Religious Actors and State- and Regime-Building Following Political Changes

Abstract

The panel seeks papers interested in the issue of religion’s relationship with the state in the context of regime change, following either democratic or nondemocratic political changes. In traditional ‘Western’ ‘Comparative Politics’ approaches, religious institutions are expected to have certain kinds of relationship with the state, and this can change following important political changes, as we saw, inter alia, in Poland and Russia after the removal from power of communist regimes in the early 1990s. Now, a quarter century after the collapse of communism in Europe and subsequent changes to many state-church relationships in the region, there is another period of significant political changes affecting both Africa and the Middle East. As in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) two decades ago, current political changes in Africa and the Middle East seem to be leading to significant changes in the relationship between the state and 'religion'. The west African country of Mali is a case in point. Mali recently underwent a reduction, shrinkage and significant withdrawal of the state – following an Islamist take over of power – and a concomitant rise of certain religious actors who now by default undertake many of the governance and welfare tasks traditionally associated with the state. Now, following the ousting from power of al-Qaeda-style Islamists in Mali and the failure of the state to resume its traditional leading role, the country is failing to establish a new ruling regime. This is because today Mali lacks clearly viable and authoritative centres and foci of power and legitimacy. Mali is 90+% Muslim but because the country follows the French tradition of laïcité - i.e. that is, a state/’church’ relationship of rigid separation – and is a constitutionally secular country there is no clearly defined or workable conception of what role religious actors would/should take in the process of state- and regime-(re)building. The focus of the panel is to examine the concepts of ‘state’ and ‘regime’ in relation to the activities of religious actors in, inter alia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The purpose is not only empirical – that is, to see what the similarities and differences are – but also to highlight and comment on the apparent paucity of workable ‘Western Comparative Politics’ analytical tools to explain many such such cases. Papers for the panel can be theoretical, comparative or single-country case studies. For example, the situation in Mali could be compared or contrasted with one of the many failing states in the Middle East and North Africa – such as, Iraq, Syria or Yemen - which are similarly Muslim-majority, secular and failing to build viable states and regimes after conflict and, in addition, poorly understood by Western Comparative Politics scholars.

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