The New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do "Fundamentalisms" Appear? Author(S): Nikki R
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Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History The New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do "Fundamentalisms" Appear? Author(s): Nikki R. Keddie Reviewed work(s): Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 696-723 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179307 . Accessed: 19/03/2012 15:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Comparative Studies in Society and History. http://www.jstor.org The New Religious Politics: Where,When, and Why Do "Fundamentalisms"Appear? NIKKI R. KEDDIE Universityof California,Los Angeles The reasonsfor the recentand simultaneousappearance, or rise in influence, in much of the world of "fundamentalist"or doctrinallyand socially conservative religiopoliticalmass movements have been analyzedfor individualgroups but rarely in a way that compares all the main religions and the regions in which they are strong.' Rarerstill have been analyses of why such movements have expandedin most areas only since the 1970s, what causes exist in areaswhere these movementsare strongand why they differ from those regions where they are weak or nonexistent,and what, aside fromreligion, producesdifferent types of movements. Here we will try to see if there are common factors in time and in space that help explain these movements and will look for causes of their similaritiesand differences.Explanations presented here will stress differences between religious nationalism (or communalism) directed primarily against other religious communities and conservative religious politics directed pri- marily against internalenemies. Differences between types and levels of pre- existing religious beliefs will be examinedto suggest why some areashave such movements and others do not. World-widefactors that help to account for the recent rise of religious politics will also be explored. To deal with such large problemsin one essay requiresthe simplificationof complex and variedmovements and permitsonly a brief treatmentof theirhis- Thanksgo to the following readersof this essay: HouchangChehabi; Henry Munson, Jr.; Perry An- derson, CharlesTilly, Val Moghadam;and to RaymondGrew for all this help. I Most comparativevolumes on fundamentalismare collections, with most authorsdiscussing one area. Exceptions are Mark Juergensmeyer,The New Cold War?Religious Nationalism Con- fronts the Secular State (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1993) and Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders of God: The FundamentalistRevolt against the Moder Age (San Francisco:Harper and Row, 1989). Useful collections include the five volumes of the FundamentalismProject of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences, editedby MartinE. Martyand R. ScottAppleby andpub- lished by the Universityof Chicago Press (Chicago, 1991-95; full referencein note 3); RichardT. Antoun and Mary Elaine Hegland, eds. Religious Resurgence: ContemporaryCases in Islam, Christianity,and Judaism (Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 1987); Lionel Caplan,ed., Stud- ies in Religious Fundamentalism(Albany, SUNY Press, 1987); John StrattonHawley, ed., Funda- mentalismand Gender(New York:Oxford University Press, 1994); and Contention,4:2, 3, and 5:3 (1995, 1996), sections on comparativefundamentalism. 0010-4175/98/4501-0320$9.50 ? 1998 Societyfor ComparativeStudy of Societyand History 696 THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 697 torical backgroundand development, much of which has been well covered elsewhere.2 These movements, arising as they do from many countries with very differentreligious traditionsand regional histories which affect theirshape and nature,have several variations.This essay explores those factorsthat make the movements comparabledespite majordifferences in the religions, regions, and circumstanceswhere they appear-factors that arise largely from modem developments, especially of the past three decades. Emphasized are general- izations; detailed treatmentsof each movement must, because of space, be de- ferred. THE TERMINOLOGY OF RELIGIOPOLITICS Although I accept only some of the objections to the term fundamentalism,I preferto employ, when possible, a more neutralterm, New Religious Politics, shorteningit to religiopolitics or NRP.This termdoes not cover all recent reli- giopolitical movements but can be applied when movements exhibit certain specific features.These featuresinclude, first, an appealto a reinterpreted,ho- mogenized religious tradition,seen as solving problems exacerbatedby vari- ous forms of secular,communal, or foreign power. Second, these are populist movements that aim at gaining political power in order to transformgovern- ments on the basis of their religiopoliticalprogram. Third, they are not led by liberals or leftists and have predominantlyconservative social views. For most groups this includes patriarchalviews regardinggender, family relations and social mores, althoughthere are a few exceptions analyzedbelow. Using the categoryof NRP avoids some problemsof employingthe termfun- damentalist,including the connotationsof its U.S. Protestantorigin, the inclu- sion of apoliticalreligious groups,or the implicationof extremism.3My terms involve a specialized use of the broadterm "religiopolitics,"but no satisfacto- ry short alternativenow exists; terms like religious (or Islamic, Christian,or Hindu)revival or resurgenceare unsatisfactoryin stressingthe religious at the 2 Basic informationon most such movements is found in the relevantchapters of the five vol- umes edited by MartinE.Marty and R. Scott Appleby, FundamentalismsObserved, Fundamen- talisms and Society, Fundamentalismsand the State, FundamentalismsComprehended, Account- ingfor Fundamentalisms(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 1993, 1993, 1994, 1995). Overall, the descriptivearticles are very good and are superiorto many of the generalizingpieces. My analyses often differ from those found in the four summarychapters at the end of Fundamen- talism Comprehended.For a debate about the series see Henry R. Munson, "Not All Crustaceans are Crabs:Reflections on the ComparativeStudy of Fundamentalismand Politics,"Contention, 4:3 (Spring 1995), 151-66; R. Scott Appleby, "ButAll Crabsare Crabby:Valid and Less Valid Criti- cisms of the FundamentalismProject," ibid., 195-202; and Henry Munson, "Responseto Apple- by," ibid., 207-9. 3 Mark Juergensmeyer,"Response to Munson: Fundaphobia-The IrrationalFear of Funda- mentalism,"Contention, 5:3 (Spring 1996), 127-32 argues that in popularuse "the term funda- mentalism has become a political weapon,"compared in the West to communism and in India to Naziism (p. 128). Adherentsof the U.S. ChristianRight also oppose being called fundamentalists. See Pat Robertson,The TurningTide (Dallas: WordPublishing, 1993), 141-2. 698 NIKKI R. KEDDIE expense of the political.4The proposedterms have the advantageof neutrality and of makingclear both the political contentof the movementsthey cover and their contemporarynature.5 The word fundamentalistwill be used rarely,with implied quotationmarks. This does not indicate that the use of fundamentalist by othersnecessarily reflects any particularbias or vitiatestheir scholarly work; some of the best work in the field has been done by writerswho use this term.6 No single term would be acceptable to partisansof these movements, who often call themselves "Muslims,""Christians," "Hindus" and the like, and do not include politics in their terms for themselves. Participantsin these move- ments do not see themselves as part of a world-wide trendbut, rather,as true followers of their own religions. To adopt their terminology would renounce comparisonand deny true religion to others, as their favored terms, including "Christian,"and "Muslim,"imply that only they are truebelievers. (The wide- ly used "Islamist"is disliked by some as it appearsto privilege "Islamists"as the true Muslims.)7While those who follow universalistbeliefs like democra- cy, socialism, or communismaccept identificationby a single term worldwide, those who stress the boundariesof their belief want to be called by a particu- larist name. It may thus be fruitless to seek a term acceptableto various reli- giopolitical movements.Clearly, a single comparativeterm cannot fully define any movement,each of which must be understoodin terms of its own context, ideas, and actions. Comparabilitydoes not mean sameness. The informative volumes published by the FundamentalismProject of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences found fundamentalist or "fundamentalist-like"religious movements in most of the world, but many of these do not have the featuresemphasized here, such as the stress on a homog- enized common doctrine,which is presentedas the truereligious tradition(al- 4 I proposed"New Religious Politics/NRP"at the Middle East StudiesAssociation meetings in 1995, where it was well received; whetherit will last is anotherquestion. Regarding scholarly use of "fundamentalism"until an