Religion & Democracy in East Asia & Europe: Role of Inclusivity & Twin Tolerations, Guide, Progetti e Ricerche di Politica Internazionale

Scarica Religion & Democracy in East Asia & Europe: Role of Inclusivity & Twin Tolerations e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Politica Internazionale solo su Docsity! Jacqueline Tacconelli Comparative Politics Professor Stefano Procacci November 22, 2021 Report on David Kang’s Why there was no religious war in premodern East Asia? In Why there was no religious war in premodern East Asia?, David Kang reflects upon the reasons behind the fact that East Asia has not experienced any religious wars, despite the presence of various religious traditions. Therefore, he asks, ‘how do we explain regional variation in patterns of religious wars?’ and ‘how do we explain a region in which religion has generally not been a part of the explanation for war and rebellion?’. To answer to these questions, he argues that a relevant aspect behind this mystery is the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist religions. To begin with, the author defines a religious war as a conflict in which a religion is the central or marginal cause in the war. To explain the link between war and religion, Kang recalls some theories of religious wars, like considering religion as a concept that covers the real reasons behind a war. However, what is important to underline is that who believes that religion has an impact on conflicts rely on ‘absolutism’ and ‘exclusivity’. This logic sticks around the fact that religion is the most violent social marker. Another key factor is that by having a great number of different religions, some of them are inclusivist and syncretic. These do not have defined boundaries and texts, and therefore, they are also known as religious ‘traditions’, for they are like artistic traditions. The logic here is different: since they have diverse idols, belief and coexistence are not threatened by others, and, consequently, they will have a minor impact from political hostility. In a nutshell, exclusivist religions are not a sufficient reason behind religious wars, and countries with inclusivist religions can witness wars but not be involved. The article illustrates its study on the reasons why East Asia lacks religious wars. The evidence has found that between 1368 and 1841, China has gone through various conflict, but religion was not the main cause. Same happened for Korea. Thus, the author tries to address religious wars internal to nations. In the same period range already analysed, China witnessed 488 internal incidents, out of which only 5% involved religion. East Asian religions were inclusivist ones as they relied on the teacher-disciple approach whose model presented distinguished temples, ways of teachings, martial arts, etc. Also, there was no competition between the three traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, so they did not divide people and cause revolts. Further in the analysis, Kang states that the motive behind such absence should be also studied also in the contact between religion and the state. In East Asia, the ruler was the only responsible for rituals and for the maintenance of legitimacy, the order of heaven. Indeed, negative vents demonstrated the ruler’s weakness in his role. Here, the mandate of heaven is a syncretic combination of beliefs. Therefore, the inclusivist nature of religions may seem a contradictory set of actions just because the modern perspective of religious beliefs as absolutist is very much instilled. Politics intermingled with religion to extract taxes and force them to work together with the state like other civil societies. To conclude, it is evident that the event of finding inclusivist religious traditions tangles with wars is rare and this is because they are characterized by a variety of contents and beliefs that do not race against each other. Report on Alfred Stepan’s Religion, Democracy, and the ‘Twin Tolerations’ In his Religion, Democracy, and the ‘Twin Tolerations’, Alfred Stepan wants to address three main questions to participate to the debate on ‘Are all, or only some, of the world’s religious systems politically compatible with democracy?’ with a comparative point of view. Before presenting the three issues, he first recalls Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. According to Huntington, Western Christianity is the most important feature of Western society, and its main problem is Islam. He thinks that civilizations are the crucial elements and since kin cultures are increasing, the religious’ civilizations are less malleable. Huntington’s main logic is that other religions are not culturally enough to support Western democracies. The first question is to understand what the limits of freedom – twin tolerations - for elected governments from religion are. Recalling Dahl’s ‘eight institutional guarantees’, Stepan argues that they are not enough for a democracy to exist, as a democracy must have a constitution protecting citizens and minorities’ rights. Religious institutions should not have privileges to order public policy to democratic governments. Individuals are free to worship without violating other people’s rights. In a civil society, religious groups can form political parties. Then Stepan addresses his second question. Regarding the requirements set before, how have enduring democracies met these constraints? Also, which Western European biases with religion and democracy should be avoided? The first misinterpretation is ‘empirically’ and warns on claims about the separation of church and state, or the need for secularism. The second states that ‘doctrinally’, we should be cautious on stating that religious systems are democratic or non-democratic. Then ‘methodologically’, to be careful on the ’fallacy of unique founding conditions’. Finally, ‘normatively’, beware of liberal conjunction. In 1990, five out of 15 EU members had established churches. The Netherland, Germany, and Austria permit local communities to decide their impact of religion on education. Italy, like other nations, had religious parties dominating, like ‘Christian Democracy’. Regarding secularism, no Western European Democracy has now a hostile division between church and state. Hence, the moral from Western Europe is in the constant political renewal of the ‘twin tolerations’. Considering the other three fallacies above-mentioned, it is important to highlight that when dealing with univocality, it should be more important to examine if multivocal components of some religions are compatible with the concept of the twin tolerations. In unique founding conditions, we should be careful of falling into the conviction that polities impacted by Islam or Orthodoxy can recreate democracies. Then regarding removing religion from the political agenda is not an empirical reality, but just a normative agenda. Further in the reading, Stepan mentions the relationship between democracy and religions, such as Islam and Orthodoxy by referring to some countries. For what concerns Islam, the author denies Huntington’s thesis on the fact that election in Islamic nations will bring fundamentalist majorities to exploit their electoral freedom to kill democracy. In conclusion, Stepan’s main thesis is that Islam, Eastern European orthodoxies, and Confucianism are not more authoritarian than Christianity. The aspect of the "twin tolerances" is crucial for settling the conflict, within democracies, between religion and politics. I agree in his idea that believers let the state