Guiding the Hand of God: The Influence of State Involvement in Religion on Religionational Identity by Dustin Gamza A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) in the University of Michigan 2019 Doctoral Committee: Professor Pauline Jones, Chair Associate Professor Robert Mickey Professor Mark Tessler Professor Geneviève Zubrzycki Dustin Gamza [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5233-6719 © Dustin Gamza 2019 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to all those who made this dissertation possible, whether it be through their support, advice, or comradery. I am thankful to the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, the University of Michigan’s International Institute, Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, and the Boren Fellowship for providing platforms and funding that allowed me to begin my studies into religion and politics in the post-Soviet space. I am also grateful to the American University of Central Asia and their Central Asian Studies Institute for providing me an institutional home during my fieldwork that served as the foundation for this project, to the National Science Foundation for funding my survey in Kyrgyzstan, and to PIL Research Company for doing an excellent job administering the survey. Many people have provided me support throughout this endeavor. I owe thanks to Nurbek Bekmurzaev, who served as a guide, a translator, a co-researcher, and above all a friend during my time in Kyrgyzstan; to Alton Worthington and Anil Menon, who provided me with helpful advice on my methods; to Andrew Walker and Ana María Silva, who always provided a voice of reason and an escape through conversation and music; to my cohort in the political science department who embarked on this journey with me; and to all my Ann Arbor friends who spent countless nights with me cooking meals, playing games, and creating worlds. I am thankful for my committee, Pauline Jones, Mark Tessler, Rob Mickey, and Geneviève Zubrzycki, who have all been incredibly supportive of my work and my goals. In particular, I want to thank my mentor and advisor, Pauline Jones, who has made this dissertation possible through her unreserved, honest, and constant advice. For me, she serves not only as a role model for what it means to be a diligent scholar who never loses sight of the importance of the academic endeavor, but also as a paragon of leadership, a bridge-builder, and a full person who still, despite all of these burdens and responsibilities, always finds time to prioritize family and loved ones. I also appreciate the role my father, Steve Gamza, and Stephanie Brichetto continue to play, always providing a listening ear in my times of great (and even not so great) need. Above all, I am grateful to my wife, Kelsey Gamza, who always believed in me. She is my inspiration. Without her, none of this would have been possible. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii NOTES viii ABSTRACT x CHAPTER I. Introduction 1 Introduction 1 An Example Puzzle: Religion and Political Identity in Central Asia 4 Defining and Explaining Religionational Fusion 11 A New Theory of Religionational Fusion 15 Structure of the Dissertation 18 II. Religionational Fusion 20 Conceptualizing Religionational Fusion 20 Understanding Religionational Fusion 21 Operationalization of Religionational Fusion 23 Empirical Data for Measurement of the Dependent Variable 27 Unexplained Variation in Religionational Fusion in Cross-National Context 30 Conclusion 35 III. How the State Influences Religionational Fusion 36 Introduction 36 Conceptualizing State Involvement in Religion 37 The Ubiquity of State Involvement in Religion 46 iii Related Literature: State Involvement in Collective Identities and Religious 49 Regulation A Theory of How National Identities and Religious Identities Fuse and 54 Cleave Alternative Explanations 64 Plan for Hypothesis Testing 66 Conclusion 69 IV. State Involvement in Religion and Religionational Fusion in Central Asia 71 Introduction 71 Case Selection 72 State Involvement in Religion in Central Asia 76 Data Sources 78 Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: Low and Moderate State Involvement in 80 Religion Uzbekistan and Tajikistan: Moderate and High State Involvement in Religion 108 Religion, Nation, and Identity in Central Asia: A Review of Existing Data 137 Conclusion 147 V. State Involvement in Religion and Religionational Identity in Kyrgyzstan 148 Introduction 148 The Content of Kyrgyzstani Religionational Fusion: To Be Kyrgyz is to be 150 Muslim, but what does “Muslim” mean? Religion and Politics in Kyrgyzstan in 2018/2019 152 Measurement and Empirical Strategy 153 Statistical Tests and Data 161 Findings and Analysis 162 Supplementary Tests: The Internalization of State-Sanctioned Islam 171 Discussion and Conclusion 178 iv VI. State Involvement in Religion and Religionational Fusion in Cross-National 180 Context Introduction 180 Data and Measurement 181 Methods 195 Results and Analysis 196 Conclusion 203 VII. Conclusion 204 Implications 204 Extensions 206 BIBLIOGRAPHY 210 v LIST OF TABLES TABLE I.1 Support for religious influence over the law and politics 8 I.2 Religiosity in Central Asia 9 I.3 Strictness of belief and religious pluralism in Central Asia 10 II.1 Example aggregate indicators of religionational fusion, dominant religion subpopulation 31 III.1 Example indicators of state use of religious symbols 48 III.2 Overview of hypotheses 68 IV.1 Spectrum of state involvement in religion in Central Asia 76 IV.2 Overview of primary data sources 80 IV.3 State involvement in religion and religionational fusion: expected effects 139 IV.4 Indicator of religionational primacy in Central Asia 141 V.1 Measures of individual religionational fusion 157 V.2 Measures of state involvement in religion 160 V.3 Review of hypotheses and findings 163 V.4 Results of ordered logit and logit models using primary DV measures 169 VI.1 Longitudinal sample 183 VI.2 Plot of religionational fusion and repression index scores, 2009 proximate year data 197 VI.3 Summary of results 202 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE I.1 How much religious influence should religious leaders have in political matters? 8 I.2 National pride in Central Asia 10 II.1 Operationalization diagram of religionational fusion 24 II.2 Frequencies of imbrication in cross national sample, dominant religion subpopulation, 31 country means (N=54) II.3 Variation in religionational fusion in Eastern Europe and former Soviet countries, full 33 populations II.4 Example shifts in religionational fusion over time (full populations) 34 III.1 Dimensions of state involvement in religion 38 IV.1 Presidential administration funded billboard, Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek 100 IV.2 Imbrication in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan 146 V.1 Distribution of primary imbrication indicator 162 V.2 Marginal effects of repression plot 164 V.3 Religionational imbrication by pre/post-Soviet cohort 168 V.4 Bishkek billboards 171 V.5 Western treatment/traditional treatment/hijab treatment 172 V.6 Differences in means between treatment arms and control group 173 V.7 Less pious subpopulation, differences in means between treatment arms and control 175 group V.8 More pious subpopulation, differences in means between treatment arms and control 176 group V.9 Ethnic Uzbek subpopulation, differences in means between treatment arms and control 177 group VI.1 Distribution of modal country values on state involvement in religious symbols index 190 VI.2 OLS results by data format, net religionational fusion dependent variable 198 vii NOTES Overview of Primary Sources Interviews Semi-structured interviews, funded by a Boren Fellowship, the Berkeley Center for Religious Freedom, and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies were conducted in June-December of 2015. Snowball sampling was used to identify relevant subjects, and the interviews were recorded with the consent of the interviewee. The majority of these interviews (14) were conducted with religious leaders ranging from imams at local mosques to high-level muftiate officials, while the remainder (12) were conducted with relevant civil society leaders including lawyers, activists, academics, journalists, and NGO officials, as well as with current and former Kyrgyzstani government officials working on religious issues. In addition to the above interviews I conducted, two local research assistants conducted 6 supplemental interviews. The findings from the interviews were used to inform my theory and research questions, as well as to construct my original survey. Surveys The original survey in Kyrgyzstan, funded by NSF award number 1658336 with Pauline Jones as the PI, was administered in Kyrgyzstan in late 2018/early 2019. The survey includes a nationally representative sample of 2,400 adult Kyrgyzstani citizens, in addition to an oversample of 200 ethnic Uzbek Kyrgyzstanis. For full sampling methodology, questionnaires, and data, please contact the author ([email protected]) or Pauline Jones ([email protected]). In addition to the original survey in the Kyrgyz Republic, a number of other surveys were consulted. In particular, the International Social Survey Programme’s National Identity I, National Identity II, and National Identity III surveys, as well as Pew’s Being Christian in Western Europe, Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe Survey, and the 2016 Spring Global Attitudes Survey were used to construct the cross-national dataset presented in chapter