The Alfred Landecker Programme's seminar series on religion, populism and democracy welcomes Professor Jocelyne Cesari (University of Birmingham), who will present on her new book We God’s People: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations.

Jocelyne argues that both religious and national communities are defined by the three Bs: belief, behaviour and belonging. By focusing on the ways in which these three Bs intersect, overlap or clash, she identifies the patterns of the politicisation of religion, and vice versa, in any given context. Her approach has four advantages: first, it combines an exploration of institutional and ideational changes across time, which are usually separated by disciplinary boundaries. Second, it illustrates the heuristic value of combining qualitative and quantitative methods by statistically testing the validity of the patterns identified in the qualitative historical phase of the research. Third, it avoids reducing religion to beliefs by investigating the significance of the institution-ideas connections, and fourth, it broadens the political approach beyond state-religion relations to take into account actions and ideas conveyed in other arenas such as education, welfare and culture. Professor Phil Gorski (Yale University) provides a response based on his expertise in the comparative historical-sociological study of religion.

Alfred Landecker Seminar Series: Religion, populism and democracy

In anticipation of a series of workshops and conferences in collaboration with Cambridge, Utrecht, Yale, Göttingen and Helsinki (Autumn 2021–Winter 2023), this spring, the Alfred Landecker Programme presents a series of seminars on the theme of religion, populism and democracy. Save the date for future events in the series:

• Tbc – Tuesday 20 April, 17:00–18:30
• 'Gaps in the protection of religious minorities through international law' with Nazila Ghanea (Oxford) – Tuesday 18 May, 17:30–19:00
• 'Securitisation and the protection of minorities' with Beatrice de Graaf (Utrecht) and a response by Federica d’Alessandra (Oxford) – Tuesday 1 June, 17:30–19:00

Please note: The seminars are held as meetings via Zoom. For more information and to make a request to participate, please email marietta.vandertol@bsg.ox.ac.uk.