Forschungsprojekt ::

"Globalisation, Religion and the State: Between Conflict and Accommodation"

Projektbeschreibung

International Conference

Religious conflicts and conflicts where religion plays a central part appear to increase in the last two decades. The process of globalization, often associated with economic liberalism and a secular consumer culture, has not eroded the importance of religion in public life yet introduced important changes and developments. The purpose of this workshop is to examine the impact of globalization on existing church-state arrangements and the role of religion in public life. In particular, it is interested in new and renewed religious-secular conflicts and in new modes of accommodation that the global setting creates. Participants in this workshop from Germany and Israel will present research projects that examine these developments in both countries and elsewhere and produce an edited work on the topic proposed.

The era of globalization entails complexity and contradictions in personal choices and political alignments. Religious beliefs as well as institutions were found resilient to changes associated with modernization and globalization as new religious movements emerged in the most supposedly secularized societies and religion has emerged as a vital force in the new world political order. Secularization undermined traditional churches but did not necessarily produce an irreligious population but only an unchurched one. Recent accounts of secularization sought to unpack the process and separate analytically between the decline of religion and that of religious authority and to examine separately the institutional aspect and the individual religious beliefs and practices. The modern age is perceived as a new “axial period” with competition among religions that enables religions and individuals to borrow, pick, choose and imitate and create a “bricolage” of individual and collective practices, beliefs and values.

While some religious institutions lose power in the contemporary age other institutions maintain their strongholds and new religious movements emerge to challenge secularization trends. This is manifested in different struggles within and between states where religions play a dominant or central role. The complexity of globalization, however, leads not only to the politicization of religion through conventional political methods and organizations but also to its de-politicization, or the shifts of the struggles away from conventional politics. These changes are revealed in different arenas of struggle – economic or spiritual – and possibly new modes of accommodation that take advantage of technology and communication.

These complex and contradictory developments are the starting point for this workshop that will engage with the following questions: What new forms do religious struggles take between and within states? How are religious institutions and church-state arrangements affected by the changes associated with globalization? What are the features of contemporary religious-secular struggles? And, what opportunities and resources for accommodation are available to resolve these struggles? Papers presented by participants in the workshop, Ph.D. students and more established scholars, will discuss these issues through comparative and theoretical perspectives with the aim of publishing the papers presented afterwards.