Religion as a category of governance and sovereignty

Description

Religious-secular distinctions have been crucial to the way in which modern governments have rationalised their governance and marked out their sovereignty – as crucial as the territorial boundaries that they have drawn around nations. The authors of this volume provide a multi-dimensional picture of how the category of religion has served the ends of modern government. They draw on perspectives from history, anthropology, moral philosophy, theology and religious studies, as well as empirical analysis of India, Japan, Mexico, the United States, Israel-Palestine, France and the United Kingdom. Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty Copyright Acknowledgements List of Contributors 1: Introduction 2: Who is Madame M? Staking Out the Borders of Secular France 3: “Citizens” and Their Stance toward “Religion” 4: “A New Form of Government”: Religious-Secular Distinctions in Pueblo Indian History 5: The Category of “Religion” in Public Classification: Charity Registration of The Druid Network in England and Wales 6: Sikhs, Sovereignty and Modern Government 7: The Ancestral, the Religiopolitical 8: Exclusive Pluralism: The Problems of Habermas’ Postsecular Argument and the “Making of” Religion 9: Capabilities, Religionizing Effects and Contemporary Jewishness 10: Government, University and the Category of Religion: A Response from Critical Theology 11: Negative Liberty, Liberal Faith Postulates and World Disorder 12: The Category of Religion in the Technology of Governance: An Argument for Understanding Religions as Vestigial States 13: Interrogating the Categories: Of Religion, Politics and the Space Between 14: Afterword Index