.30 -11.00
Coffee break
11.00-13.00 The Religious Transformation of the Austrian Far Right: Anti-Muslim Mobilization and its Limits
Sieglinde Rosenberger
Leila Hadj-Abdou
Balancing the Tension Between Liberal Democratic and Secularized Values and Christianity:
The Case of the Danish People’s Party
Susi Meret
Discussant: Zsolt Enyedi
13.00-15.00 Lunch
15.00-16.30 We are Also the (Chosen) People, You are Not: The Case of Shas’ Populism
Dani Filc
Neo-Liberal Islamists and New Forms of Populism: The Case of Turkey’s Justice and
Development Party (AKP)
Mine Eder
Discussant: Effie Fokas
16.30-17.00 Coffee break
17.00-18.00 Discussion & conclusion
TITLES & ABSTRACTS
Mine Eder
Neo-Liberal Islamists and New Forms of Populism: The Case of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Abstract
Along with several developing countries such as Peru and Brazil, Turkey has experienced a strange marriage of neoliberal economic
policies with populist political strategies. Seriously challenging the argument that economic liberalisation would somehow lead to
political liberalisation, Turkey has come up with its own neoliberal populist hybrid. Dating back to the 1980s when Turkey’s economic
liberalization first started, the neoliberal populism involved a combination of economic policies which aim integrate into the global
markets such as trade liberalisation, financial integration, and fiscal discipline, while adopting three main features of political populism:
deinstitutionalisation (with a charismatic leader, there is no need for intermediate institutions and deliberation), excessive concentration
of power in the hands of the executive, (“my technocrats know the best” syndrome) and last, but least, a rhetoric of anti-elitism ( since
the leader “is” the people”.)
In this paper, I argue that Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) which has risen to power in 2002 and has been in government
ever since, as a result of three consecutive electoral cycles, constitutes yet another genre of neoliberal populism, this time with a Islamist
appeal. In the Turkish context, Islam has become a convenient platform to engage in anti-elitism and legitimize deinstitutionalisation
(since the all the existing and old institutions, represent the secular elite and the ancient regime). On the economic front, the
impoverishment and inequalities that emerge as a result of rapid neoliberalization of the economy under the AKP rule, is addressed
through rising social assistance funds (partly funded through taxing “sins” alchohol and tobacco and is tied to the Prime Minister’s
Office) and mostly Islamic charities and NGOS. These strategies are not only compatible with the neoliberal paradigm (after all, don’t
World Bank’s poverty alleviation programs aim to contain the side effects of neoliberal policies without ever questioning the policies
themselves?) but also further ensure the popularity and political success of AKP.
Can this neoliberal populism with an Islamic content essentially lead to political liberalization and consolidation of democracy in Turkey?
Or is the dark side of populism, (where populism disintegrates into a “delegative democracy” where an overwhelming majoritarian logic
begins to operate at the expense of individual rights, and excessive concentration of power in the hands of a charismatic leader and his
group leads to disappearance of accountability and transparency) more likely to emerge? I argue that that while the odd combination of
Islamic populism and neoliberalism under AKP has been very successful in terms of demilitarisation and breaking up some of the power
blocs and coalitions, the experiment runs the risk of entrenching both persistent inequalities associated with neoliberalisation as well as
a excessive communitarianism which can pose serious challenges to political liberalization and democracy in the country.
Dani Filc
We are Also the (Chosen) People, You are Not: The Case of Shas’ Populism
Abstract
The present paper analyzes the emergence and development of the Shas party in Israel. Shas emerged in 1984 as a reaction to the
exclusion of religious Jews who arrived to Israel from Arab countries (Mizrahim) by the ultra-orthodox establishment, and in a few years
became one of Israel’s stronger political parties. The paper claims that its success is grounded on populist discourse and practices, and
shows how this populism is expressed at the symbolic, redistributive and political levels.
The paper analyzes the ways in which the party leaders (mostly Shas’ spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ) combine religious motives with
anti-elitist claims and support for partial redistributive policies, in building a populist discourse which is inclusive for Mizrahim while
exclusionary for non-Jews; and the ways in which populist politics are instrumental for strengthening the Sephardic religious tradition.
Pantelis Kalaitzidis
National Orthodoxy: Religion as an Identity Formation Process,and the Greek Orthodox Populist Discourse
Abstract
The understanding of the Christian message in nationalistic terms and as an identity formation process is nowadays recognized as a
very characteristic feature of Greek Orthodoxy and of other traditionally Orthodox countries. This phenomenon, described by many as
“religious nationalism,” affects not only the Greek ecclesiastical life but also the wider socio-political and cultural context, giving rise to,
amongst other phenomena, politi-religious populism, as well as fundamentalist and anti-western/anti-European tendencies. Specific but
very significant aspects of this problem are the instrumentalization of religion for the benefit of politics and the nation, the identification
between Church and nation, Church and ethno-cultural identity, Church and national ideology or narrative, and Church and state.
One of the most serious consequences of the development of religious nationalism is the “replacement of the history of salvation with
the history of national revival.” The core idea behind this ethno-religious construction is the claim that the nation is a constituent and
obligatory element of the formation of the Church’s body and of the local manifestation of the Church, while the Greek nation (and every
other Orthodox nation, in its turn) and the historical-cultural incarnations of Hellenism contribute to the revelation of Orthodoxy as the
real catholicity which concerns all the historical aspects of life. In other words, what is under discussion is the idea that the relationship
between the Church and the world, between Christianity and History is, in one way or another, connected to the collectives of the nation
and the people (in the secular and political sense of the term). This idea, which implies the assertion that Orthodoxy is to a large extent
shaped by history, and more precisely by the historical experiences and wounds of its peoples, leads also to the theory of a “new chosen
people of God” (no matter if it is Greek, or Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.).
On the basis of the above “national role and mission of the Church,” a whole ideological and political construction is created. By confusing
the religious/ecclesial sense of the “people” with the secular/national one, we have reached the point at which national history is seen as
identical or at least parallel to the ecclesial, and national glorified heroes as analogous to ecclesiastical hagiography or the “synaxarion.”
Because of the role played in Greek history and in the survival of the Greek nation by the Greek Orthodox Church, the latter is considered
to be the guardian and the guarantor of the national identity and continuity, accepting for itself the role of the mother of the nation
and the people—not of the Christian “nation” nor of the Christian people, i.e. the Greeks faithful to the Orthodox Church, but of the
national community and the totality of the population. By doing this, the Greek Orthodox Church, with a few exceptions, is imitating the
nationalistic and populist discourse of the Greek political class featuring all the characteristics of the far right ideology: the cult of the
leader and of authoritative political order, nostalgia for pre-modern patriarchal/agrarian societies, the anti-modern rejection of human
rights and political liberalism, anti-European discourse along with a rhetoric against multicultural societies and globalization, praise for
national and religious homogeneity, fear of immigration, ethnic/racial patriotism against fidelity to the Constitution, etc.
Thus, at the time and in the context of a multinational pluralistic postmodern society, Orthodoxy loses the theological and spiritual
resources of its patristic and Eucharistic tradition amidst the rhetoric of “identities” and an outdated religious tribalism. At the same time,
the insistence of many Greek Orthodox clerics and lay people—as well as of Orthodox from other Churches or countries—on seeing
Orthodoxy as a part of the national identity and culture, related to ancestral customs and traditional folklore, undermines every serious
attempt to face the challenges that the contemporary world poses to Orthodoxy, and condemns the latter to continue to be trapped
in traditionalism, fundamentalism, and social anachronism. As a result, theocracy and neo-nationalism—which are presumably nothing
more than secularized forms of eschatology—represent the dominant political vision of Eastern Christianity.
In my paper, I will attempt to explain why the Greek Orthodox Church accepts for itself this ethno-cultural and politico-religious
instrumentalization, and how progressive trends within Greek Orthodoxy and Greek theology are reacting to the temptation of religious
nationalism and to populist ideas.
Nadia Marzouki
Anti-Islam Discourse in the Tea Party
Abstract
This paper examines the claims made by some Tea Party groups in the U.S. regarding the Judeo-Christian identity of the American
people. It also studies t the relation between the anti-Islam rhetoric of the TP and the broader debate about Islam.
I first show that statements made within the TP about the Judeo-Christian values of America have a performative and contingent role,
rather than a referential function. Some Tea party supporters may participate in Evangelical groups, and share these groups’ theological
definition of America as Judeo-Christian. Most participants in TP movements, however, resort to the Judeo-Christian reference in a
highly opportunistic and contextual manner. Their mention of the Judeo-Christian heritage does not actually refer to a specific tradition,
set of beliefs or practice, that is deemed threatened and in need for protection. The definition of the true American people as JudeoChristian is based on a very blurred theological-political argument. Through the use of this rhetorical device, Tea Partiers primarily seek
to position themselves in opposition to both liberals Democrats, and to pragmatist Republicans. This effort to reclaim the true identity of
Judeo-Christian America, that has supposedly been jeopardized by the naiveté of a secularist liberal elite, is actually just another version
of a well established discursive tradition of anti-liberal populism. A significant evidence of the essentially performative function of the
reference to Judeo-Christian values is the large support of TPers for anti-Sharia bills, that have key implications for the religious freedom
of Muslim and Jewish communities. Examining the anti-Islam aspect of TP rhetoric, this paper will also underline the striking similarities
between anti-Islam arguments within and outside the TP. I suggest that the anti-Islamic, populist discourse of the TP is a reflection and
a echo chamber of arguments that are widely spread in the public, the media, and even in expert or academic discourse. Anti-Islam
arguments made by TPers are actually a mirror/caricature of arguments made about Islam in other fields, rather than a radical rejection
of these arguments.
Oscar Mazzoleni
Populism and Christianity in Swiss Politics: The Case of the SVP
Abstract
This paper examines the Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP) and its use of the “religious” dimension within its populist
shift and electoral rise since the beginning of the 1990s. Although the SVP has never been a confessional party, the link with a religious
dimension over the past two decades is present in several ways: firstly, while the religious cleavage has lost relevance in Swiss politics,
a significant part of the SVP’s electorate belongs to the faith-community, both in protestant and catholic cantons; secondly, the SVP’s
populist frame comprehends a main discourse in which transcendent and sacred power is attributed to the “people”; thirdly, its political
agenda includes issues like the defense of family rights on schooling, closely related to the traditional values supported by the Christiandemocrat party; fourthly, the defense of Christianity against Islam (such as in the anti-minaret popular initiative), which is also an attempt
to by-pass the old cleavage between Protestants and Catholics. Finally, given the indirect and implicit use of the religious dimension, it
is difficult to identify religious actors who mobilize against the SVP.
Duncan McDonnell
Passively Christian, Actively Anti-Islam: The Lega Nord and Religious Identity
Abstract
This paper argues that, in the case of the Lega Nord (LN – Northern League), religious identities and values are deployed selectively
and to different degrees according to the issue at hand. Having briefly discussed the Lega’s very significant shifts in stance regarding
Christianity, Catholicism and the Church in the period from 1990 to 2000, the paper then examines the extent to which the party has
defined ‘the people’ and ‘the other’ in terms of religious identity over the past decade. Through an examination of party programmes,
policy documents and media communications, the paper will show how the Lega depicts a ‘people’ whose Christian traditions and
values are said to be under threat, from below, by the aggressive ‘other’ of Islamic immigrants and, from above, by secular elites. Using
interviews with party representatives and ordinary members from the Lega Nord, the paper then looks at how these refer to religion and
the threat posed by Islamic immigration. Finally, the paper discusses the reactions by the Catholic Church to the Lega’s use of Christian
identities and attitude to Islam, along with how the party responds to criticism from the Church hierarchy by casting it as another set of
detached elites, with only the Lega truly on the side of the people.
Susi Meret
Balancing the Tension Between Liberal Democratic and Secularized Values and Christianity:
The Case of the Danish People’s Party
Abstract
The Danish People’s Party was among the first Populist Right-wing parties to address the question of Islam’s incompatibility with
liberal democracy. Already in 2001, the party maintained that unlike to Christianity, Islam and democracy represent an ‘impossible
combination’, with Islam portrayed as an illiberal, undemocratic and sexist faith giving no space to individual free will, tolerance, gender
equality and freedom of expression. The publication of the twelve Mohammed cartoons in a Danish newspaper in 2005 was used by
the party to amplify this opposition between the values and principles of the Christian West contra the closure and intolerance of Islam.
From 2001 and until their exit in 2011, the two protestant pastors and DF MPs Søren Krarup and Jesper Langballe represented the
most conservative and radical current within the party, playing an important role in developing and influencing the party position on
questions of identity, culture and religion.
However, another approach has in recent years taken centre-stage in the programmatic position and discoursive development of
the DF. This emphasises liberal democratic values and provided the party a potentially respectable and politically more acceptable
anti-immigration position. Within this perspective, other issues come into focus, such as gender equality, gender roles, human rights,
freedom of speech, liberal family values a more open approach to homosexuality and the like. This development seems to contrast with
the authoritarian, traditional-parochial and strict heteronormative views hitherto ascribed to the Populist Right-wing and also creates
tensions in relation to this party approach to Christian values and principles.
This paper argues that the DF prefers to build upon this liberal-democratic framework and to limit the reference to Christianity only to
specific realms. In this vein, it could be maintained that this approach better responds to the specific social, cultural and institutional
context, suggesting a distinct use to religion for the Populist Right in the secularised Denmark and more largely in the Scandinavian
countries.
The paper will examine the development and changes of the DF position on religion by using party programs, manifestoes and the
party paper and by an analysis of policy documents and other relevant media literature. This material will be supplied by looking at
the positions and attitudes towards religion of the DF electorate on the basis of data from the Danish Election Surveys and from the
European Value Survey.
Tim Peace
Religion and Populism in Britain: An Infertile Breeding Ground?
Abstract
Britain is recognised as one of the most secularised nations in Western Europe and also one of the few countries where the populist
radical right has been unable to make serious electoral progress. There has also been no significant far-right Christian subculture that has
attempted to unite with neo-fascist elements as witnessed in other European countries. In recent years however, the most significant
extreme right party, the British National Party (BNP), has seen a steady increase in support. Even more striking is the emergence of the
English Defence League (EDL), a populist movement which defies easy classification and whose platform is based on opposition to
Islam. As opposed to other European populist movements and parties who may seek to reappropriate a religious legacy and which
may receive support from some religious actors, the BNP and the EDL are routinely condemned by the established churches. The first
part of this paper explores how Churches have decided to react to populist movements and how they attempt to reassert what they
see as genuine Christian values. The second part of the paper looks at how Islam and Muslims are increasingly used by British populists
as a key mobilizing theme. There will be a specific focus on the rise of the EDL and how it has even out-flanked the BNP on the issue of
Islam. A comparison will also be made with how other European countries in a bid to answer the question of why such a movement first
developed in Britain and how it is attempting to initiate a pan-European anti-Islamic initiative. Finally, the paper will explore how British
Muslim communities have reacted to this situation and inter-faith initiatives to condemn Islamophobia.
Sieglinde Rosenberger
Leila Hadj-Abdou
Religion and the Radical Far Right: Populist Mobilization and its Limits
Abstract
With the rise of populist and radical right parties all over Europe, religion returns conspicuously to politics. Apart from populist
mobilization strategies, the success of the far right is to a great extent based on their ideological orientation of nativism, ethnic identity
and anti-migration issues (Mudde 2007). Muslim migrants are currently the main target out-group of the European far right (Betz, Meret
2009, Halle Williams 2010, Zuquete 2008). As a result, religion has increasingly served as a marker of identity and belonging in the far
right discourses. This phenomenon is especially interesting in the case of the Austrian Freedom Party: Until the late 1990s the party was
characterized by explicit anti-clerical positions. Nowadays in contrast, reference to the “Christian occidental culture”, the use of Christian
symbols and anti-Muslim rhetoric are core elements of mobilization strategies.
The paper identifies elements of the new “religious toolbox” the Freedom Party plays with in order to appeal to larger segments of
society, and it explores the range of influence the radical right party has attained in terms of its impact on religious policies. The paper
stresses the argument that the religiously laden rhetoric and symbols succeed to produce discursive frames which construct an “us”
versus “them” dichotomy based on a cultural understanding of religion and migration, however, the impact on policies towards religious
issues has remained limited. This contradiction will be demonstrated with the issue of veiling. The authors conclude that limitations of
populist and radical right mobilization can be explained by institutional constraining factors, most importantly the make-up of the statechurch relations, which renders the potential effect of this discursive framing for policy change less powerful.
Jean-Louis Schlegel
Is there a Catholic Populism? (Peut-on parler d’un populisme catholique?)
Abstract
A category of political discourse, populism is a new question for the Catholic church. It is an interesting issue from a historical and
sociological perspective to the extent that Catholicism undoubtedly -at least at first sight- seems to have a specific interest in this
question. I will examine some of the tensions within the Catholic Church around the idea and the reality of “the people”. The meaning of
the word and the use of the concept are far from unambiguous. Moreover, the role of the “Catholic people” is referred to in contradictory
ways. Although Catholicism develops a highly sophisticated theological discourse, it claims to be, and to defend a religion of the people.
It seeks to create a “Christian people”, and to represent a “popular Church” or a “Church of the people”. This concept of “popular Church”
is a core issue within the Church: while some criticize it, others try to give it a theological value. Whether it is rejected or promoted (and,
when so, by whom?), what interests are at stake?
As for the theological notion of “people of God”, it has been put forward, after a heated debate, by the council of Vatican II. It does
remain, however, the source of a conflict within the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger/Benoit XVI has strongly emphasized its purely theological
and non sociological aspect (which is why he barely mentions this notion any more). By contrast, Progressive Catholics (or critical
Catholics from the left) have always insisted on the indirect critique that the notion of “people of God” represents with respect to the
overindulgence of the Church hierarchy.
Finally, there is a “popular religion” that can be analyzed from a sociological point of view, as a sui generis phenomenon, but that
is questioned by many. Among other questions, it is worth considering mass phenomena, that gather immense crowds (in sites of
pilgrimage, or around the Pope in Rome), that are not alien to Catholicism. Does the Catholic Church have a populist relationship with
the crowds it brings together? What discourse does it hold toward these crowds?
PARTICIPANTS
Pasquale Annicchino EUI, Florence, Italy – [email protected]
Michael Dwyer HURST & CO., Publishers, UK – [email protected]
Sadiye Mine Eder
Bogazici University, Turkey – [email protected]
Zsolt Enyedi
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary – [email protected]
Dani Filc Ben Gurion University of the Negev, beer Sheva, Israel – [email protected]
Effie Fokas Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP),
London School of Economics, UK – [email protected]
Leila Hadj-Abdou EUI, Florence, Italy – [email protected]
Pantelis Kalaitzides Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Greece – [email protected]
Nadia Marzouki EUI, Florence, Italy – [email protected]
Oscar Mazzoleni University of Lausanne, IEPI, Swittzerland – [email protected]
Duncan McDonnell EUI, Florence, Italy – [email protected]
Susi Meret Aalborg University, Denmark – [email protected]
Timothy Peace The University of Edinburgh, UK – [email protected]
Sieglinde Rosenberger University of Vienna, Austria – [email protected]
Olivier Roy EUI, Florence, Italy – [email protected]
Jean-Louis Schlegel Esprit magazine, France – [email protected]
Kristina Stoeckl EUI, Florence, Italy – [email protected]
Marco Ventura Faculty of Law of the University of Siena, Italy – [email protected]