412
Religion and National Identity
Language: English
Pluralization as a result of migration and globalization challenges individual attitudes and beliefs as well as the social cohesion of communities and whole societies. One answer to these challenges lies in “cultural defense”-mechanisms - attempts to close groups for newcomers by referring to particular cultural features. These features most often refer to religious logics of identification or to ethnicity. The mixture of both is yet not sufficiently understood by social researchers.
What remains clear, however, is that different governmental, social and legal circumstances moderate the relationship between religious and national identities. Therefore, papers in this session shall shed light on such moderating conditions and institutional settings. We are specifically interested in state-related contexts such as laws and regulations, welfare systems, policies and politics. We invite papers that jointly look at religion and national identity, focusing on one of the following topics:
(a) What kinds of relationships are observable? How do religious and national identities (and identifications) interrelate? Can they be compared and classified?
(b) Which kinds of circumstances matter? How important are particular historical trajectories, national legal regulations, or the acceptance of the human rights system?
(c) How can the impact of economic, political and social structures be theoretically conceptualized and empirically measured, and what data are available?
Empirical (multi-level) analyses and comparative case studies are as welcome as theory and methodology papers.