European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)

STANDING GROUP ON “RELIGION AND POLITICS”

NEWSLETTER
July 2020

Dear ECPR Religion and Politics SG Members,

Welcome to the July 2020 newsletter of our Standing Group. Here you will find information about:

• SG’s upcoming events and information,

• Recent publications,
• Call for Papers: conferences and
• Other Information.

Thank you for your contributions. We are looking forward to our future cooperation.

Stay safe!

Eva-Maria Euchner, Luca Ozzano and Marko Veković

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 SG’s upcoming events and information

We would like to bring to your attention events and programs organized by the Standing
Group “Religion and Politics”:

1. ECPR General Conference Online, 24 – 28 August 2020

Section “Religion and Politics in a Secular Age: Patterns, Dynamics and Consequences” is
endorsed by the ECPR Standing Groups on Religion and Politics. This section will include the
following panels:

View
P253 New Perspectives on Religion and Politics (1) Panel
Details
View
P254 New Perspectives on Religion and Politics (2) Panel
Details
View
P345 Religion and Politics Across Boundaries Panel
Details
View
P346 Religion and Secularism in Party Competition in the Western World Panel
Details

2. Collection of Syllabi on “Religion & Politics”

Many thanks to those of you who have already shared their syllabi on a course taught in
the field of “Religion & Politics”. Yet, we could like to expand the collection even more as it offers
not only inspiration for each of us but also might help to promotes the visibility and growth of the
subfield, more generally. All syllabi are going to be posted on the website of our group. If you
would like to contribute to this project, please tell us about your classes and share the syllabus
(email to: Eva-Maria (eva-maria.euchner@gsi.lmu.de).

3. 2020 Turin Summer School on Religion and Politics, June 15-20 2020

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, we regret to inform you that the 2020 Turin Summer school
on Religion and Politics (which was supposed to take place in Turin, Italy, June 15- 20) is
postponed for June 2021. Please contact Luca (luca.ozzano@unito.it) for more information.

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 Recent publications

Bettiza Gregorio "States, Religions, and Power: Highlighting the Role of Sacred Capital
in World Politics", Working Paper: Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power Project, Berkley Center,
Georgetown University, and Brookings Institution, 2020.

Christopher D. Raymond, “Dealigned or Still Salient? Religious-Secular Divisions in

Recent Chilean Elections”, forthcoming in Bulletin of Latin American Research.

Christopher D. Raymond, “Religious diversification reduces the number of religious

parties over time”, forthcoming in European Political Science.

Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre and Matthew S Adams, “Anarchism, Religion, and the

Religiousness of Political Ideologies”, in: Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume III,
Christoyannopoulos and Adams (eds.), Stockholm University Press, Stockholm, 2020, pp. 1-
20. https://doi.org/10.16993/bbb.a

Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre, “Tolstoy’s Christian Anarcho-Pacifism: An Exposition”,

in: Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume III, Christoyannopoulos and Adams
(eds.), Stockholm University Press, 2020, Stockholm, pp. 71-118. https://doi.org/10.16993/bbb.c

Cecelia Lynch, Wrestling with God: Ethical Precarity in Christianity and International
Relations, Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Elina Schleutker, “Co-optation and Repression of Religion in Authoritarian Regimes”,

Politics and Religion, 2020, online first, link

Efe Peker: Review of “A Secular Age beyond the West: Religion, Law, and the State in
Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa”, edited by MIRJAM KÜNKLER, JOHN MADELEY,
and SHYLASHRI SHANKAR, Cambridge University Press, 2018.
in: International Sociology, Vol. 34, No. 5, pp. 620-623.

Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume III, Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre and

Matthew S Adams (eds.), Stockholm University Press, Stockholm,
2020. https://doi.org/10.16993/bbb

François Foret, Lucrecia Rubio Grundell, “European Morality

Politics in the European Union: The Case of Prostitution”, Sexuality &
Culture, 2020, link

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 François Foret, Margarita Markoviti (2019), “New challenge, old
solutions? Religion and counter-radicalisation in the European
Parliament and the radicalisation awareness network”, European Politics
and Society, link

François Foret, Margarita Markoviti, “The EU

counter-radicalisation strategy as “business as usual”? How European
political routine resists radical religion”, Journal of European
Integration, 2020, link

Fred A. Lazin, American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet
Jewry, A Call to Conscience, Lexington Books, 2020.

Gert Pickel, Antonius Liedhegener, Yvonne Jaeckel, Anastas Odermatt und Alexander
Yendell, „Religiöse Identitäten und Vorurteil in Deutschland und der Schweiz - Konzeptionelle
Überlegungen und empirische Befunde“, Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik, 2020,
pp. 1-48 (online first - doi 10.1007/s41682-020-00055-9).

Jonathan Fox, Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods before Me: Why Governments
Discriminate Against Religious Minorities, Cambridge University Press, 2020, link

Köllner Tobias, “Russian Orthodox Religiosity Today: An Anthropological Perspective on

Particularities and Socialist Legacies”, in: Religiosity in East and West, S. Demmrich & U. Riegel
(eds.), Springer VS, Wiesbaden, 2020, in print.

Köllner Tobias, „Alltagsnationalismus und Orthodoxie im zeitgenössischen Russland: Die

Rolle der wirtschaftlichen Eliten“, in: Ökonomischer Nationalismus: „Nation“ und
„Nationalismus“ in der soziologischen Analyse wirtschaftlicher Ordnungen, K. Kraemer & S.
Münnich (eds.), Campus, Frankfurt a. M., 2020, in print.

Köllner Tobias, „Alltagsnationalismus, Identität und Religion: Vergleichende

Beobachtungen zu Russland und Ostdeutschland“, ImpEct, 11, 2020, https://www.fh-
dortmund.de/de/fb/9/publikationen/impect/index.php.

Köllner Tobias, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Russia: Beyond the Binary of
Power and Authority, Religion, Society and Government in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet
States Series, Routledge, London & New York, 2020, forthcoming

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 Köllner Tobias. 2020b. “Orthodox Religion, Politics, Secularity and the Introduction of
New Festive Days in Contemporary Russia: The Case of the Day of Family, Love, and
Faithfulness”, Etnografia i Ricerca Qualitativa 01/2020, pp. 119–141, doi: 10.3240/96827

Luca Ozzano, The Masks of the Political God. Religion and Political Parties in
Contemporary Democracies, ECPR Press/Rowman and Littlefield 2020, forthcoming.

Marko Veković, Democratization in Christian Orthodox Europe: Comparing Greece,

Serbia and Russia, Routledge studies in Religion and Politics, Routledge, London & New York,
2020, forthcoming.

Mirjam Künkler and Eva Nisa, "A fatwa against sexual violence: results of a historic
congress of female Islamic scholars", Women in Islam, SIHA Journal, No. 4, 2019, pp. 25-27.

Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein, “Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde on Law, Religion, and
Democratic Models of Secularism,” in: Dimensions of Constitutional Democracy: India and
Germany, Anupama Roy and Michael Becker (eds.), Springer, 2020, pp. 67-90.

Netanel Fisher, “Secularization of immigration policy vs. religion’ influence on

integration, Nations and Nationalism, 2020, link

Nikola Mirilović, David S. Siroky, „International recognition, religion, and the status of
Western Sahara“, Acta Politica, 2020, link

Orthodox Religion and Politics in Eastern Europe: On Multiple Secularisms and

Entanglements, Köllner Tobias (ed.), Religion, Society and Government in Eastern Europe and
the Former Soviet State, Routledge, London & New York, 2019.

Politics and Religion Journal has published a special issue titled “Religion and Politics in
Contemporary Iran”, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2020, link

Religion and Political Theory: Secularism, Accommodation and The New Challenges of
Religious Diversity, Seglow Jonathan & Shorten Andrew (eds.), ECPR Press / Rowman and
Littlefield, 2019, link

Religious Diversity in Asia, Jørn Borup, Marianne Qvortrup Fibiger and Lene Kühle (eds.),
Brill, 2000, link

Shmuel Sandler, The Jewish Origins of Israeli Foreign policy: A Study in Tradition and
Survival, Routledge, London, 2018.

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 The Pope, the Public, and International Relations - Postsecular Transformations, Mariano
Barbato (ed.), Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

Call for Papers: Conferences

CfP: “Religion, State, and Society in Post-Communist Countries: Thirty Years after the
End of the Cold War”
Tartu, Estonia, 12-13 February 2021
Contact person: Dmytro Vovk (dmtr.vovk@gmail.com)

CfP: “Religion, Anti-Gender Mobilization and Radical Right Populism”

Online Panel on Meet, 3 September, 2020 (10h-12h)
Organizers: Manuela Caiani (manuela.caiani@sns.it) and Ivan Tranfić (ivan.tranfic@sns.it)

CfP: “Politology of Religion: III Bi-Annual Conference 2020”

Belgrade, Serbia
Event has been postponed for Spring 2021
Contact person: Marko Veković (marko.vekovic@fpn.bg.ac.rs)

Other information

The German Academic Exchange Service has granted Amanda tho Seeth (Philipps-
University Marburg, Germany) a scholarship for a six-months research stay at Centre Asie du Sud-
Est (CASE) in Paris to kick off her post-doc research project "The Educational Dimension of
Indonesia´s Islamic Soft Power Policy". She is interested in connecting with researchers working
on religion in IR (especially in the Muslim world and/or Asia, particularly with a focus on religious
education, but not exclusively) and can be reached at: amanda.tho.seeth@gmx.de

Tobias Köllner received a grant by the WIFU-Foundation which started in January 2020
and is intended to last until December 2023 with an evaluation in late 2020. It establishes a research
group and includes cross-cultural comparisons, especially in the economic sector. Moreover, I
intend to look more closely at the exchange processes within Eastern Christianity. So if anybody
is interested in analyzing Eastern Christians in one or several countries and to share his or her
results with me, this is highly welcome. The relation between politics and Eastern Christianity will
be one of the central topics in this research, and how they ‘travel’ between different contexts.
Contact: Tobias.Koellner@uni-wh.de

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 François Foret informs us about research progress: RelEP (https://relep.eu/the-project/) is
an international research project that investigates the religious beliefs and preferences of the
members of the European Parliament (MEPs). A second wave of the survey (2020-2022) has been
launched after a first wave achieved during the term 2019-2014
(link). In particular, RelEP aims at answering at the following questions: Are European elites more
secularized than EU citizens and national politicians? Which effects does religion have on the
political socialization of MEPs (cross-party structures, religious lobbies) and, conversely, what is
the EP’s influence on religion? How do religion, coalition- and decision-making interact at the
European level? What happens in the triangular relationship between nation, Europe, and religion?
The project is coordinated by Professor François Foret, Cevipol-IEE, Université Libre de
Bruxelles.

Gregorio Bettiza received an Alberigo Award Special Mention of Excellence from the
European Academy of Religion (EuAre) for his book Finding Faith in Foreign Policy: Religion
and American Diplomacy in a Postsecular World, Oxford University Press, 2019.