Call for Papers: Religion and the Rise of Populism: Migration, Radicalism and New Nationalisms

Submission Deadline: August 15, 2017

The editors of the journal Religion, State and Society are pleased to invite contributions to a special issue, slated for publication in early 2018. The special issue will investigate the roles of religion in recent trends towards populist politics, in particular as manifested in public reactions to migration, the rise of new nationalisms, and the increasing prominence of radicalism.

Growing evidence suggests that these developments are taking center stage throughout the world, set in a wider context of global political and economic uncertainty. It can also be observed that religion plays an important role in each of these three issues, often in ways that interconnect them. For example, the actions of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have exacerbated an already worrisome global migration crisis, while also heightening concerns about violent radicalism.  From France to the Philippines, public anxieties surrounding ISIS and domestic ‘radicalization’ have become frequent motifs in populist rhetoric that links them with increasing flows of migrants as representative of threats to social security and the economic wellbeing of local populations.

Other examples of contemporary issues in which religion is implicated in populist politics and linked to migration, new nationalisms, and radicalism include: the emphasis on ‘Hindu values’ in the politics of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in India; the Christian or anti-Muslim rhetoric of American presidential candidates; the UK Brexit campaigners’ use of the prospective membership of ‘Muslim’ Turkey in the EU; the deepening significance of ‘traditionalist’ and pro-Orthodox rhetoric in Russia’s domestic and international politics; and the increasing prominence of religion-based identity politics in Poland, Hungary, and Croatia.

This special issue will seek to probe the various roles of religion in these interlinked issues and across comparative cases. There is an urgent need for considered academic analysis to discern how the rise of populism is connected to religion and the issues of migration, radicalism, and new nationalisms, to elucidate the broader empirical and theoretical implications for our understandings of religion, state, and society.

Areas of investigation can include but are by no means limited to:

• Religious dimensions of populism in national contexts, including comparative perspectives
• The migration crisis and its implications for religion-based identity politics in European societies and beyond
• The ‘crisis’ of the European Union following the Brexit referendum, and its broader implications with relevance to religion
• Religious dimensions of radicalism: discourses, movements, and politics
• Religiously-based conservative and traditionalist movements in Europe, the United States, India, Russia, or other parts of the world, including comparative studies
• Fringe and far-right political and vigilante groups and movements, and their politics of religion
• Religious dimensions of the securitization of borders and the ‘othering’ of excluded groups
• Theoretical, legal, or discourse-based work on the role of religious, such as ‘Christian’ or ‘Hindu’, affinities in constructions of national identity and the operation of national institutions

This special issue of Religion, State and Society is planned for publication in the first half of 2018. The editors have been invited by Routledge to also consider republication of the contributions as a book.

Application Process

Please send completed papers of 6,000-8,000 words by 15 August 2017. To submit a paper, please register for an account and follow the submission instructions at the journal’s online submission portal: http://www.edmgr.com/crss

Source: Taylor & Francis Online