Gods, Guns, and Globalization: Religious Radicalism and International Political Economy 9781588269720

Citation preview

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Gods, Guns, and Globalization

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International Political Economy Yearbook Volume 13 Kurt Burch, Robert A. Denemark, Mary Ann Tétreault, and Kenneth P. Thomas

Series Editors Board of Editors Jonathan D. Aronson University of Southern California Richard Ashley Arizona State University Valerie J. Assetto Colorado State University William P. Avery University of Nebraska James A. Caporaso University of Washington Christopher Chase-Dunn Johns Hopkins University Robert W. Cox York University Joshua Goldstein American University Keith Griffin University of California, Riverside W. Ladd Hollist Brigham Young University Raymond F. Hopkins Swarthmore College Takashi Inoguchi University of Tokyo Barbara Jenkins Carleton University Stephen D. Krasner Stanford University

Robert T. Kudrle University of Minnesota Kate Manzo University of Newcastle Sylvia Maxfield Yale University Bruce E. Moon Lehigh University Lynn K. Mytelka UNCTAD Henk Overbeek Free University of Amsterdam V. Spike Peterson University of Arizona David P. Rapkin University of Nebraska D. Michael Shafer Rutgers University Christine Sylvester Australian National University William R. Thompson Indiana University F. LaMond Tullis Brigham Young University Raimo Väyrynen University of Notre Dame

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Gods, Guns, and Globalization Religious Radicalism and International Political Economy

edited by

Mary Ann Tétreault Robert A. Denemark

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

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Published in the United States of America in 2004 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2004 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gods, guns, and globalization : religious radicalism and international political economy / Mary Ann Tétreault and Robert A. Denemark, editors. p. cm. — (International political economy yearbook; v. 13) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58826-253-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Religious fundamentalism. 2. Globalization—Religious aspects. 3. Religion and international affairs. I. Tétreault, Mary Ann, 1942– II. Denemark, Robert Allen. III. Series. HF1410.I579 vol. 13 [BL238] 337'.05 s—dc22 [201/ 2004001831 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America

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The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5

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This volume marks the end of our editorship of the International Political Economy Yearbook, and we would like to dedicate it to the scores of people whose efforts contributed so much to the quality and breadth of each of the five projects we have overseen: The contributors to these volumes The members of our editorial board who served as first-line reviewers of abstracts and as referees of completed submissions The many other experts we called upon to be outside referees for each of the chapters submitted for inclusion Our guest editors, Valerie Assetto and Dimitris Stevis, whose volume on environmental politics is a valued contribution to the series The external reviewers for Lynne Rienner Publishers Our editorial assistants: Beate Gersch, Kendra Alvarez, Amy Nordlander, Roel Ramos, Beatrice Bachmann, and Linda Walkden Our spouses and children, who have been so patient, supportive, and tolerant of so many demands and distractions *

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Collective projects rely on enormous amounts of often—and necessarily— anonymous labor, and we are grateful to every one of you for all you have done for us.

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Contents

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Contending Fundamentalisms: Religious Revivalism and the Modern World Mary Ann Tétreault

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The Religious Right Reacts to Globalization Carolyn Gallaher

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The Christian Right, Globalization, and the “Natural Family” Doris E. Buss

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The Triangle of Conflict: Fundamentalisms in Israel and the Territories Rafael Reuveny

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To Be Modern, but in the “Indian” Way: Hindu Nationalism Shampa Biswas

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Modernity, Civil Society, and Religious Resurgence in South Asia Mustapha Kamal Pasha

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Globalization, Modernization, and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria Bradford Dillman

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Islamism and Iran’s Postrevolutionary Economy: The Case of the Bonyads Suzanne Maloney

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Globalization, Islamization, and Women’s Employment in Indonesia Roksana Bahramitash

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Falun Gong and the Threat of History Adam Frank

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Fundamentalism and the Global Political Economy Robert A. Denemark

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List of Acronyms References The Contributors Index About the Book

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Contending Fundamentalisms: Religious Revivalism and the Modern World

The learned have their superstitions, prominent among them a belief that superstition is evaporating. Since science has explained the world in secular terms, there is no more need for religion. —Garry Wills The contemporary upsurge in religious social movements, including terrorist movements that interpret their activities in religious terms, came as a surprise to most Western observers.1 The U.S. public sees these movements as mostly Muslim or at least third world, especially since the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Yet the oldest, strongest, and arguably the richest fundamentalist groups and organizations are Christian and U.S.-based. Indeed, the term fundamentalism was originally Christian. It was invented to describe the reaction first by U.S. Presbyterians and then by other Protestant groups to two threatening intellectual trends: higher criticism, a novel historical approach to biblical studies, and the growing popularity of Darwinian theories about the origin and genealogy of the human species. In 1910, in response to these challenges, U.S. Presbyterians drew up a list of criteria for discriminating between true believers and everyone else. These five points were called the fundamental principles of the true Christian faith: the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Jesus, the death of Jesus on the cross as a substitutionary atonement for original sin, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the authenticity of miracles. Other evangelicals made their own lists of basic beliefs.2 The lists were published in a series of volumes, The Fundamentals, which were produced from 1910 to 1915 and marketed to a mass audience of believers. In 1920, the authors of these lists began describing themselves as fundamentalists to signify their identity as Christians engaged in preserving the fundamental tenets of their faith (Wills 1990: 132–133). 1

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That brief synopsis indicates why the term fundamentalist has come to refer to participants in religious movements in non-Christian faiths and why the path traveled by Christian religious critics resembles paths taken by others claiming a religious mission to attack modernity. First, fundamentalism began as and continues to be, at least in part, a reaction to modernity. Higher biblical criticism, with its focus on reclaiming knowledge of the historical Jesus, shifted attention from traditional faith in the divinity of Jesus to a modernist search for empirical evidence about his life and times. Fundamentalists feared that treating Jesus as just one more historical personage would undermine the belief that he was God incarnated. At the same time, Darwinian science clashed with biblical stories of creation. In the form of the ideology and practices we call social Darwinism, it also glorified much of what Christian teaching had long struggled to represent as sins, especially pride and avarice (e.g., Hirschman 1997; Newhouse 2000). A religious response to the spread and intensification of modernity that identifies and articulates traditional values should have been anticipated, especially given how often this pattern has appeared in the past (e.g., James 2001; Walzer 1965; Wills 1990). Second, fundamentalism is a communally organized response to modernity. The fundamentalist self-image is of a community of true believers. Their acceptance of divinely revealed truth and adherence to behaviors that are commanded by scriptures they say they accept literally and completely sets them off from an otherwise wicked world. Much of the fundamentalist rhetoric on dogma charts the boundaries between blessed communities and the rest of the world. Included as members of the benighted majority outside the blessed community are persons who nominally share religious traditions with fundamentalists.3 Third, despite their emphasis on inerrant truth, fundamentalisms are plural movements, both dogmatically and organizationally. Not only do many Christian sects, including Catholicism, have fundamentalist wings; adherents of other religions also can be seen as reacting to the pressures of modernity in similar ways (see Chapter 3, this volume). Indeed, in addition to fundamentalist groups and movements within the three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), cosmic belief systems without gods, such as Buddhism (of which Aum Shinrikyo and Falun Gong are offshoots—on Falun Gong, see Chapter 10), and those with multiple gods, such as Hinduism (see Chapter 5), also support contemporary fundamentalist movements. This chapter concentrates on analyzing key concepts and relationships informing the case studies that follow. These include fundamentalism and religious social movements; secularist fundamentalisms; and globalization as the structural framework within which modernity, as a historical project and a set of processes, intersects with fundamentalisms of various kinds. I look at these in a global context, both in the spatial sense of anywhere on

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the planet and in the sense that they describe structurally and ideologically similar responses to similar pressures. For example, if we can agree that less-than-planetwide globalization has occurred in the past, I would argue that the Pharisee and Jesus movements as variants of Judaism and significant elements of the Protestant Reformation are fundamentalist in the sense I have outlined here (see also Crossan 1998; James 2001; Stegemann and Stegemann 1999; Walzer 1965). To repeat, we should not be surprised that our era is so full of fundamentalisms. What should surprise us is that we neither anticipated them nor understand them very well despite their historical and contemporary prominence. This volume was undertaken to further such a project of understanding. Begun before the events of September 11, it has made us acutely aware of the difficulties in applying multiple disciplinary lenses to such diverse and multifaceted phenomena. From the outset, we decided to extend our survey beyond Islamism, the cliché fundamentalism of our era. This reflects the sense of the editors that religious movements are as driven by external pressures as by internal conviction, as well as our desire to apply at least an implicit comparative lens to them. We offer the results not as a definitive report but rather as a preliminary and necessarily incomplete assessment of the situation as it appeared to us in the first years of the new millennium.

Religion and Identity Despite my thesis—that there is a direct connection between the rise of religious social movements and structural changes in the political economy—and recent events that connect religious movements to violent acts, I argue neither that religious social movements are purely products of rapid socioeconomic change nor that they are inevitably violent. Religion is partly a philosophical orientation. It also is a system of social control and a vehicle for political mobilization. Religious activists often harbor political goals (e.g., Boyer 1992; Roy 1994b), and religion is useful for challenging the state because it allows activists protesting regimes they believe to be morally wrong to claim supernatural authority for their actions. In this they may be following the lead of the regimes they are attacking, some of which themselves claim supernatural authority in support of their right to rule.4 Religious activism often accompanies communal and intergroup violence, not only because of religion’s role in maintaining group boundaries but also as a result of the ways in which political and religious elites react to challenges to their authority (e.g., Boyer and Nissenbaum 1974; Fredricksen 1999; Goldberg 1992). This relationship seems to hold even when elites are movement activists or sympathizers (Stegemann and Stegemann 1995) and whether or not leaders of particular groups have

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political ambitions for themselves (e.g., Jurgensmeyer 1993; Sprinzak 1992). To focus on religion acknowledges its continuing importance in the construction of group identity, its integral place in a range of discourses of resistance to political repression and economic marginalization (Boyer and Nissenbaum 1974; Goldberg 1992; Marty and Appleby 1993a; Petito and Hatzopoulos 2003; Walzer 1965), and its unique characteristics as a vehicle for mobilizing group resources to support movements for social change. Religious dissidence is not merely protest against practices but also a Gramscian war of position against ideologies that support systems of dominance. Throughout human history, religion has defined community boundaries. It rationalizes a group’s collective history and its members’ claims to social recognition and protection (e.g., Moynihan 1993; PBS 1999; Smith 1991). As a boundary marker, religion contributes to discourses marking off the self from the other and historically has supported social movements attacking vulnerable population groups (e.g., Bartov and Mack 2001; Goldhagen 1996; Langmuir 1990; Lubbe 2001; Sells 1996; Zubaida 1993). The linkage between religion and community, which I discuss below as culture, remains even where religions retain only marginal cultic functions and minimal direct involvement in governance (e.g., Malina 2001; PBS 1999; Sells 1996; Wolf 1999). Indeed, where the political role of religion is minimized by minority status or by secularization, its cultural functions may assume even greater salience for the community.5 One result of this emphasis on communal boundaries during periods of religious resurgence is the strong tendency of religiously defined communities to engage in self-segregation (Boyer and Nissenbaum 1974; Goldberg 1992; Juergensmeyer 1993; Marty and Appleby 1993a; Stegemann and Stegemann 1995; Walzer 1965). In consequence, group members can be closely observed and controlled while divergent elements of their identities are reflexively suppressed, masking commonalities that might allow them to identify with outsiders. This explains not only the ideological rigidity of fundamentalists but also the relatively high degree of social and political homogeneity within their movements. When the group becomes a focus of attention and criticism by outsiders, this self-segregation reinforces perceptions of injustice and feelings of victimization.

Cult(ure)s Cult is the colloquial term for outré or extremist groups and preferences. Even in this sense, it retains some of its academic meaning as an ideological and social framework for group existence. In religious studies, cult refers to a system of religious worship incorporating particular beliefs and

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rituals. In ancient societies, cult connected a people to their cosmic origins, and political leaders incorporated religious observance into civic activities to claim divine protection for the state. Refusal to participate in cultic practices was believed to endanger state and community and could bring dire consequences to resisters (PBS 1999; Stegemann and Stegemann 1999; Wolf 1999).6 Modern societies and states also use ritual, including religious ritual, to mark solemn events, such as the opening of legislative sessions, coronations/inaugurations of new leaders, and funerals of high dignitaries (Juergensmeyer 1993). The explosive reaction to a summer 2002 appellate decision regarding the use of “under God” in the U.S. pledge of allegiance and a similar outcry following a decision to remove crucifixes from Italian public schools reveal the imbrication of religion in popular civic observances. Yet despite these emotional outbursts, there are significant structural differences between archaic cult and modern religion. This can best be understood through comparison to another segment of organized community life that also changed radically in the process of modernization: the economy. Karl Polanyi described the spread of market society in the modern world as a process of disembedding economics from the rest of social life, particularly from “the political and governmental system . . . [where] the production and distribution of material goods in principle is carried on through a self-regulating system of price-making markets” rather than “blood tie, legal compulsion, religious obligation, fealty, or magic creat[ing] the sociological situations which make individuals partake in economic life” (1968: 81–82). Of course, even in highly privatized economies, economic life remains enmeshed in political and social structures (e.g., Gills 2003; Lindblom 1977; Polanyi 1944). It is less that the economy per se is detached from politics and society than that economic instruments of coercion are substantially privatized. In the most extensively marketized societies, responsibility for outcomes is overwhelmingly attributed to individuals rather than to structures (Polanyi 1944; see also Bordo 1993; Fox and Lears 1983; Lemert 1997). This is how privatization naturalizes capitalism and makes it seem a characteristic of human beings rather than a product of culture. I suggest that a similar disembedding of religion from social life detaches religious authority and practice from political systems, thereby creating secularized society. Although religious and quasi-religious ideologies and practices persist in political ritual and often are protected by regulation and civil rights and civil liberties guarantees (e.g., Belluck 2001), organized religions in secularized societies are perceived less like the agencies of ruling elites than as corporate rivals competing in a quasi-market for allegiance, support, and power. But despite these similarities, privatizing

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religion and privatizing the economy are different in process and outcome. Rather than making a particular set of religious beliefs and rituals normative, detachment from coercive public religious institutions frees people not only to choose a moral order within which to conduct their private lives but also whether or not to participate publicly in and contribute to a particular religious organization. With respect to the private economy, most citizens must work to live, but in a modern society they can participate in community life without belonging to a church. In consequence, religious elites in secularized societies cannot command universal obedience and economic support through political coercion or legal compulsion, whereas in multicultural societies they must contend with rivals for the affections and allegiance of populations. Voluntary religious affiliation and/or a refusal by individuals to adopt any religious affiliation or to conform to a particular set of religiously mandated practices may offend clerics and their followers, regardless of whether states protect religious leaders and activities. But where states are believed to be encroaching on religious prerogatives or violating religious principles, religious movements may attract popular support as well as deny the legitimacy of state efforts to contain or repress them (Goldberg 1992; Juergensmeyer 1993). Religious opposition to secularism as an ethical perspective—what Christianists decry as “secular humanism” and Mark Juergensmeyer identifies as secular nationalism—as well as opposition to behaviors seen as modern and therefore “godless” by many Islamists are significant components of the ideologies of militant Jewish, Christian, and Muslim groups.

Religion and Ideology The root of the term religion in English comes from the Latin religio, which means “obligation,” “bond,” “scruple,” and “reverence”—a combination that includes references to both practice and belief. We can think of religions as systems of thought that combine a cosmology with a code of behavior intended to enable human beings to live in harmony with the powers that control the universe. Often articulated as an integral part of religious practice, such as the assertion that Islam is a “total system,” a way of life that conforms at every level with God’s will (Ahmed 1999), this perspective underlies contemporary calls by religious leaders and their adherents for governments to make positive law conform to religious law (e.g., Burgat and Dowell 1997; Wilentz 2002; Zubaida 1993). There are many definitions of ideology, but the one I use here comes from anthropologist Eric Wolf. He says that ideologies are “unified

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schemes or configurations developed to underwrite or manifest power” (Wolf 1999: 4). Wolf emphasizes power as “an aspect of all relations among people” (Wolf 1999: 4) and ideologies as means of defining and controlling the “contexts in which people exhibit their capabilities and interact with others” (Wolf 1999: 5). This image of power as a product of the interaction of unique individuals in particular contexts recalls Hannah Arendt’s concept of political power as something generated in what she calls spaces of appearance: Action and speech create a space between the participants which can find its proper location almost any time and anywhere. It is the space of appearance in the widest sense of the word, namely, the space where I appear to others as others appear to me, where men exist not merely like other living or inanimate things but make their appearance explicitly. (Arendt 1959: 177)

Political ideologies define the location and shape of political spaces, identify those who are entitled to appear in them, and indicate how these actors ought to behave. Ideologies also direct what Wolf in another context described as the articulation of “an overall hegemonic pattern or ‘design for living’” that is “not so much the victory of a collective cognitive logic or aesthetic impulse as the development of redundancy—the continuous repetition in diverse instrumental domains, of the same basic propositions regarding the nature of constructed reality” (Wolf 1982: 388). Religion and ideology are similar, and to some degree they overlap. Each combines normative and positive elements to create a total system or overall hegemonic pattern designed to shape a material reality to conform to a society’s beliefs about the origin of authority and the proper structure of power. 7 Religions tend to locate that source of authority in cosmic forces, such as one or more transcendent gods, and power in earthly vicars like the Pope, the Velayat-e-faqih, religious scholars and saints, televangelists, and even in family patriarchs who are said to speak and act in accordance with divine will (e.g., Barakat 1993; Butler 1978). Ideologies tend to locate authority and power in earthly forces such as nature (e.g., Gould 1981; Herrnstein and Murray 1999), the market (e.g., Lindblom 1977; Polanyi 1944; Stiglitz 2002), and in sociopolitical regimes and the people who preside over them (Wolf 1999).8 It is the linkage between religious cosmologies and earthly distributions of power and wealth that encourages the examination of modern religious social movements in the context of the international political economy. There is an important distinction between ideological and religious worldviews with respect to how each envisions bad outcomes. Anthony Giddens (1990) discusses it in terms of “risk” versus “dread” and thus, by

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extension, what I will call the difference between risk-management and dread-amelioration. Modern societies, built on trust in the reliability of expert systems such as air traffic control, banking and financial systems, and the Internet (Giddens 1990), use risk-management techniques to minimize the extent and impact of bad outcomes (e.g., Haufler 1997).9 In the Giddens formulation, risk management is fundamentally social. Experts devise and operate the complex infrastructure of modernity. Part of their job is to calculate the likelihood of various outcomes arising from a particular action, assess their respective costs and benefits, and manage the system as a whole according to whatever strategy is chosen by the relevant decisionmaker. Individuals protect themselves against downside risks through their initial choice of experts, by selecting among whatever options their experts offer, and by purchasing insurance or pursuing other hedging strategies just in case things go wrong. Risk-taking in this context depends on a high level of confidence—trust—not only in the system as a whole but also in a particular set of experts and what they are offering. Ongoing revelations of extreme malfeasance in major U.S.-based corporations and financial institutions have triggered reactions against both corporate leaders and financial advisers, damaging trust in these expert systems. Giddens places expert systems and trust at the heart of his vision of how modern persons engage with their world, but he sees premodern and, by implication, religious visions of the causes of bad outcomes differently. The latter are not conceived as the product of poor choices from an array of options but rather as punishments or even random acts by supernatural forces. It is here that I diverge from his analysis. Dread, indeed, is an emotion arising from fear of bad outcomes, and those in dread attribute outcomes, good and bad, to supernatural forces. However, the message embedded in successful religious cosmologies is the opposite of what Giddens assumes. Religions are successful to the extent that they offer attractive self-help systems to agents. Bad outcomes can be avoided not only by properly performed religious rituals—acts that are partially social—but also by right behavior—acts whose initiation and performance are within the control of the individual.10 Elaine Pagels (1988) argues that the desire to ameliorate dread through positive agency explains why Augustine’s conception of original sin gained so many enthusiastic adherents in the early church as compared with the doctrines of the Pelagians, who taught that bad outcomes were a matter of chance rather than divine retribution for bad behavior. Even modern persons cope with bad outcomes by adopting strategies of dread-amelioration to supplement strategies of risk-management (Kushner 2001; Pagels 1988). They return to religious principles and behaviors as a means of taking control of their personal lives and of protecting their communities.

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Ritual and Legitimation Ritual is a “special vehicle of ideology that usually combines verbal and non-verbal communication to generate messages in condensed form” (Wolf 1999: 57). It is a “script[ed] sequence” of physical actions “in a structured environment that emphasizes, validates, and extends the schemes being communicated to the participants.” Such “culturally validated script[s are] not open to alternative modes of expression”; to the extent that they depend on authorized persons to direct and/or perform them, they also “disprivilege the ability and motivation of others to be recognized and heard” (Wolf 1999: 128). Ritual reinforces rules because it “obviates discussion of belief and publicly signals adherence to the order in which one participates. Requiring people to take part in rituals and abstaining from rituals thus signals who has power over whom” (Wolf 1999: 57; see also Airlie 1998 and text above). Religious rituals link human beings with cosmic forces, and their performance often reflects who does and does not have “supernaturally instituted privileges” and authority in society (Wolf 1999: 129). Political rituals connect human beings to the state and to one another as its members. Even secular political ceremonies may be patterned on religious rituals and incorporate explicitly religious elements. For example, the ceremony held on the National Day of Prayer to honor the victims of the September 2001 attacks began with a civic hymn and formal prayers from clergy from a wide array of religious traditions, including Islam, Judaism, and several Christian sects. It included a sermon by Billy Graham, a Protestant minister who served as an adviser to several presidents, and a speech by the president. Both were infused by the language and imagery of evangelical Protestantism. Together they exemplify the simultaneous efforts of political elites to expropriate religious authority to strengthen their claims to rule and their choice of policies (e.g., Combs-Schilling 1989; Halliday 2000; Kantorowicz 1981), as well as clerical elites to impose ritual requirements on political leaders to assert their own authority to interpret human events (e.g., Airlie 1998; Kantorowicz 1981).11 One might well ask why political leaders do not simply absorb religious authority as Thomas Hobbes (1651/1952) recommended be done by the ruler of his leviathan state. Indeed, perhaps the longest-lived continuous regime in the world today is the Japanese monarchy, which is rooted in the special relationship between the Japanese emperor (who until 1945 represented himself as a god) and the sun goddess (who protects and nourishes the Japanese people). The ideological power of this marriage between religion and state in Japan reached a kind of apotheosis in the first organized movement of suicide bombers, the Kamikaze, or “divine wind,” that bore

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young Japanese pilots to self-immolation in defense of their country during World War II (Bix 2000). But Charles Lindholm (1992) argues that it is difficult to combine these different roles successfully even in a monocultural setting.12 In most societies, political leadership is earned through superior performance in instrumental domains such as governance and war; superior performance by religious leaders is linked to normative rituals and practices such as prayer and adjudication. The proper exercise of sacerdotal functions should ensure the safety of the material world from destructive forces—like earthquakes, famines, and bad weather13—while the proper exercise of judicial authority depends on disinterest in the matter being adjudicated (Lindholm 1992; see text below). 14 Relations between the leader and the community differ in each instance because political leaders are chosen as the result of successful competition as members of the community, whereas religious leaders exercise authority by operating above or outside it. René Girard (1977) also identifies adjudication as a primary social function of religious leaders, particularly in poorly institutionalized communities where their efforts constitute the main constraint on retaliatory violence. Girard suggests that ritual sacrifice evolved precisely to strengthen community cohesion by “absorbing . . . internal tensions, feuds, and rivalries . . . to protect the entire community from its own violence” (Girard 1977: 7–8, emphasis in original). However, Wolf shows that religion was used in Aztec society to validate violence, both by encouraging the warfare that allowed the Aztec state to rise as well as through associated rituals of human sacrifice, the chief means by which Aztec elites confirmed their status and power as members of the ruling class (1999: 180–181). I would make a similar argument linking ritual and violence regarding the ritual torture and murder of heretics by the Roman Catholic Inquisition15 and to military rituals in modern states, such as religious and civic observances at the tombs of unknown soldiers.16 Girard’s theory includes a concept useful for linking systemic upheavals, political ideology, and the explosive growth in religious social movements that we seek to understand. This concept is sacrificial crisis. Girard defines it as a situation in which “the illusion of impartiality . . . collapses” because “differences between . . . antagonists” are effaced (Girard 1977: 46, 47). When sacrificial crises occur, authorities lose their capacity to make socially and psychologically acceptable distinctions between parties in conflict and, therefore, are unable to break cycles of protest or violence through adjudication. The analytical distinction between moral and status differences is not clearly drawn by Girard, who sees eroding status differences as a cause of conflict but crisis as a result of the loss of moral distinctions:

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The more a . . . conflict is prolonged, the more likely it is to culminate in a violent mimesis; the resemblance between the combatants grows ever stronger until each presents a mirror image of the other. There is a scientific corollary: modern research suggests that individuals of quite different make-up and background respond to violence in essentially the same way. (Girard 1977: 47)

In consequence of this violent mimesis, each side sees the other as evil to be eradicated. Anything one does in retaliation to the other is interpreted by the actor as merely an attempt to restore the balance between the antagonists, an existential crisis (Roy 2001b) that is a primordial version of the security dilemma (Jervis 1976). Girard’s theory of sacrificial crisis enriches the concept of legitimation crises in market societies, 17 developed by Jürgen Habermas. Habermas locates the cause of such crises in the conjunction between an ideological naturalization of the economy as separate from and uncontrolled by bourgeois elites and reactions to operations of the market that result in unemployment and capital losses (Habermas 1973: 23, 28–30). People become disaffected and alienated when “functional weaknesses in the market and dysfunctional side effects” of the rules that govern the way the economy is managed by elites are exposed, leading to the collapse of the ideology underpinning the system, the “universal value” of “fair exchange” (Habermas 1973: 36). A legitimacy crisis requires repair or reconstruction of the ideology that justifies the political-economic order. Habermas believes that the nominal democracies that are the political expressions of market societies are organized so that, in spite of a public ethic emphasizing civil rights that includes participation by citizens in the political process, what results in practice is “civic privatism,” characterized by a preoccupation with private interests and, with regard to public life, “political abstinence” (Habermas 1973: 37; also Sennett 1974). In consequence, demands for legitimacy are structurally fragmented, multiply focused, and open to a range of responses. Habermas identifies culture as a reservoir of meaning that can be tapped for legitimation. The leaders of a system in distress use ritual and propaganda to separate the instrumental and the normative parts of the state and to distract attention from its instrumental failures. Strategies include “the personalization of substantive issues, the symbolic use of hearings, expert judgments, juridical incantations, and also the advertising techniques. . . that at once confirm and exploit existing structures of prejudice” (Habermas 1973: 70). This cultural reservoir is equally available to critics. They call upon its symbols to explain why the system has failed, and they indicate what should be done about it. In our era, religious traditions are the cultural reservoirs most frequently appropriated by critics of globalization.

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When the effectiveness of religion for mobilizing popular support becomes evident, the same traditions are available for appropriation by status-quo forces. Each antagonist seeks to propagate a new legitimating ideology and, in the case of the critics, to effect a new distribution of power and authority in society. The central importance of conceptions of justice-as-fairness to the legitimation of market society helps to explain why religious traditions, with their explicit systems of justice embedded in divinely appointed and clerically mediated moral orders, are such potent sources of challenges to globalization. One element of Girard’s theory that I want to emphasize here is the contribution of eroding status orders to communal violence. To Girard, equality is itself a source of social disorder, a view supported by Hobbes (1651/1952: pt. 1, chap. 13), who says that where everyone is equal no one is strong enough to suppress violent emotions like jealousy, envy, and rage. Hobbes defines these emotions as personal qualities that inhere in individuals as human beings. To Girard, they reflect collective anger at an unstable structure of status and entitlements, precisely what might be experienced as a consequence of betrayal by leaders (see Shay 1994) or as a result of acute social, political, or economic pressure on a particular group (Foran 1997). When a sense of victimization is shared and in the absence of effective institutions for nonviolent resolution of the causes of rage, Girard believes that communal violence is highly likely.

Religious Fundamentalism Fundamentalism as a religious orientation is a reactive response to perceived or realized threats to a community defined by shared religious beliefs. Fundamentalisms frequently incorporate utopian visions of communal life to guide everyday practice. Some seek to reconstruct an idealized past, such as the prelapsarian Garden of Eden, the reign of King David, or the brief rule of Mohammad in Medina. Others long for an idealized future; Jews and Christians, along with Shiite Muslims, believe this will be inaugurated with the coming of the Messiah, the return of Christ, or the return of the Mahdi, respectively. To insulate themselves from modern corruption and injustice, most fundamentalists seek to preserve the “true” faith and the framework it defines to create “pure” communities of believers. Scripture-based movements look at their holy books and legal traditions as inerrant sources of guidance, even though adherents may disagree both on what constitutes the scriptural canon—the source of the fundamentals each sees as irreducible— and on what these canonical pronouncements mean.18 A second element of fundamentalism is its relation to tradition. Fundamentalist groups assert their faithfulness to tradition, but the tradi-

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tions they have in mind are no more self-evident and uncontested than their scriptures. In fact, as scholars have noted, fundamentalists are rebels against their religious establishments. The Jesus movement opposed not only the Sanhedrin but also Jewish reformers like the Pharisees (Fredricksen 1999). Calvin, Luther, and other “protestants” were opponents of the hegemony of the Catholic Church and also critical of other protestants. They disagreed with Catholic practices and dogma, such as clerical celibacy, papal supremacy, whether there is a distinction between mortal and venial sins, and whether a soul can be saved by faith alone. They disagreed among themselves whether people should be baptized as adults or children, and how to define the relationships between church and state and clergy and congregations (also Winthrop 1996). Similarly, contemporary Islamists (and Christianists) criticize politics and society and also one another, especially mainstream/mainline clerics they accuse of having compromised with (and therefore been compromised by) the powerful. From a fundamentalist perspective, then, tradition is not what the mainstream believes or does. Rather, it is that set of beliefs and practices that fundamentalists identify for themselves as hallowed by the past and from which they try to construct safe havens in a fallen world. These include visible markers that set off true believers from the rest of society— special clothing, hairstyles, dietary restrictions, ritual practices, and other tokens that help members of a blessed community to discriminate between insiders and outsiders. The markers also help community members to avoid casual interactions with outsiders that could foster sympathy and fellow feeling, thereby weakening the bonds that keep the community intact and uncontaminated (Goldberg 1992). For example, the early-twentieth-century fundamentalist U.S. Presbyterians were obsessed by a desire to preserve beliefs and traditions for posterity (Wills 1990). Children and education also are central concerns of contemporary fundamentalist movements (e.g., Roy 1994a), as are proper relations with persons and institutions exercising authority over the blessed community and its members. The editors of the Fundamentalism Project agree with critics who decry the application of the term fundamentalist to anyone other than descendants of the original Christianist movements. Still, they also acknowledge that the epithet is too widespread to dismiss and, in the interest of greater analytical coherence, offer five criteria they believe common to fundamentalists across religious traditions (Marty 1995; Marty and Appleby 1991, 1993a). First, fundamentalists appeal to fundamentals—a small number of basic tenets embedded in a limited canon that usually is drawn from one or more approved sacred texts. Second, fundamentalists assert that their sacred texts are transparent, timeless, literally truthful, and therefore available to anyone who sincerely wishes to understand them

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(Marty 1995: 34). Third, fundamentalists have a strong tendency toward dualistic and apocalyptic thinking, evident both in formal speeches and writings (e.g., Raban 2002), as well as in products of popular culture such as contemporary best-selling end-time novels (e.g., Goldberg 2002). Fourth, they tend to be zealous about their missions. Fifth, their communities are patriarchal, whether or not they are hierarchical in other ways. Patriarchy and claims to cultural authenticity concentrate fundamentalist practices on gender roles and family life (Hawley 1994; also Marty and Appleby 1993c; Roy 1994a). As a result, the frontier between modernity and the traditional family is a major locus of conflict between fundamentalists and institutions of governance (discussed throughout this volume). It also is a proxy or metaphor for the turbulent frontier between authoritarian and democratic values that marks political transitions between traditional and modern regimes (see Chapter 7, this volume; Tétreault 2001a). Changes in living arrangements and family structure that stem from modernization offer opportunities as well as challenges to fundamentalists. Domestic privacy is a haven for self-expression and experimentation (Gay 1984; Stone 1979; Taylor 1998; Tétreault 1994; 1998b; cf. Peterson 2000; Rich 1986). Dietary practices; friendships; and voluntary associations; what one reads, thinks, and talks about; and how one rears children are some behaviors whose exercise in private space offers protection from authoritative social control. This division of private and public space is characteristic of modernity (Ribcynski 1986; Taylor 1998). It accompanies the replacement of extended family and polygynous households by monogamous nuclear family groups, allowing two adults of the same generation who are bound to one another through affection to live substantially free from external scrutiny of their daily lives (Barakat 1993; Tétreault 1993, 1998b; Stone 1979). Yet modern claims to privacy and traditional claims to male authority also can combine explosively in family violence and exploitation, in part because family nuclearization removes protective mediators and witnesses from the household (Stone 1979; Tétreault 2001a). On multiple levels, then, fundamentalist challenges to evolving family values are not merely proxy conflicts. They are real struggles with the mixed results of modernity that—although it enlarges male autonomy by undermining the legitimacy associated with the authority of senior men over their sons (Pateman 1988)—also threatens that autonomy by extending human rights to women, children, and other dependents (Stanley 1998). The problem of authority is key to the proliferation of contemporary fundamentalist movements (e.g., Ayubi 1995; Goldberg 1992; Zubaida 1993), and it operates on several levels. First, fundamentalist upsurges create crises of authority with political and economic roots, thus challenging the state and its relations with economic actors. They affect whole groups of people similarly, which is why a shared sense of threat or victimization

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is a common part of the fundamentalist community ethos across religious traditions. Premodern crises arose from military conquest, capture, and/or enslavement; exploitive taxes and imperial pressures on land use; and dislocations resulting from state formation (e.g., Crossan 1998; Polanyi 1944; Stegemann and Stegemann 1999). Today we associate them with globalization: commodity price shocks and international financial crises (e.g., Soros 2002; Stieglitz 2002; Uvin 1998) that impoverish families and communities, along with the intensification of global capitalist integration of production and markets (e.g., Mittelman 1996; Rist 1997), which requires perpetual adjustment to dislocations of various kinds.19 Second, fundamentalist movements in developing countries in the Middle East and South Asia, for example, also are reactions against state authoritarianism (e.g., Goldberg 1992; Halliday 2000; Jurgensmeyer 1994; Chapter 8, this volume; Munson 1988; Roy 1994b) and the failure of stateled development programs to ensure economic equity or even meet basic human needs (e.g., Kamal Pasha and Samatar 1996; Chapter 4, this volume; Waterbury 1994; Zubaida 1993). Communal conflicts rooted in political and economic discrimination, like the struggles between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories, and Hindus and Muslims in India, also contribute to the politicization of religion by state and nonstate actors and to its translation into social movements likely to engage in communal violence (Chapters 4 and 5, this volume). A third element in contemporary Islamist movements is antiAmericanism (Ali 2002; Esposito 2002; Raban 2002). Some is broadbased, reflected in popular boycotts of U.S. products in many Middle East countries. More troubling and problematic is the growing identification of the United States as the primary source of injustice afflicting Muslims worldwide. Anti-American attitudes were not unknown before then, but they surged strongly in reaction to the 1991 Gulf War. Many resented the immoderate tone of TV news broadcasts about the war that glorified the bombing of Iraq and the slaughter of retreating Iraqi troops without recognizing the sufferings of Iraqis (Ghareeb 2000). They were outraged by the abandonment of Iraqi Shiites who were called upon by the U.S. president to rise up against Saddam Hussein and then were left to be massacred by his forces (this also distressed U.S. supporters of continuing the war to topple Saddam; see Rieff 2003). Saudi jihadists recently returned from what they saw as their victory in Afghanistan were particularly incensed when their offers to defend their country were spurned in favor of infidel troops scornful of local social and religious sensibilities (Rashid 2001; Roy 2001a, 2001b). These feelings reinforced resentment of U.S. support of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians and were inflamed further by the post–September 11 U.S. war in Afghanistan and even more by the war on

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Iraq launched in 2003. Yet even here, the terrorist component is a minority within larger Islamist movements, and most adherents would prefer nonviolent solutions to the very real problems they see as aggravated and even instigated by the U.S. government (Esposito 2003). This points up the fact that fundamentalist movements, like other social movements, are heterogeneous and multifocal. Some components are highly motivated and organized. They have identifiable leaders, disciplined members, explicit agendas, and strategies that may include violence. At the other extreme are ad hoc elements that attach themselves to religious movements as a matter of convenience; they are flexible in their principles and may be unresponsive to direction. Opportunistic attachment to religious movements by political entrepreneurs, criminals, gangs, and violent individuals is responsible for much of the violence associated with communal movements today (e.g., Cotter 1998; Hudson 1999; Sells 1996). Yet terrorist violence does have political aims. A recent study by Robert Pape (2003), covering slightly more than twenty years of suicide attacks, the terrorist tactic most frequently attributed to religious fanaticism, shows that it is pursued by Marxist/Leninist as well as religious groups and follows a strategic logic aimed at wringing territorial concessions from liberal democracies. Pape’s findings corroborate observations of diversity in beliefs and behavior of devout activists from the same religious tradition. For example, in Iran an Islamist-led, heterogeneous, and broad-based (but majority Muslim) movement overthrew the shah. Only afterward did the clerics among them take control of the postrevolutionary regime (Keddie 1981; Moghissi 1994). Olivier Roy (1994), among others (see Chapter 8, this volume), asserts that Iranian nationalism, as well as the interests and power of various factions within the leadership, not only shape the religious principles the regime advocates but also dominate its policy and politics.

Market Fundamentalism Similarities in the function and operation of religion and ideology explain why religion is not the only source of fundamentalism. Marxian critics of capitalism like E. H. Carr (1939) and Karl Polanyi (1944) were early identifiers of something that capitalist critics of capitalism call market fundamentalism. Like its namesake, market fundamentalism also is founded on the inerrancy of selectively drawn texts (Stiglitz 2002: 138; also Wedel 1998).20 In the textual canon of market fundamentalists who subscribe to the neoliberal dogma known as the Washington Consensus, Joseph Stiglitz

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includes Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, the writings of twentiethcentury economists like W. A. Lewis and Simon Kuznets, and the speeches of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (Stiglitz 2002: 13, 74, 78). The Washington Consensus policies . . . were based on a simplistic model of the market economy, the competitive equilibrium model, in which Adam Smith’s invisible hand works . . . perfectly. Because in this model there is no need for government—that is, free, unfettered, “liberal” markets work perfectly—the Washington Consensus policies are sometimes referred to as “neo-liberal,” based on “market fundamentalism,” a resuscitation of the laissez-faire policies that were popular in some circles in the nineteenth century. (Stiglitz 2002: 74)

Other tenets of market fundamentalism also are selectively derived from the sacred texts. One is liberalization—the removal of government participation, regulation, and oversight from financial markets, capital markets, and trade relations. Polanyi notes that the incorporation of this tenet into the canon is based on a single mention by Adam Smith of an invisible hand that quite literally blesses the belief that markets are inherently selfregulating to adherents. Liberal markets often are equated with laissezfaire—freedom of contract—but the conflation of these incompatible concepts imposes contradictory demands on government. On the one hand, it should refrain from regulation and the protection of those injured by the market so that the invisible hand can do its work; on the other, it should restrict freely chosen behaviors such as strikes, monopoly, and cutthroat competition that hurt business interests (Polanyi 1944: 148). Privatization is another tenet of market fundamentalism. It refers to the conversion of state-owned and/or -managed producers of goods and services to private ownership and management (Wedel 1998: 50). Belief in the inherent superiority of privatization (as opposed to socially owned production) grows out of the faith that markets will always spring up to meet every human need (Polanyi 1944: 55). An even deeper assumption lies beneath these fundamentals: that the only motive for human action is want-satisfaction (variously termed profit maximization or utility maximization)—the contemporary understanding of avarice. It identifies market fundamentalism as a modern ideology. Indeed, it is the belief system guiding technical managers of the economics of contemporary globalization and leaders of those nation-states who most benefit from it (Rosenberg 2002; Stiglitz 2002; Wedel 1998). Oddly, unlike their reactions to other aspects of modernity, few religious fundamentalists regard the tenets of market fundamentalism as inherently incompatible with their own beliefs. Below I suggest some reasons for this apparent anomaly.

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Globalization Globalization is a complex process of cross-cultural contact and penetration. Its current buzzword status implies that it is something new, but its effects in integrating widening circles of peoples and regions, brought about by improved modes of transportation and communication, are associated not only with the spread of capitalist relations of production but also those that shaped elite exploitation of peripheral regions and subordinate groups long before the modern era (Ekholm and Friedman 1996; also Cavalli-Sforza 2000; Crossan 1998; Kamal Pasha and Samatar 1996; McNeill 1996; Stegemann and Stegemann 1999; Stiglitz 2002). Some call trade the engine of globalization (e.g., Abu-Lughod 1989), whereas others emphasize finance and investment (e.g., Soros 2002). These and other modes of value transfer may be initiated by relatively peaceful exploration and migration, but they often are accompanied by acute violence via war, conquest, colonization, and enslavement, which also initiate or accelerate the redistribution of political and economic resources (Crossan 1998; Stegemann and Stegemann 1999; Wolf 1982). In our era, the movement of people, goods, and money has been intensified by an even faster movement of information. Thus, following Spike Peterson, I use globalization to mean the rapid penetration of bounded political, cultural, and geographic entities by ideological, material, and virtual products originating elsewhere. It includes both the physical movement of living creatures and material goods as well as the virtual movement of money, images, and symbols from their cultures of origin to another site (Peterson 2003). Outside forces are responsible for inflicting the pains and burdens from globalization. That, in my view, is what most evokes reactive responses that emphasize—in addition to the identification and preservation of a blessed community—its members’ shared experiences of pain and loss (Crossan 1998; James 2001; Wills 1990; Wolf 1999). The result is a legitimacy crisis. Yet the state is constrained in responding because marketization has shifted social values and positions. Society is fragmented by the widespread acceptance of possessive individualism (Macpherson 1964), the multiplication of identities and psychological locations of modern persons (Anderson 1991), and the submergence of social concerns beneath a politics of private desires (Arendt 1965; Zaretsky 1986), simultaneously stimulated and amplified by capitalist-controlled communications media (Anderson 1991; Bennett 2001; Bordo 1993). These undermine the notion of national interests and eliminate public spaces available for defining and mobilizing them (Sennett 1974). Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the practical realization of the concept of checks and balances, whose theoretical development conferred positive moral status on conflicts of interest (Hirschman 1997), has turned out to be the prime casu-

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alty resulting from constricting the public sphere to nearly medieval proportions (Bennett 2001; Bourdieu 1998). Over the past quarter-century, our understanding of the mechanics of globalization also has changed. The old image of the international economy was organized around states at various levels of economic development whose citizens and agents trade with and invest in one another. The new image is a world organized into “global commodity chains”—webs of industries and markets whose spatial arrangement transcends political boundaries (Gereffi 1996) and whose effects include altering institutions and practices to decentralize authority in the world economy. States have less authority and fewer resources; other actors, from international organizations to firms, localities, and even consumers, have more. Significant elements of governance have migrated to international institutions in which market fundamentalism is now the dominant and guiding ideology (Stiglitz 2002). This parallels the migration of authoritative control over the economy from elected parliaments to national and international bureaucracies (Burnham 1971; Polanyi 1944; Thomas and Tétreault 1999; Wood 1995) and contributes to the “democratic deficit” associated with globalization (e.g., Thomas and Tétreault 1999). The hegemonic role of key institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along with their increasing capacity to act as handmaidens of the institutions that define modernity (following Giddens [1990: 59], these are: capitalism, industrialism, military power, and surveillance—note the absence of the states-system from this list), make contemporary globalization qualitatively different. Even nineteenth-century globalization, which also extended to every continent and operated through regimes governing trade and investment (Murphy 1994; Schwartz 2000), did not have the same reach. For example, debtors were freer to default in the nineteenth century, a sign of the limited sanctions available to the regime managers of that time. Another complication is that the mechanisms of contemporary globalization are substantially more democratized than before. Yet globalization democracy is not the same as political democracy. Its votes are counted in currency units, not persons, thereby raising the strategic and economic costs of state-led strategies to control its spread. Contemporary globalization has effectively erased most geopolitical and social-structural firewalls separating different ways of life. In earlier eras and places of rapid globalization, elites could block or mute the effects of cultural clashes whether or not they could ameliorate the political and economic dislocations that trade, investment, and warfare inflict. Today, virtual technologies carry such tensions even to remote villages—all that you need is a computer or a TV set to be confronted as an Ego with images of the Other’s alien features, immoral sexual behavior, and disgusting cuisine. Coupled with physical invasions of private, communal, and sacred

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spaces by strangers—from tourists to students to soldiers—and perceptions of victimization aggravated by rapid changes in political economic orders, globalization is simultaneously an engine of integration—the conventional image is the global village—and one that nourishes what Freud called the narcissism of little differences, enhancing the sharpness of distinctions of all sizes and kinds. It is this cultural pressure combined with the real and perceived exploitation of the community of the self by the community of the Other that provoke perverse communal strategies of self-defense and retaliation (Uvin 1998; 2003), undertaken in response to what Harold James (2001: 1) calls reactionary resentment.

The Contemporary Face of Terrorism Contemporary modalities of globalization include the proliferation of relatively unpoliced networks for raising and transferring funds; mobilizing armies; and moving and selling not only goods and services but also persons and ideas, along with the sophisticated weapons and weapons systems formerly monopolized by states (e.g., Nitzan and Bichler 2002; Sampson 1977). Olivier Roy (2001) suggests that modernity supports terrorism through a two-step process. The first is deracination—detaching individuals from their homes and cultures, including persons who know them and have the authority and capacity to restrain their deviant behavior. The second is by enhancing personal mobility—allowing violent activists to move themselves and their resources from one jurisdiction to another to evade legal sanctions. The transnational mobilization and protection of religious activists by state agents, such as occurred during the Afghan wars, also contribute to the creation of terrorists and their networks and the persistence of both over time (Hersch 2002; Rashid 2001; Roy 2001a, 2001b). The effectiveness of social movements, including any terrorist components, depends on the existence of protected spaces within which they can operate in reasonable safety. A movement that links multiple centers of crisis, crosses national boundaries, and whose interests coincide at least in part with those of powerful political, economic, and/or social forces in one or more jurisdictions is more likely to have access to protected spaces than a movement that is localized and/or without elite patrons. Successful mass movements frequently are led by members of privileged social classes with significant economic and political resources. The social and political connections of Saudi Osama bin Laden and Kuwaiti Sulieman bu Ghaith made it far more likely that they would be exiled rather than executed for domestic terrorist activities. The bin Laden family’s great wealth, its links with the U.S. political elite, and financial contributions that mullahs such as Sulieman can mobilize through appeals to the faithful and then transfer

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abroad under the guise of charity underpin the capacity of such persons to move and act (Fouad 2001; Tétreault 2000, 2001; Unger 2003). The multiplicity and heterogeneity of fundamentalist leaders and groups place them in the category of “new social movements.” These are relatively unstructured networks whose elements come together when an “opportunity structure” occurs that allows adherents to take action and offers them a reasonable hope of success (Meyer 1993, 2000). David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla (2001) argue that such movements are uniquely capable of “netwar”—their name for social conflict carried out by flexible, nonhierarchical coalitions that come together for a particular purpose at a particular time and then disperse, perhaps to join with different partners to work for different issues or simply to disband when the immediate task has been completed.21 These authors identify terrorists and their organizations as just such diverse and dispersed entities, any element of which might enter or exit a range of civil society and social movement structures. A similar understanding of revolutionary new social movements is offered by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000). Unlike Ronfeldt and Arquilla, they view netwar positively, as “biopower” (using a term from Michel Foucault to describe this constellation of modern technology in combination with human agents). Hardt and Negri see such networks as means for the wretched to mobilize on their own behalf against “empire”—the organizational product of globalization. In either formulation, a network is available to every interconnected element: not only to Citibank but also to systems of informal banks and agents that enable guest workers abroad to send remittances to families residing in remote rural areas cheaply and quickly (e.g., Chaudhry 1997: 241–250); not only to the Vatican and the IMF but also to the charities and bankers of Sinn Fein and Al-Qaida collecting money and funneling resources to terrorist operatives around the world; not only to the rich and famous but also to the ordinary and anonymous whose very unobtrusiveness allows them to move through its channels unnoticed and unchecked. It is in this sense that globalization is most intimately connected to the reach of transnational religious movements. I have noted a popular tendency to see Muslim fundamentalists as particularly prone to violence and to explain this as a natural consequence of Islamic beliefs and practices (Abou El Fadl 2002). However, even if we confine ourselves to terrorists who associate themselves with religious organizations and movements, it is clear that Islamists are by no means the only or even the most violent religious activists. As Mark Juergensmeyer (1994) shows, the contemporary upsurge in religious violence involves—in addition to Muslims—Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, and members of groups that few would describe as religious in the conventional sense. Like Olivier Roy (1994, 2001a, 2001b), Juergensmeyer sees religion as a source of identity rather than as a guide for political strategy and religious vio-

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lence as “forms of public performance . . . symbolic statements aimed at providing a sense of empowerment to desperate communities” (Juergensmeyer 2000: xi). As a framework for violent performance, religion offers (in addition to the moral justification I discussed earlier) “images of cosmic war that allow activists to believe that they are waging spiritual scenarios” (Juergensmeyer 2000: xi). Both connect performers to a vast audience in desperate communities for whom risk-management is impossible and dread-amelioration the only strategy for finding a way out of painful existential situations. Horizontal organization and fluidity make strategies to control such groups by disabling or killing their leaders, as exemplified by the hunt for Osama bin Laden, attractive but risky (Weaver 2000). As David Meyer observes (1990, 1993, 2000), new social movement leaders rarely are tied to specific groups and followers. If one is eliminated, others take his place. The ability to assemble a mass following is enhanced by diversity among potential leaders and groups. Perhaps the most important aspect of socialmovement mobilization is the perception that social change not only is necessary but actually possible to achieve at a particular time; that is, it depends on the opportunity structure presented to potential activists (also Fogelman 1994). Indeed, with respect to religious movements, eliminating an individual leader is less likely to mark a movement’s demise than a defining moment in its evolution (Roy 2001a). Combined with the persistence of conditions identified by the fallen leader in his articulation of a crisis, removing a charismatic leader deals neither with the underlying causes of the feelings that attract support for activists, nor with the material bases that allow them to carry out violent campaigns over a long period of time. Sometimes these supports for religious violence are linked. Tom Friedman (2002: A29) argues that, comparing India and Pakistan, people who share “blood, brains and civilizational heritage” are in very different positions. In India, “50 years of Indian democracy and secular education . . . and 15 years of economic liberalization” have produced a nation in which religious violence is localized and increasingly anomalous. Ashutosh Varshney (2001) explains such outcomes in India as growing out of a functioning civil society that works purposefully to alert the community to the possibility of violent outbreaks and then heads them off. Varshney says this capacity is not equal nationwide but rather is concentrated in areas with high levels of literacy and religiously inclusive patterns of associational life. In contrast, says Friedman, “across the border in Pakistan . . . 50 years of failed democracy, military coups and imposed religiosity have produced 30,000 madrassahs”—that is, Islamic schools that have “replaced a collapsed public school system and churn out Pakistani youth who know only the Koran and hostility toward non-Muslims.” 22 Friedman’s comparison

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elides the communal violence characteristic of many parts of India by dismissing it as anomalous. Thus he misses the opportunity taken by Varshney (2001) and Amartya Sen (2000), whose observations lead to different conclusions. They argue that the contrast between sectarian violence and toleration is the difference between communities whose populations have autonomous political and economic choices, versus those whose political economies are not only authoritarian but also ineffective. In the former, people can utilize social networks not only for companionship and profit but also to protect one another. In the latter, people have no networks or choices: they are powerless, disaffected, and vulnerable to political entrepreneurs eager to mobilize troops for their holy wars.

Fundamentalism and Modernity I have argued that fundamentalism and globalization are phenomena with long pedigrees. But I qualified that assessment with respect to globalization, where I noted shifts in ideology and institutions that make its contemporary manifestation qualitatively different from the way it operated in the past. Now I would like to make similar qualifications about fundamentalism, which, like globalization, also operates under the liberating ideologies and through the enabling institutions of modernity. Contemporary fundamentalisms are conditioned by the inability of secular institutions in weak states to protect societies and individuals from demands for adjustment arising from the widening and deepening of capitalism. In this sense, fundamentalism seems antimodern, but such a judgment ignores the pivotal role attributed to earlier fundamentalist movements in effecting the transition to modernity (Weber 1958; Lewis 1990; 1994; Walzer 1964). For this reason alone, and despite flaws in any analysis that privileges ideology at the expense of institutions or the European experience over all others, the assertion that religious movements are wellsprings of modernity bears close examination. Ernest Gellner (1983) argues that Islam, more than Christianity, not only offers a philosophical foundation for modern rationalism but also advocates practices compatible with capitalism. He cites as evidence the illustrious scientific tradition of Arab Islam and its social foundation in a mercantile society (see also Abu-Lughod 1989). Gellner sees in both Islam and Christianity a tension between “normal religion,” which confers an aura of sacredness on everyday life, and “exceptional or revolutionary religion,” which “provide[s] inspiring leadership on a grand scale” during times when everyday life is disrupted (Gellner 1983: 52). Although states may claim religious leadership—and religious leaders may aspire to and

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even succeed in taking over states—religion remains an independent source of authority to be invoked during extraordinary times (see also Kamal Pasha and Samatar 1996; Wills 1990). Gellner’s argument misses a common thread joining the extraordinary Christianism of the Reformation to today’s extraordinary Islamism: whatever other aims they have, both Christianism and Islamism are individualistic rebellions against orthodox religious authority. Roy (1994) emphasizes the antiorthodoxy of “political Islam” in its rejection of the ulama—Islamic scholars, judges, and clerics—as a source of political or religious authority. Ellis Goldberg (1992) understands religious dissidence in Christianity and Islam both as a source of transcendent values and as a platform from which to resist the demands of an authoritarian state and a corrupted clergy. Like Protestants who deny the need for clerical intermediaries to interpret the Bible, Islamists insist on the transparency of the Quran to the sincere seeker of the divine message. This enables both to sidestep orthodox religious hierarchies and claim their own authenticity as interpreters. At the same time, however, it limits their ability to construct an alternative set of values and institutions analogous to what they seek to overturn. Fundamentalist literalism is a sword that cuts both ways. On the one hand, fundamentalist leaders wish to prevent divergent interpretations from undermining their authority and splitting their movement. Consequently, they devise structures and practices to foster internal homogeneity, emphasize group boundaries, and make it easier to monitor and enforce individual compliance with group norms. On the other hand, belief in transparency and in the literal truth of scriptures allows anyone to read and interpret sacred texts for himself. The literalist, in however limited a form, accepts the legitimacy not only of dissent but also of the right to come to his own conclusions about religious doctrine—a highly individualistic position. The same values that justify the independence of fundamentalist movements also inspire many participants in these movements to assert their own authority, legitimizing further dissent. The modern implications of this individualism were clear from the start in Protestantism and already are visible in Islamism. One example, oddly enough, lies in values and practices dealing with gender. Islam, like Christianity, harbors a dual tradition that supports a belief in the moral equality of women and men (Afkhami 1995; Mernissi 1987; Pagels 1988), along with misogynist beliefs such as that differences between the sexes require female subordination to men in this life (e.g., Burgat and Dowell 1997; Mernissi 1992; Pagels 1988; Roy 1994a). Almost from the beginning, twentieth-century Islamist activism brought women out of seclusion and into the streets, not only as participants in revolutions (e.g., Moghissi 1994) but also as leaders and members of women’s reli-

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gious organizations (e.g., al-Mughni 1993, 2000; Hatem 1994). Decades ago, Zeinab al-Ghazali, president of the Muslim Women’s Association in Egypt, took independent political positions that put her at odds with male Islamist leaders and groups (Hatem 1994: 671). In contemporary Kuwait, prominent Islamist women stood against their male counterparts and with other Kuwaiti feminists to support the emir’s 1999 proposal that women receive full political rights (al-Mughni 2000; al-Mughni and Tétreault, forthcoming). Islam arguably provides more scriptural support for male domination than Christianity. Even so, Muslim male dominance is challenged by other scriptures insisting on a woman’s absolute right to property, the moral equality of women and men, and the right of every Muslim to interpret scripture for himself or herself (e.g., Afkhami 1995; Chapter 9, this volume; Esposito 1982; Mernissi 1992). Meanwhile, Islamist modernity as an assertion of individual—God-given—rights to resist repression by rulers and clerics is reinforced in unexpected ways by structural transformations from modernization—mass education and employment, incorporation into global capitalism, changes in traditional personal status laws and their standardization across social and sectarian groupings—each of which combines with the ideal of equality between male and female souls to increase female autonomy and diminish male authority. In response to this challenge, male fundamentalists of all stripes incorporate traditional modes of female repression as elements of social practice (e.g., Hawley 1994). A recent example is the 1998 amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message, approved by U.S. Southern Baptists during their national convention in Salt Lake City: “A wife is to submit herself graciously” to the “leadership of her husband.” But none of these can erase the dilemma at the heart of Islamist and Protestant fundamentalism, which is that their bedrock ideals and goals are—fundamentally—contradictory. The individual who calls upon religion to support his right to autonomy and privacy in an expanded private sphere cannot logically or morally argue for himself and against his wife or his sister, any more than against his neighbor, for seeking the same thing. Similarly, Islamists find it difficult to attack the tenets of capitalism, also constructed on the same modernist foundation of autonomy and privacy. My recent research on privatization in Kuwait (2003b) makes this affinity clear. Parliamentary Islamists are among the strongest advocates of privatization as well as the legal changes that would ease restrictions on foreign direct investment to bring Kuwait into conformity with World Trade Organization rules. Islamists in Iran are equally drawn toward capitalist values and practices, despite revolutionary rhetoric that promised a political economy with stronger redistributive norms and practices than the one that we see today (Bakhash 1989; Chapter 8, this volume). Despite the current obsession with revolutionary Islamic fundamental-

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ism, Olivier Roy (1994a) concluded a decade ago that political Islam had failed. A telling mark is its degeneration into “neofundamentalism”: communal withdrawal, authoritarian religionism, and anomic violence. That is true because most Islamists failed to develop a theory of the state or the few who did failed to do a thorough job;23 it is even more true because extraordinary religion is just that: an appeal to a higher authority than the state to protect a politics for extraordinary times. The attractiveness of such an energetic politics is necessarily limited; religious authority can remain extraordinary only as long as the community it targets is in crisis. Pagels (1988) and others note that the extraordinary religion of early Christian communities soon became routine and then actually counterrevolutionary after Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Fatima Mernissi (1987) identifies a similar process accompanying the institutionalization of early Islam. This outline of the interplay of values and institutions in modernity also illustrates a different point: the reorganization of human society in modernity leaves many places where the values generated by extraordinary religion can continue to be translated into innovative practices and institutions even after the religious impulse that gave rise to them is exhausted. Just as those elements of the Protestant passion that escaped neofundamentalist routinization became the spirit of capitalism, the Islamist passion also could produce transformative philosophical and social innovations. Yet whatever new spirit Muslim fundamentalism generates, like other brands of fundamentalist politics, it brings with it a dark side of violence and repression that threatens to negate its liberating potential. Policymakers and other observers err when they equate fundamentalist terrorism with religious belief. Religion does offer uniquely useful psychological and structural resources to terrorists who invoke it to justify and mine it to orchestrate their violent actions. But with the possible exception of identity seekers, the long history of religiously generated social activism shows that it is more likely to be nonviolent than otherwise (Ahmed 1999; Bloom et al. 1996; Boyer 1992; Wills 1990). Religiously framed appeals by charismatic figures speak directly to persons threatened by the many horrors of contemporary life: war, repression, and displacement; joblessness and economic destitution; endemic disease; and the ever-present evidence of growing inequality and powerlessness. Even those whose life situations appear comfortable may feel alienated from a world where “all that is solid melts into air,” especially if they find themselves unable to control their spouses, communicate with their children, or exercise what they regard as their rightful authority over both. These heterogeneous masses are sources of recruits, money, and legitimacy for fundamentalist organizations, including terrorists who, speaking in idioms they understand, promise a better future in the next life if not in this one. The dark side of fundamentalism is

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constantly available as a generator of violence, one that presents itself whenever the systemic crises that call forth the extraordinary politics of religion occur. However, whether terrorist elements will take over any particular reactive movement remains an empirical question that depends heavily on the scope of the crisis and the strategy chosen to end it. Contemporary fundamentalism is paradoxical. It is deeply embedded in the structures and processes of modernity, but communities of potential adherents see it as an avenue along which to return to an idyllic past or rush toward a postapocalyptic future. This bizarre conflation of tradition and modernity is one of the reasons why Aziz al-Azmeh (1996) sees fundamentalisms as postmodern: fragmented, inconsistent, and hypocritically opportunistic. Their leaders trade on traditionalized religion and ideology, powerful tools of counterhegemonic mobilization against crisis (Habermas 1991). The tendency of religion to produce social activists asserting apocalyptic visions to support radical politics is evident throughout history. But whether these politics are realized through nonviolent political movements or are hijacked by terrorist groups depends less on their religious dimension than on whether or not potential constituencies believe that their desires for dignity and justice can be achieved in this life.

Analytical Objectives The cases described in this volume address one or more of the many questions bearing on the issues that I have outlined above. Each author looks at a case in which a movement that could be described as fundamentalist contributed to or even monopolized the discourse between dissidents and status quo forces. The choice of case, methodology, and focus was left to the contributor, who was asked only to incorporate as much as possible both religious and political-economic dimensions in the analysis. I have shaped my contribution to emphasize the complexity of contemporary fundamentalism and to highlight conflicting assumptions and conclusions about what it means and how it operates. The case studies offer empirical examples that allow each of us to assess the adequacy of the state of our knowledge of fundamentalism and its intersection with the global political economy to answer questions bearing directly on issues of concern to policy. Seven are listed here: 1. The contemporaneous eruption of fundamentalist movements in religions with vastly different theologies, and in both developed and developing countries, suggests that at least part of the reason for their notable rise is systemic. What is the evidence for systemic influence on these movements, and what is the nature of any such influence?

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2. The literature is divided with regard to the relative importance of economic, political, and cultural variables in the genesis and spread of fundamentalist movements. Should we be seeking priorities among these variables or concentrating more on their interrelationships? 3. How and in what way are religious tenets reflected in political, economic, and social goals of fundamentalist movements, and where movement activists achieve political power, how much are they reflected in policy? 4. What other connections link belief and practice in fundamentalist movements? Where “adjustment” occurs, how are these adjustments made? 5. How much of the contemporary fundamentalist upsurge is a reaction to modernity and how much to other factors? 6. What is the role of violence in fundamentalist movements, both internally (doctrinal, psychological) and externally (instrumental)? 7. With regard to the thesis of this volume, is the current fundamentalist upsurge related to the processes of globalization and, if so, how? Bob Denemark’s conclusion (Chapter 11) presents his assessment of the collective contribution of the cases to answering or beginning to answer these questions.

Notes 1. Both the extent of these movements and the lack of understanding of their nature and goals led to the massive study of contemporary fundamentalism sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and directed by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby. The Fundamentalism Project produced a multivolume series of reports, several of which were consulted for this chapter (see Marty and Appleby 1991; 1993a; 1993c; 1994). 2. Garry Wills (1990: 133) notes that the most significant difference between evangelicals and other Protestant fundamentalists was their substitution of the second coming of Christ for the fifth fundamental chosen by the Presbyterians, belief in miracles. Most contemporary Christian fundamentalist movements incorporate an apocalyptic eschatology, familiarly called “the end time,” although various groups disagree among themselves, often strongly, about its choreography. 3. One example is the explicit rejection by the Christian Right of many groups that see themselves as Christian—see Chapter 2, this volume. 4. One of the best examples is the struggle in Latin America where the official Catholic Church has supported authoritarian regimes such as Anastasio Somoza’s in Nicaragua, whereas advocates of liberation theology used Catholic doctrine to argue for political and social change. 5. The obsession of many religious social movements with the status of women exemplifies this focus on boundary maintenance. See Hawley (1994); Marty and Appleby (1993a). 6. Virtually unique among ancient cultures in the West, Jews often were exempt from cultic obligations to the religions of their conquerors because their

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own cultic obligations were not only extensive but also, and unusually, exclusive. This exemption reflected a belief that Judaism was a primordial religion, but it also isolated Jews within diverse communities and foreclosed most positions of authority to Jewish subjects of non-Jewish states (Fredricksen 1999; Stegemann and Stegemann 1999). 7. Anthropologist Gayle Rubin (1975) sees religion, political authority, and economics as reflections in different domains of “sex-gender systems” that distinguish similarly and along gendered lines among those with and without authority in a given society. 8. This is not a dichotomous pattern but a collection of tendencies. For example, Confucianism and Buddhism are ethical systems that share many of the characteristics of religion but have no personalized god. Falun Gong is similar in that regard. 9. Expert systems are similar to the concept of steering used by Jürgen Habermas (1975) to refer to mechanisms and patterns of elite problem-solving in a social system (see below). 10. Geary (1988) observes that the production of good outcomes from successful religious enterprises is also the result of good marketing by leader-proprietors. I would add that much of what constitutes “right behavior” includes both the avoidance of risky activities and acts that promote cooperation and welfare among the community. See, for example, Angier (2002). 11. Claims to religious authority in defense of opposing visions of the appropriate U.S. response to the attacks were expressed in prayers, music, and remarks by all the participants in the September 14, 2001, ceremony of prayer and remembrance at Washington’s National Cathedral. 12. This drawback also is implied in Wolf’s discussion of ecological contributions to political instability in the Aztec state (1999: 194) and in most histories of the concept of the Mandate of Heaven in China. 13. The proliferation of such disasters undermined the confidence of Aztecs in the power of their ruler shortly before the advent of Cortez and his forces (Wolf 1999) and are said to have triggered rebellions in China because they were read as signs that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn from the ruling house. 14. In tribal areas of Swat and Morocco, clerical authority rests on the liminal status of “saintly” families, which exist literally and figuratively in the borderlands between rival political groups, or in the form of liminal personal qualities, such as gender ambiguity, that places a person outside the normal competitive sociopolitical structure. Outsider status is regarded as a guarantee of impartiality and thus of the likely justice of an outsider’s decisions (Lindholm 1992). A secular model of this duality in leadership applied to modern states can be found in Walter Bagehot’s discussion of the English Constitution ([1867] 1963). Bagehot called the instrumental elements I identify with governance and war the efficient part of the state and those identified with normative elements the dignified part. 15. However, Girard probably would see the Inquisition as a ritual sacrifice organized around the killing of scapegoats (Girard 1977: 7–8). 16. Mark Juergensmeyer (1991) agrees that Girard’s assertions about the role of sacrifice in averting violence are violated frequently, regardless of intent, but does not dispute its social role. I agree with Juergensmeyer and with Luc de Heusch (1985), who argue that there is no single interpretation of sacrifice that can be applied cross-culturally. Wolf (1999) concurs, citing sacrifice within specific symbolic systems rather than concluding that it performs the same function across all cultures (see also Elshtain 1991).

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17. Most of the characteristics in what, following Polanyi (1944), I call “market society,” Habermas associates with the bourgeoisie and calls “bourgeois society.” 18. In the modern Christianist context, fundamentalist scriptural reductionism also is challenged by an upsurge of interest in noncanonical scriptures. See, for example, Pagels (2003). 19. The integration of national markets and their incorporation into global capitalism forced the massive structural adjustment that Polanyi (1944) examines. National market integration and incorporation into global capitalism continue to be major sources of stress for developing countries; for developed countries, adjustments are called for in response to similarly dislocating processes associated with regional integration and globalization (Thomas and Tétreault 2000). 20. Amartya Sen (2000: 271–72) argues that this involves systematic misinterpretation and suppression of all but a narrow segment from the canonical works of Adam Smith. 21. This phenomenon is discussed in a licit context and with a more nuanced approach to motivation in Abrash (2003). 22. This proposition is the subject of a set of papers delivered at a conference organized by Eleanor Doumato at Brown University’s Watson Institute on November 14–15, 2003, “Constructs of Inclusion and Exclusion: Religion and Identity-formation in Middle Eastern School Curricula,” particularly in papers by Joshua Landis (“Islamic Education in Syria: Undoing Secularism,” and Badr al-Saif (“A Glimpse of the Saudi Religious Education System: Mohammad Ibn Abd alWahhab’s Kitab at Tawhid and School Textbook Treatment of the Ahl al-Kitab”). 23. Here Roy looks at Iran as the exception, but one where transformation was short-circuited into factional politics and state-centered nationalism. A similar argument is made by Bradford Dillman for Algeria (see Chapter 7, this volume).

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2

The Religious Right Reacts to Globalization

This chapter examines recent trends in the politics of the Religious Right, a broad-based, horizontally organized social movement. Like other so-called new social movements, leaders and adherents of the Religious Right are engaged in a constant process of defining themselves as a coherent whole and their vision and cause as unified. As the movement solidified since the mid-1970s a variety of signifiers have emerged to define that whole, including “invisible army,” “moral majority,” and “silent majority.” Not surprisingly, along with these signifiers categorical counterparts have emerged—terms used to define those not a part of, and often considered hostile to, the interests of those the movement regards as Christian.1 These enemies have been labeled variously as “secular humanists,” “Communists,” and “bleeding-heart liberals.” As the scholarship on identity politics indicates, however, no political category is a given, predetermined entity (Hooper 1998; Mouffe 1995). Rather, a common interest must be articulated as central for a given set of people while differences among them are ignored or downplayed. The differences within the Religious Right are numerous and include age, gender, region, denominational affiliation, and class, among others. This chapter examines one of these—class difference—to see how its potential for disruption is negotiated in the movement’s politics. Although class is certainly not the only difference that threatens the Religious Right’s unity, it is an important one today because globalization has brought class differences into sharp relief, exposing the potential for antagonism. Religious Right leaders have responded to globalization by invoking nationalist rhetoric, over time consolidating their position under the discursive umbrella of national sovereignty and calls for its protection. This chapter analyzes these invocations to national sovereignty and makes two interrelated arguments. First, the Religious Right has tackled the varied anxieties its adherents have with globalization head-on—developing positions on economic issues that directly concern working-class people. Its analysis of the problem and solutions, however, is obfuscated by nation31

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alist rhetoric and, so crafted, is robbed of emancipatory potential. Second, I argue that the rallying cry for national sovereignty invoked by the Religious Right is particularly attuned to questions of gender and is producing a “backlash masculinity” (Hooper 1998). Overall, the antiglobalization politics of the Religious Right results in little of substance for its working-class constituents: their class-based concerns receive only symbolic hearing while the remasculinization proffered as a substitute funnels anger toward those who might otherwise be potential allies against capital. As a case study this chapter examines how one organization, the Eagle Forum, deploys discourses of national sovereignty. The Eagle Forum provides a useful site of analysis for tracking larger trends because it is wellestablished and because its organizational directive is sufficiently broad to allow one to analyze trends. This chapter relies primarily on the Forum’s Allegiance: Briefing Book on American Independence and Sovereignty (Schlafly 2000a), an organizer’s guide it sells to activists, as a source of data. The analysis is divided into the following sections. It begins by outlining the emergence of the Religious Right. The second section outlines a theoretical perspective for analyzing how social movements negotiate and, in some cases, police difference in order to maintain categorical unity. In the third section I introduce readers to the Eagle Forum, outlining its history and explaining its value as a lens for viewing the workings of the Religious Right. In the fourth section I examine how the Eagle Forum employs discourses of national sovereignty to mediate class antagonisms in its ranks by analyzing the positions advocated, and the “talking points” outlined, in the Forum’s Allegiance briefing book (Schlafly 2000a). In the final section I offer some tentative conclusions and comments about what I believe these results can and should say to those interested in domesticating the antagonisms apparent in the Religious Right’s politic.

Forging Unity: The Religious Right Emerges Although the Religious Right is a distinct social movement, it is important to note that its emergence has been part and parcel of a larger political shift in the United States—what scholars label the rise of the New Right (Diamond 1995; Hilliard and Keith 1999; Berlet and Lyons 2000; Wilcox 2000). As the term implies, the New Right emerged from the ruins of the old right, whose decline began with the Great Depression and culminated in the implementation of popular New Deal programs (Brennan 1995). By the early 1960s, however, activists on the right were beginning to regroup, organizing through institutional channels such as the Republican

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Party and grassroots venues like town hall meetings and local churches. While various movements emerged in this context, including the Militia Movement and a revamped racist right, the rise of the Religious Right has been central to its overall success (Diamond 1995). Indeed, evangelical theology undergirds many of the conspiracy theories adopted by groups on the far right. Scholars who study the Militia Movement, for example, note that many adherents situate their choice to take up arms in the apocalyptic terminology common to fundamentalist variants of Protestantism (Abanes 1996; J. Dyer 1997; Stern 1996). Scholars also note that Christian Identity,2 which is popular in militia circles, appeals to the movement’s recruitment base because of its supposedly biblical basis (see Davidson 1996; J. Dyer 1997). An evangelical zeal for proselytizing the unsaved/unlearned also forms the raison d’être of activists across the New Right. Indeed, whether it is the Militia of Montana’s John Trochmann, making the rounds of the informal patriot speakers’ circuit, or Edwin Meese of the Heritage Foundation, appearing on the Sunday new shows, the New Right seems driven to convert people to its way of thinking. For most of the 1900s, evangelical Christians did not involve themselves with politics. Few voted in elections, whether national or local, and politicians likewise ignored them, preferring to focus on constituencies that were well-defined and politically active (Berlet and Lyons 2000; Fitzgerald 1987; Wilcox 2000). Although no one event can capture the complexity of evangelical apoliticism during most of the twentieth century, the public beating its believers took in the aftermath of the infamous Scopes monkey trial in 1925 sheds some light on their perspective (Berlet and Lyons 2000; Fitzgerald 1987; Hoover 1988). The trial involved a Tennessee high school teacher, John Scopes, who was fined $100, a hefty sum at the time, for breaking the state’s ban on teaching evolution in school. Although by the 1920s evolution was widely regarded as fact, for those in mostly rural, southern towns it was still considered a sacrilege. The Bible, evangelicals argued, described man as made in God’s image, and God, they claimed, was certainly not a monkey. The trial culminated in a guilty verdict for the teacher, but evangelicals found they had little to celebrate (Berlet and Lyons 2000). The national media had swarmed to the trial and covered the evangelical perspective much like a freak show, laughing at its backwardness, lamenting its ignorance, and pathologizing its believers. In the trial’s aftermath, evangelical preachers began to emphasize the dangers of interacting with the secular world and advised constituents to stay away from politics. This trend would last well into the 1960s and was espoused even by some of today’s most political evangelical leaders. In a sermon delivered in 1965, for example, the Reverend Jerry Falwell told his parishioners, “Believing the Bible as I do, I would find it impossible to stop preaching

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the pure saving gospel of Jesus Christ, and begin doing anything else— including fighting Communism, or participating in civil-rights reforms” (quoted in Fitzgerald 1987: 129). By the mid-1970s, however, evangelicals began taking tentative steps, engaging the political process and using it to their advantage. Today they are a highly organized political constituency (Diamond 1998; Martin 1999; Wilcox 2000). There are a variety of theories to explain the politicization of Protestants. Some scholars, like Echo Fields (1994), argue that the expansion of capitalist markets, particularly in the South, and the increasing commodification of everyday life pushed fundamentalist Protestants into the political sphere. Their lifeworld invaded, Fields argues, these Protestants fought back, using the political process to protect their Christian values and to normalize them as well. Other scholars argue that the Religious Right emerged due to cultural pressures (Balmer 1994; Brennan 1995; McGirr 2001). In particular, they cite the rise of left-oriented social movements such as feminism, the antiwar movement, and gay pride as key social forces against which the right both reacted and defined itself. Randall Balmer (1994), for example, identifies the legalization of abortion as a defining moment in the movement’s political awakening. He notes that for Protestants abortion became a salient, even romantic issue around which to rally because in the fetus they saw themselves—pure of God yet under assault. Moreover, that abortion occurs on (and is thus written on) the female body heightened the importance of the issue for them. As Balmer argues, Protestant women serve as bellwethers of the culture at large. If they reject their ordained domestic roles, society as a whole is weakened and endangered. Lisa McGirr (2001) also sees the New Right as emerging in reaction to the left-oriented social movements of the 1960s. Adding a geographic twist to her argument, McGirr identifies Orange County, California, as the movement’s epicenter. She notes that the New Right’s social and fiscal conservatism was facilitated, ironically enough, by the very government whose legitimacy it has since called into question. Before 1950, Orange County was a sleepy agricultural place with a small population and limited commerce. As the government poured billions of dollars into the emerging defense industry there, thousands of new, well-paying jobs were created. And as conservative Protestants (many from the Midwest) flocked to California to fill these positions, they simultaneously constructed all-white, socially conservative cocoons for themselves. Assessing the impact of these early right-wing warriors and the legacy they created, McGirr concludes that the scholarly focus on left-oriented social movements is misplaced because it is the counterrevolution of the right that has had the more enduring influence. Indeed, as she notes, since the mid-1970s, the Democratic Party has moved steadily toward the political center, the balance of power

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on the U.S. Supreme Court has shifted solidly to the right, and six out of the last nine presidential elections have been won by a Republican Party increasingly dominated by its conservative wing. While broad cultural and economic changes set the stage for movements like the Religious Right, the process of building a movement is slow and methodical. In the case of the Religious Right, scholars generally agree that its early activists relied on a variety of existing resources to build their movement (Ammerman 1990; Billings and Scott 1994; Diamond 1995; Fitzgerald 1987; Wilcox 2000; Wuthnow 1988). Their scholarship also indicates that the movement’s mobilization appears to have occurred on two distinct and, for a time, unconnected fronts (Ammerman 1990; Diamond 1995, 1998; Wilcox 2000). One of the front lines for mobilization was the Republican Party. The GOP is now widely viewed, by friend and foe alike, as a key player in shaping the twentieth century. As recently as 1940, however, the party was in disarray, plagued by divisions. At root its members were bitterly divided over how best to respond to the New Deal. Conservative elements called for its complete eradication, whereas moderates argued that it was good for the party because it quelled popular discontent—historically the party’s biggest obstacle. The party was also split along geographic lines with an Eastern Establishment controlling the party coffers and decisionmaking apparatus, while the rest of the membership remained isolated from power. Reinforcing this divide was an economic split between the party’s oldmoney members, concentrated in the East, and its new-money constituents, who had struck it rich in oil-boom states like Texas and California (Brennan 1995). Beginning as early as the mid-1950s, however, the party’s “disenfranchised” began to organize, creating a conservative movement. Its ideology was unabashedly antiregulatory, anticommunist, and antisecular (Brennan 1995; Diamond 1995). Its first successful battle was waged around the presidential nomination of 1964, when conservatives in the party rallied behind a young upstart Republican from Arizona named Barry Goldwater. A relative newcomer with few ties to the Eastern Establishment and a decidedly conservative platform, Goldwater initially seemed to have little chance to secure the party’s nomination. His supporters, however, mobilized the party’s grassroots, tapping into the party’s “silent majority” (Carroll 1985), a label devised by Phyllis Schlafly. When the delegates met for the party’s convention in the San Francisco Cow Palace in the summer of 1964, a majority cast their votes for Goldwater, giving party conservatives their first decisive victory against the more liberal Eastern Establishment. Although Goldwater suffered a stunning defeat to incumbent Lyndon Johnson, important ideological groundwork and key networks were established (Brennan 1995).

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The party’s right wing was also aided by the creation of an intellectual outlet for its architects, who until then had had few venues in which either to stage debates with the more moderate wing or to pitch their ideas to a wider public (cited in Diamond 1995). Central in this regard was William Buckley, who founded the conservative National Review in 1955. In the debut issue, Buckley gave a voice and a strategy to the party’s right wing. He told readers that he and his writers would challenge liberal orthodoxy in and out of the party, arguing that the National Review stood “athwart history, yelling stop at a time when no one is inclined to do so” (Diamond 1995: 32). Preempting potential criticism from anti-intellectual elements on the right, Buckley argued that “ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word” (cited in Diamond 1995: 32). His magazine, with its practical focus and scholarly approach, stimulated the launching of others, such as Human Events, and the eventual formation of right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. As scholars note, however, the success of the New Right could never have occurred without a parallel movement at the grass roots (Berlet and Lyons 2000; Diamond 1995; Wilcox 2000). And as these same scholars note, initially, the mostly evangelical ministers and socially conservative activists who constituted it were not even working in conjunction with the Republican Party. These apolitical evangelicals, however, were also troubled by the broad changes they saw around them, and they tapped into existing resources to mobilize a constituency. One of the key resources they used was television. In the mid-1950s, several evangelical preachers formed the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) and began lobbying the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make religious broadcasting competitive. At that time, the FCC required networks and their affiliates to offer a weekly allotment of free airtime for religious broadcasts, but they prohibited them from counting purchased “religious hours” toward the public service requirement. While the NRB was calling for changes that would require its members to pay for programming, its leaders also knew that if the Sunday “ghetto hours” were put up for sale, NRB broadcasters would be in a good position to monopolize the time period and to have their shows broadcast over a larger area as well (Diamond 1995; Fitzgerald 1987). In the 1960s, the NRB’s efforts paid off when the FCC rewrote its public service requirements, opening the door for networks to charge for religious shows and to count those paid-for broadcast hours toward public service requirements. The implications were wide-ranging. With Sunday hours suddenly a commodity, local affiliates began selling them to the highest bidders, usually NRB clients who had been informed of the upcoming changes and counseled on how to respond to them. Their preparation for the new market allowed NRB members to dominate the Sunday-morning

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time slots even in regions where fundamentalist Protestants were in the minority (Diamond 1995; Fitzgerald 1987; Hilliard and Keith 1999). The televangelists associated with the NRB also realized that their expanded audience afforded them ample fundraising opportunities. Indeed, reaching a national audience for the first time, many discovered that their ability to raise money far outpaced their operating needs. Their new profits allowed many to produce secondary programming with a distinctly political focus (Diamond 1995). Another resource evangelicals used was their own youth. Beginning in the 1960s, for example, evangelical churches began sponsoring youth-led proselytizing missions. Although a few were focused abroad, most emphasized conversion at home. The goal seemed not so much to save the unsaved as to ensure that those who thought they were saved truly were.3 While doing research on Jerry Falwell, for example, Francis Fitzgerald (1987) accompanied a group of schoolgirls from the church youth group on a gospel mission to a neighboring county that, like Falwell’s hometown, was predominantly Protestant. As they went door-to-door, Fitzgerald recounts how the girls quizzed the people they met, trying to assess if they were “really saved.” Encountering a sunbathing schoolgirl in a front yard, for example, the young missionaries grouped around her, with the lead girl querying, “If you were to die in the next instant, do you know that you would go to heaven?” (Fitzgerald 1987: 162). These missions had the effect of instilling an activist ethos into the next generation of evangelicals, making them markedly different from their apolitical predecessors. The missions also contributed to an emerging sense that being saved was not just a private matter but a public, even group affair. It was, however, only during the 1970s that conservatives in the Republican Party and evangelical Christians on the ground began working together in a systematic way. Sara Diamond (1995) labels their coming together a “state-movement” alliance. The nuts and bolts of this union have been well documented in the literature (see Berlet and Lyons 2000; Diamond 1995; Fields 1994; Fitzgerald 1987; Gallaher 1997; Wilcox 2000). What is important about this alliance for the work at hand is the challenge to the movement’s categorical unity that arose from it. Although not a uniform group by any means, Protestants (and socially conservative Catholics) mobilized by individual churches, missionaries, and televangelists at the grassroots level were not a natural fit in socioeconomic terms with the Republican Party. A good number of the evangelicals mobilized during the late 1970s and early 1980s were quite poor (Fitzgerald 1987). Many were women on welfare or elderly people living on fixed incomes. Other studies note that low-income persons, particularly elderly women, formed the bulk of televangelist donor pools (see Wilcox 2000 for an overview). Although their contributions tended to represent a

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small percentage of the total collected (most organizations get the bulk of their financing from a few high-dollar contributors), grassroots support was (and is) actively courted because small donors were (and still are) considered important foot soldiers (Hoover 1988). Many of the other people mobilized by the Religious Right (then and now) are working-class, although they tend to describe themselves as middle class and to think of themselves as upwardly mobile. Fitzgerald’s ethnography of Jerry Falwell’s mobilization of evangelicals during the late 1970s and 1980s in Lynchburg, Virginia, captures these aspirations well. Fitzgerald found that many of Falwell’s parishioners hailed from poor rural areas. They had “literally made the journey between the underdeveloped countryside and the city” (Fitzgerald 1987: 137). With the income from their industrial jobs, they set about fulfilling their version of the American Dream. They purchased new tract housing in the suburbs, took family vacations, and provided for their children’s needs and wants. While Falwell’s parishioners had certainly climbed the socioeconomic ladder, their assembly-line jobs or lower-management positions placed them solidly within the working class, making them a contradictory element in the party’s standard constituency of bankers, businessmen, and old-money scions. Difference is always present in a social movement’s constituency. As such, in and of itself, the fact that the Religious Right is not unified along class lines is not significant. As globalization has intensified, however, class differences have increasingly become points of contention within the movement. In the next section, I briefly outline what I mean by globalization and lay out a theoretical framework for analyzing how difference is negotiated discursively within identity politics. Before turning to this framework, however, it is worth pausing to consider why such an examination is important. There is very little analysis of class-based divisions in the Religious Right. Many studies describe income differentials in the Religious Right’s constituency, but most fail to consider it or its implications analytically (see these otherwise excellent studies: Fitzgerald 1987; McGirr 2001; Wilcox 2000). Fitzgerald’s study provides a good example. Although she documents the large number of poor and working-class members in Falwell’s church, her discussion of their place in the movement is largely descriptive. Fitzgerald does not even use the term working class to describe these parishioners, preferring middle class instead. Yet her description of Lynchburg (an industrial city) and the average parishioner’s job makes it clear that these people are working-class. This is an important distinction because the term middle class is less an analytic category than a discourse frequently employed to discourage organizing drives (“you make enough money, why do you want to start a union?”) as well as union membership (“only poor people join unions”). That Falwell was actively courting and being courted by a probusiness

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Republican Party at the time (see Gallaher 1997) makes such an oversight all the more relevant. When class is considered in this literature, the questions asked are usually narrow, focusing on whether or not “status anxiety” is a determining factor for affiliation with an organization on the Religious Right. Scholars like Kenneth Wald et al. (1989), for example, argue that it is; others, like Robert Wuthnow (1988), contend that it is not. Although such debates are important, they tell us little about whether class concerns become an issue after affiliation and, if so, how they are handled by movement leaders. Such a consideration is, however, important, because working-class people may develop class anxieties at later periods and expect their leaders to react accordingly. Indeed, this is exactly what some of the movement’s leaders are currently doing. And their attempts to address class concerns are important to study because they are accomplished by funneling such anxiety around antagonistically constructed cultural positions that not only attack traditional Protestant others (gays, feminists, liberals) but also obscure class as a position from which to act.

Theorizing Responses to Globalization In this chapter, I follow the lead of political economists who have rightly noted that, despite claims to the contrary, globalization is hardly new (Harvey 1989; Pred and Watts 1992; Wallerstein 1974, 1983). Indeed, if one takes globalization to mean an economic integration of otherwise farflung places, one must locate its beginnings not in the present but at least 500 years ago (Wallerstein 1974), if not earlier (Abu-Lughod 1989). This does not mean that economic integration is not fundamentally different today. Even scholars who are adamant on this point note that since the early 1970s the pace and form of global political and economic integration have changed and that these changes have taken on heightened significance since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 (Harvey 1989, 2000; Pred and Watts 1992). Among the defining characteristics of globalization today is the change it has wrought on the territorial organization of capital accumulation (Harvey 1989; Pred and Watts 1992). During the European colonial period, global economic integration both fostered and relied on the formation of nation-states (Anderson 1991; Giddens 1985). Over time, the nation-state became the container in which capitalist relations were concentrated (Giddens 1985). By the early 1970s, however, a territorial reorganization of capital was under way and beginning to accelerate. Capital was released from its national confines and given increasingly free rein to move across the globe in search of cheaper processes of production and/or labor (Harvey

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1989). The result has been a deterritorialization of accumulation, marked increasingly by mobility (rather than entrenchment) even as the processes of accumulation seem to control more and more space (Castells 1997; Henderson and Castells 1987; Pred and Watts 1992). The result is, as Jeffrey Henderson and Manuel Castells (1987) note, a fundamental geographic contradiction between “placeless power and powerless places” (1987: 7). As Henderson and Castells indicate, the effects of neoliberal economic policy have left people across the globe feeling powerless to affect circumstances that are at once beyond their control and eminently relevant in their lives. Across the globe people have begun to respond to these effects in myriad ways. Of importance here is a particular form of resistance, which has been variously described as “resistance to the new global order” (Castells 1997), “anti-statist” (Kirby 1997; Steinberg 1997), and “ethnonationalism” (Conner 1993; Smith 1993). Such resistance has resulted in a variety of social movements (on the left and on the right) that have, through their politics, facilitated a discursive break between the nation and the state. Indeed, these social movements call into question the legitimacy of the state, but they do so on nationalist grounds, arguing that the state’s support of globalization is against the nation and, therefore, unpatriotic (Castells 1997; Kirby 1997). Several movements on the New Right are indicative of this trend. Since the early 1990s, for example, militias and other right-wing paramilitary cells have been mobilizing recruits into locally based protection units designed to guard against abuses of sovereign rights by foreign entities like the United Nations (UN) and domestic ones like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (Gallaher 2000). Likewise, on the mainstream right, political pundit and three-time presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan (1996) has vociferously criticized government-backed free-trade agreements (supported by Democrats and Republicans alike) on the grounds that they undermine U.S. sovereignty. As these examples indicate, while various segments of the right are responding to globalization, they do not do so through traditional class signifiers. Rather, leaders like Buchanan mention class-based grievances in their rhetoric, but it is usually subsumed under the rubric of national interest. It is this elision of social positionality (and the interests that derive from them) under larger signifiers that informs the key theoretical perspective of this chapter. Indeed, although globalization is, as a practical matter, an issue of political economy, the Religious Right’s reaction to it goes beyond material concerns and, as such, requires different tools for its analysis. In this chapter I employ what may broadly be termed a poststructural analysis to examine both the Religious Right’s reaction to globalization and its broader implications.

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Poststructural analysis is centered on the axiom that no political identity or signifier is fixed across time and space (Derrida 1976; Hooper 1998; Mouffe 1995; Natter and Jones 1997). Rather, identities are constructions mobilized around a common subject position, while points of difference remain unarticulated and in some cases purposefully downplayed. From this theoretical perspective, a rich body of literature on social movements and the politics of identity espoused by them has developed. Feminist theory, queer theory, and critical race studies, for example, are all byproducts of poststructural thinking (for good overviews see Delgado 1995; Rose 1993; Sylvester 1994; Turner 2000). As poststructural analysis has matured, scholars have also turned their attention to identity politics associated with dominant social positions. There are now growing subfields related to the study of masculinity, heterosexuality, and whiteness (see R. Dyer 1997; Jeffords 1989, 1994). As the above sketch of poststructuralism indicates, social positionality is a crucial element in the study of identity politics. Yet social positionality itself is neither fixed nor all-encompassing. Rather, individuals occupy variable subject positions at any given time, and not surprisingly the role of any given subject position in a person’s consciousness may ebb and flow, depending on circumstances (Bondi 1993; Hooper 1998). The fluidity and multiplicity of positionality mean that in any identity politic some subject positions must be downplayed or erased in order to achieve a sense of unity. This process occurs in a number of ways (Hooper 1998; Natter and Jones 1997). A subject position may be explicitly rejected in an identity politic, creating a context in which adherents or potential recruits are required to reject a part of themselves and the interests that derive from it in order to affiliate with a movement. The white supremacist politics of groups like Aryan Nation and the Ku Klux Klan, for example, invoke a strict ideal of racial purity that requires those with mixed heritage (which would include many “white” Americans if one uses the genetic definition of race embraced by white supremacists) actively to deny their “nonwhite parts” (Daniels 1997). A similar pattern may be found on the other side of the political spectrum as well. In many lesbian separatist communes, for example, women are not allowed to live on-site if they have dependent male children. As critics of separatism have noted, such directives require lesbians to choose between a separatist and a parental identity (see Shugar 1995). More frequently, a subject position may simply be downplayed. Early U.S. feminists, for example, did not deny that their ranks included women from very different racial and economic backgrounds. They insisted, however, on the primacy of patriarchy as the system from which all oppression stemmed, and they chastised women who focused on what divided them (for critical commentary on this process, see hooks 1992 and Shugar 1995).

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Subject positions may also be elided with larger signifiers, becoming constitutive of them even as their role is rendered invisible. Scholars studying the construction of whiteness, for example, have noted that in the United States “whiteness” as a dominant identity category has been elided under larger signifiers such as “nation” (Barrett and Roediger 1997; R. Dyer 1997; Morrison 1992; Roediger 1994). So contained, the constitutive role of whiteness is rendered invisible and, accordingly, more powerful because it becomes the unspoken criterion defining the norm for a supposedly universal category. Although lines of difference within categories may be openly rejected, downplayed, or subsumed, the potential for disruption is ever present. As Jacques Derrida (1976) notes, any category is contingent on its other for meaning, and all categories are, thus, inherently unstable. Moreover, because categories of meaning are usually simplistic (built around one or two key subject positions), the multiple and potentially different subject positions of their adherents also create a potential for disruption. On the right, broadly, and within the Religious Right more specifically, class positioning has increasingly become such a potential point of disruption. How this happened can be traced back roughly to the early 1990s, when a small but influential number of activists on the right began to address class-based concerns head-on. At the time, not only was the economy in a recession, but the farm crisis and the deindustrialization of the Ronald Reagan era were fresh in the minds of many working people. The acceleration of these trends seemed guaranteed with treaties, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), on the horizon. One of the right’s key leaders in this regard was (and is) Patrick Buchanan, whose long history with the Republican Party as well as his popularity among religious conservatives make him a central figure in the state-movement alliance that constitutes today’s Religious Right. In a speech he gave shortly after he lost his 1996 primary bid for the Republican presidential nomination, for example, Buchanan sounded like a traditional labor leader: Friends, what are we doing to our own people? In the tiny town of Raine, Louisiana, I stood outside a Fruit of the Loom sewing plant, built in 1992. The women who worked there said nothing as I spoke. After just three years in operation, their plant was suddenly shutting down. The company was opening a new plant, just like it, in Mexico. In Washington, the thinktank academics respond, “So what, these are dead end jobs, these are sunset industries, let ’em go!” But, to the women of Raine, these are the best jobs they ever had. Those six-dollar-an-hour jobs were how they were raising their kids. When they lose these jobs, they’re not going to be making computers. They’ll be on unemployment, and they’ll be on welfare! (Buchanan 1997: 153)

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Buchanan was not alone in his assessment. Commenting on his primary run earlier that year, Republican agitator Phyllis Schlafly chastised the party for failing to understand why Buchanan was doing well against Bob Dole. “Social Conservatism is part of the reason,” she argued, “but there is another part they don’t understand” (Schlafly 1996a). Until Buchanan came along, she continued, the other presidential candidates never appeared to care about or want this immense constituency of working Americans. Chanting the mantra “free trade,” their attitude toward displaced workers was, “tough! That’s the breaks in a free market. We live in a global economy, and you need to look for another job!” (Schlafly 1996a)

While both Buchanan’s and Schlafly’s comments indicate a responsiveness to workers’ rights, the rhetoric that both invoke to address workers’ fears tends to displace class under the wider umbrella of national sovereignty and calls for its protection. This displacement has several effects. First and foremost, when class is elided with a national position, the potential for class to be deployed as a progressive category of action is erased. This elision is significant theoretically because, unlike the elision of whiteness within national signifiers, the elision of class does not lead to its normative positioning within a nationalist politic but rather to its erosion. Indeed, as I will demonstrate in the next section, the Eagle Forum’s invocations to national sovereignty are less about championing the rights of the U.S. worker than they are about containing capitalism within U.S. space so that its perceived benefits are not shared by the “undeserving” outside its borders. The result is that evangelical workers are inhibited from seeing their links to and with workers in other countries and are trained instead to see them as national enemies. Indeed, while U.S. and foreign workers do not always have the same interests, the Religious Right’s depiction of foreign workers in essentialist/antagonistic terms prohibits even mutually useful alliances from forming. Also, in place of class empowerment, the Religious Right’s invocations to national sovereignty offer working-class fundamentalist Protestants a proxy form of empowerment—what Hooper (1998) labels a “backlash masculinity” and Luke and O’Tauthail (1998) term “Buchananist” (Luke and O’Tauthail: 42). This backlash is designed both to punish the state for succumbing to globalization and to reassert male privilege. And, as Hooper notes, this politic is framed particularly for disaffected blue-collar males who have lost both their job security and their patriarchal positions in the family. In the United States [for example] these “angry white males” have disciplined Bill Clinton, the “new style”

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president, forcing him to reinvent himself as an “all American man’s man” who will keep Hillary, “the wicked witch of the West,” out of the public eye. (Hooper 1998: 42)

The implications of this politic are significant, especially when they are framed through discourses of national sovereignty. Not only is a patriarchal order reasserted and linked with a national order, but antagonism infuses its policing as well. Thus, those not adhering to its tenets may be labeled in inflammatory terms and branded national security risks. The Eagle Forum, one of the organizations on the Religious Right currently invoking such a politic, is laying important groundwork for other groups to build upon.

Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum Phyllis Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum in 1975, envisioning it as a conservative counterpart to the National Organization for Women (NOW). At the time, Schlafly was involved in a vociferous fight against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which Congress approved in 1972 and sent on to individual states for ratification by 1979 (the seven-year deadline specified in the original bill). At first, the ERA seemed likely to be ratified nationally, but Schlafly was determined to thwart its passage by rallying women to oppose it (Carroll 1985). The Eagle Forum, she argued, would serve as “the voice of the home-loving, family oriented American woman who needs to be heard in opposition to the quarrelsome agitators” (quoted in Carroll 1985: 200). And lest anyone miss the contextual point, she was quick to articulate it in the Forum’s promotional material. NOW, she informed her readers, “is for pro-lesbian legislation, so that perverts will be given the same legal rights as husbands and wives . . . to adopt children and the right to teach school” (Carroll 1985: 200). As the Forum matured, it expanded its focus, no longer billing itself as a women’s organization but rather one working on behalf of conservative “men and women” (Eagle Forum 2001a). After 1979, when the ERA failed to be approved by enough states to secure its ratification, the Forum was forced to retool again. Today it is an established organization with nonprofit status and affiliated for-profit groups, including a national political action committee (PAC), numerous state PACs, and a legal defense fund. A prolific writer, Schlafly, through her weekly columns, reports, and updates, also gives the Forum an educational focus (Eagle Forum 2001b, 2001c). In that spirit, the Forum recently inaugurated an online university that offers free courses on a variety of topics, including evolution fallacies, global governance 101, and extreme environmentalism (Eagle Forum 2001d).

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Among the plethora of organizations on the Religious Right, the Eagle Forum provides an especially good case study from which to chart trends in the larger movement. The Forum’s long-standing support of free enterprise provides a particularly compelling reason. Procapitalist positions have long been staple themes on the right, but unquestioned support of the capitalist system is increasingly at odds with the movement’s working-class constituents, evoking responses from even staunchly procapitalist activists like Schlafly. The Cold War allowed the Religious Right to oppose domestic programs addressing inequality by arguing that socialism was a slippery slope leading to communism. Such arguments are not so relevant in the post–Cold-War era. For many, job security has replaced national security as a top priority, while free enterprise is often equated with “greedy corporations.”4 In this context, the Eagle Forum has had to update its support for “free enterprise” in order to downplay class differences that might otherwise disrupt the movement’s categorical unity. The indelible presence of Phyllis Schlafly also makes the Forum a useful case study. As a Catholic, Schlafly has long operated in a movement that is at least in part unified by its opposition to Catholicism5 (Hoover 1988; Wilcox 2000). Schlafly’s outspoken support of conservative social causes means that while her organization may, ironically enough, attract Protestants with anti-Catholic sentiments, its lack of denominational affiliation places it solidly in the mainstream of the Religious Right.6 So situated, the Forum is able to reach large audiences and thus set opinions beyond its membership. Schlafly’s contradictory stature as both a staunch Republican and a constant agitator within the party presents another compelling reason for studying her organization. As a Republican, Schlafly is notable for her service to and influence within the party. She ran two congressional campaigns in Illinois as a Republican candidate and is prominent among the party faithful, attending every Republican national convention since 1952, typically as a delegate (Carroll 1985). Yet Schlafly’s long-standing opposition to the party’s liberal wing and her efforts to include conservative voices in the party’s apparatus indicate that she has long had her finger on the pulse of the GOP vanguard. Schlafly’s entrée into GOP politics during the late 1950s, for example, was activated in large part by her dissatisfaction with the liberal policies of the Eastern Establishment “kingmakers” (Carroll 1985). She was also influential in rallying people behind Goldwater’s renegade run for the party’s nomination in 1964 (Carroll 1985). Schlafly has remained a party provocateur, publicly rebuking GOP leaders from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush when they failed to adopt the “correct” policy standpoints (for recent examples, see Schlafly 2000c, 2001). Moreover, Schlafly is one of the first Republicans to identify conservative, mostly apolitical Protestants as a constituency and to call for

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their mobilization. Indeed, she was suggesting outreach to the apolitical silent majority as early as the Goldwater campaign, when few in the party elite were even cognizant of a conservative corollary movement at the grassroots level (Carroll 1985). In short, Schlafly’s contradictory positioning in the party mirrors the extant divide in the Religious Right between its institutional and grassroots wings, and, as such, her organization provides a useful window on how the movement as a whole negotiates this divide. Finally, Schlafly’s organization is a good case study because it produces and sells organizing materials for activists on the ground. These materials are usually packaged into topical briefing books that cover a wide assortment of issues considered important by the Religious Right today, including private property, environmentalism, prayer in schools, and (of interest here) national sovereignty. The Forum’s briefing books summarize liberal positions and outline conservative arguments to counter them. As such, they provide the discursive raw materials with which local, state, and even federal activists can develop more nuanced positions on issues. As Schlafly describes the purpose of the briefing book studied in this chapter: Allegiance is a Briefing Book about American Independence and Sovereignty issues. It is a work-in-progress and is not intended to be a definitive presentation on the subject. It is designed as a primer for community leaders, public officials, speakers and others in order to give them an outline of current threats to American independence and sovereignty. (Schlafly 2000a: 1)

Allegiance is organized into four sections that cover the arenas in which breaches to sovereignty are thought to occur: treaties, United Nations conferences, executive orders, and national security policy. Each section contains several listings, under which a total of twelve treaties, six UN conferences, five executive orders, and nine national security policies are discussed. Here I focus on initiatives that address class-based concerns in the United States and those in which the Forum’s solutions represent direct appeals to masculinity. Global Threats, National Solutions The Eagle Forum depicts threats to U.S. sovereignty as part of a larger systematic conspiracy. It argues that the goal of international organizations, such as the UN and their domestic supporters like Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton, is to create a one-world government that will be communist in nature. The introduction to the global treaties section of Allegiance outlines the international side of the conspiracy:

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Each of these treaties sets up a new global bureaucracy with some kind of monitoring apparatus that would exercise some measure of control over American citizens, or our families, or our schools, or our businesses, or our use of natural resources and energy, or our land. (Schlafly 2000a: 1.1)

The domestic side of the conspiracy is highlighted in the introduction to the executive orders section, where the Forum accuses Bill Clinton, in particular, of collaborating with a global agenda: Clinton has issued nearly 300 executive orders. Some are unconstitutional attempts to expand federal power over the states. Some are attempts to implement Clinton’s global agenda. Some are federal grabs of property that belong to the states or to private landowners. (Schlafly 2000a: 3.1)

Anticommunism and suspicion of international cooperation have a long history on the right (Jeansonne 1996; Wilcox 2000). It is, therefore, not surprising that these themes have resurfaced today. What is significant about their deployment is the articulation of these themes around issues specifically relevant to working-class Americans. The significance is only heightened by the fact that a mainstream organization like the Eagle Forum is doing so. Indeed, Phyllis Schlafly initially made her name in the Republican Party by opposing the New Deal’s structural protections for workers and its social provisions for the poor and indigent. As early as 1946, for example, she was explicitly aligning herself with New Deal opponents, writing, as she did for a conservative bankers’ newsletter (the St. Louis Union Trust Company Letter), “We believe that the people we serve are basically anti-New Deal” (Carroll 1985: 53). In the Allegiance briefing book, however, class-based concerns are addressed head-on. Most notable is the briefing book’s opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO), a target that carries a great deal of symbolic weight for workers. Indeed, the WTO’s 1999 annual meeting in Seattle marked the first wide-scale protest by the antiglobalization movement—a movement that is categorized as leftist in orientation and seen as sympathetic to workers, the third world, and the downtrodden generally (see Hardt and Negri 2001; Kelly 2001). The Forum does not consider itself part of the antiglobalization movement, but it clearly understands its resonance for workers. Indeed, in outlining its opposition to the WTO, the Forum directly associates U.S. membership in it with a key working-class concern: job loss. The briefing book claims, for example, that “a [WTO] decision against Eastman Kodak was followed by a layoff of 16,000 employees. . . . The WTO [also] ruled that an 84 year old U.S. anti-dumping law must be repealed, a victory for Japanese and European steel makers” (Schlafly 2000a: 1.7). This is a particularly potent point of reference

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for working-class people. The AFL-CIO and the Steelworkers’ Union both waged fierce legal and public relations battles to preserve the antidumping law during the period leading up to the decision because they felt it would bankrupt many U.S. steel companies and result in thousands of lost jobs for U.S. workers (Palmer 2000). In recent writings Schlafly has explicitly criticized the WTO for favoring the interests of multinational corporations over those of workers: The multinational corporations like what WTO does and the way it does it behind closed doors. WTO makes it safe for them to shift their operations anywhere in the world, where there are no U.S.-style labor or environmental regulations and 50 workers can be hired for the wage of one American, and then enjoy duty-free access back into the United States. (Schlafly 2000b)

Yet even though the Eagle Forum’s briefing book explicitly references class-based anxieties, it does not stake its opposition to the WTO on classbased grounds. Indeed, while job loss is presented as an important and lamentable effect of globalization, it is not held up as the reason organizers on the ground should oppose the WTO. Instead, the Forum suggests that organizers should lobby against the WTO because it threatens national sovereignty. The Forum instructs organizers to focus on two forms of infringement in particular. First, the Forum urges organizers to highlight the unconstitutional manner in which the United States became a member of the WTO. [The WTO Charter] was surreptitiously added, without debate or publicity, to the 22,000 page revision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was signed by President Clinton and passed by Congress in a lame-duck session in December 1994, evading the constitutional requirement that treaties receive a 2/3rds majority in the Senate. (Schlafly 2000a: 1.7)

While Schlafly names Clinton as a particularly egregious transgressor of national sovereignty, it is important to note that she rebukes Republicans for supporting the WTO as well. In her March 2000 Report, for example, she refers to the establishment of the WTO as the “Clinton-Dole-Gingrich deal,” damning the two most influential members of her party at the time (Schlafly 2000b). The Forum also instructs organizers to highlight the WTO’s power to overrule domestic decisions made by Congress. The WTO is a direct attack on our sovereignty because it can force us to change our laws to comply with WTO rulings. . . . The WTO has the final say about whether U.S. laws meet WTO requirements. The WTO can

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impose financial penalties and sanctions if WTO decides that our laws don’t fully obey its dictates. (Schlafly 2000a: 1.7)

In concurrent writings Schlafly has contextualized the Forum’s position by suggesting that the mantra of free trade used to justify such decisions is part and parcel of the global conspiracy discussed at the beginning of this section: Free trade is not a truthful label. . . . Relinquishing our right to control our own trade policies to a bunch of foreign bureaucrats in Geneva, accountable to no one, is a prescription for international mischief. No secret global organization should be controlling U.S. trade, investment or technology, or making decisions about our jobs, production, labor standards, environment, or security. (Schlafly 2000b)

As the Forum’s strategy outlined above indicates, its rationale for opposing the WTO is constructed on national rather than class grounds. It is important to note that the Forum’s concern for national sovereignty, in and of itself, does not necessarily constitute a regressive position. Indeed, calls to protect national sovereignty have emerged from various quarters. In Mexico, the left-leaning Zapatista movement opposes global trade agreements on the grounds that they undermine state control over domestic policy. The decision in 1992 by President Carlos Salinas to rewrite article 27 of the Mexican Constitution (protecting communal land tenure) to bring the country’s property laws in line with the United States in the run-up to NAFTA is offered as a particularly damning example (Gallaher and Frohling 2002; Marcos 1994). In response, the Zapatistas called for the creation of autonomous zones within the Mexican nation to afford themselves a layer of protection (Marcos 2001). Similarly, in the United States, labor unions have critiqued the WTO for undermining national sovereignty, noting that the government’s power to protect domestic workers and producers is undermined by WTO regulations. Unions call for transparency in WTO decisionmaking, as well as the institution of a basic level of labor standards for all member states (including a crossnational minimum wage, the right to organize, and regulations on workplace safety). Although the strategies of both the Zapatistas and U.S. unions have progressive detractors and are clearly not without their problems, these strategies do represent attempts to address working-class (and peasant) concerns directly. In contrast, the Eagle Forum’s invocations to working-class concerns are matched with support of policies that counter workers’ (self-defined) interests. While the Forum’s briefing book makes no explicit reference to cross-national labor standards, for example, Schlafly argued against them in reference to NAFTA. Those who purchase the Forum’s briefing book are

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likely to know this—especially organizers who have a broad familiarity with right-wing positions. In a 1996 edition of The Phyllis Schlafly Report, for example, she argued: Almost every week, we discover new disadvantages of NAFTA or GATT. For example, a little-noticed provision of NAFTA allows Mexico, Canada and the United States to scrutinize enforcement of each other’s labor laws. This has opened up a new legal channel for the unions to go after U.S. employers. (Schlafly 1996b)

Schlafly and the Eagle Forum have also shown contempt for the third world, whose workers’ growing influence in the new international division of labor makes them a vital part of any effort to protect working-class people. While Schlafly has criticized multinational corporations, in the Forum’s briefing book the third world (and not corporate America) takes the lion’s share of the blame for the ills associated with globalization. The Forum’s section on UN conferences provides the starkest example. The second listing in the section is titled “UN ‘Reforms’ to Steal U.S. Wealth.” It portrays development as a zero-sum game, attributing third world gains to U.S. losses and depicting the transfer as stealing: Radical plans to use the UN to force the United States to redistribute our wealth to Third World dictators originated with a 410-page report called Our Global Neighborhood, issued in 1995 by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance. This document states that the plan to “strengthen” the UN into global government originated with former West German Socialist Chancellor Willy Brandt. In addition to ambitious plans to restructure the UN and create a UN standing army, the so-called “reformers” want to lay a guilt trip on Americans for using so much energy and con us into reducing our standard of living and turning our wealth over to the rest of the world. (Schlafly 2000a: 2.3)

While this statement does not target workers specifically, pointing instead to “third world dictators” and their “socialist” handmaidens in the West, there is nothing to suggest a concern by the Forum for workers, peasants, or average citizens in such dictatorships. Indeed, through the discursive equation of the third world with the UN, and the UN with stealing, U.S. workers are discouraged from holding the corporations that decided to close U.S. factories accountable and are channeled instead into blaming the third world. In this discursive context, white U.S. workers are likely to draw on well-established tropes to put a face on the enemy, targeting brown-skinned workers as the source of the problem. And with the enemy crafted so broadly (i.e., brown skin equals enemy), even nonwhite workers in the United States can become “valid” targets. It is useful to note here that although these discourses are (re)presentations of a particular view, the tar-

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gets of scapegoating are rarely random. Indeed, this kind of scapegoating can only occur when there is a discursive frame in place to identify the culpable categories from which individuals may be targeted. Although the Forum’s calls to preserve national security divert working-class constituents from addressing their class-based anxieties in classspecific terms, these same invocations do not obscure cultural antagonisms: they highlight them. Charlotte Hooper (1998) argues that this sort of politic represents a “backlash masculinity.” In the context of the Eagle Forum, generalized anxiety about globalization (which may be economic, cultural, or a mix of both) is funneled onto strictly cultural terrain, thereby pointing the blame toward and suggesting solutions against the interests of traditional others, particularly women. Such antagonisms are legitimated through their discursive alignment with the nation. The most obvious example of this sort of targeting may be found in the briefing book’s section on security. The seventh listing in that section (“Feminization of the Military”) not only extols a warrior culture but also directly blames feminist activism at home for threatening U.S. military readiness and, thus, our sovereignty: The purpose of the military is to defend Americans against the bad guys of the world. The warrior culture, with tough, all-male training, is what attracts young men into the armed services and motivates them to sacrifice personal comfort and safety while serving their country in uniform. It’s no wonder that the services are having trouble with their recruitment and retention goals when the Clinton Administration civilian feminists have feminized the military, which they call making it gender-neutral. Dumbing down the physical and psychological requirements to the capabilities of the average woman, and then having Pentagon and military officers tell us that women are performing equally with men, is highly destructive of military morale. (Eagle Forum, Schalfly 2001: 4.9)

As the above comment demonstrates in no uncertain terms, women in the military and feminists outside of it are positioned as the problem. They also become the “other” over and against which a strong and secure nation is defined. By calling for the removal of women from combat specialties and the elimination of mechanisms intended to ensure gender equality within the armed forces (positions the Forum advocates elsewhere), activists and supporters are urged to reclaim the nation’s masculinity at the expense of women. Schlafly has been a longtime opponent of feminists at home. She is equally suspicious of what she sees as a feminist agenda behind the globalist push more generally. In introducing the UN conference section of the briefing book, for example, Schlafly notes that “UN conferences offer grand opportunities for tax-paid bureaucrats to engage in mischief making and to connive at ways to implement their leftwing, feminist, and wealth-

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redistribution agendas” (Schlafly 2000a: 3.1, emphasis added). Schlafly is also troubled by the influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) affiliated with the UN, singling out feminist and environmentalist groups as particularly egregious offenders. The UN now accredits 1,603 NGOs. They are energetic lobbyists for dramatic changes in the mission and structure of the UN to achieve global governance. The most prominent NGOs are the radical environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the feminist and population-control groups such as Planned Parenthood. (Schlafly 2000a: 3.1)

There are several associations in these two statements that are relevant to the backlash masculinity Hooper identifies. First, it is interesting to note how the UN is tacitly defined in the Forum’s briefing book. The UN is a vast organization, an umbrella sheltering a diverse, often contradictory set of institutions, including the International Labour Organization, the World Food Program, the World Health Organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Whereas some are viewed favorably in the developing world, others are not. The IMF, for example, evokes the resentment of millions of people in the developing world and has been the focus of many a riot therein. In the Forum’s briefing book, however, these complexities go unmentioned. Rather, the UN is depicted as catering to the third world and its liberal supporters in the West. In such a framing, the UN becomes a proxy for Protestant fundamentalism’s traditional others; invocations to protect national sovereignty are a way to continue the attack using antiglobal rhetoric. Second, by associating the UN with a feminist agenda (among others) and positioning it as the enemy, reclaiming the nation thereby becomes a masculine endeavor. This is particularly important for, and has resonance among, the mostly white working-class men the Forum is now attempting to address. Indeed, opposing the UN becomes a convenient way for white working-class males to reclaim their superiority over women and workingclass counterparts in the third world. The gains such opposition provides, however, are largely symbolic. Indeed, the Forum’s opposition to the UN as it is currently articulated represents a rhetorical return to a past hegemony of white, male workers, but not to the material advantages hegemony once implied. More important, it blocks the ability of these same workers to see their common bonds with workers of different genders, races, and sexualities in both the domestic and international sphere over and against the interests of capital. It is just this ability to see class across categories and across spaces, however, that is necessary for coherent and successful workers’ responses to the disrupting effects of globalization. What is most troubling about the Forum’s invocations to national sovereignty, however, are the discursive alignments that are created between

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working-class and masculine positionalities by calls for protecting national sovereignty. Returning to the Forum’s listing on “UN ‘Reforms’ to Steal U.S. Wealth” provides a telling example. As noted, the Forum accuses the UN of aiding third world dictators in their quest to steal first world riches. Most of the examples the briefing outlines are economic in nature. In a series of bullets, for example, the Forum quotes UN proposals and then explains in parentheses how they amount to “stealing.” Here are two: “promote the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations” and “cancel the debts to developing countries (i.e., redistribute U.S. wealth around the world and cancel the debts owed by foreign countries)”; and “act with restraint and efficiency when using energy (i.e., lower the U.S. standard of living).” Also in this list, however, is a seemingly unrelated issue. The second-to-last bullet states that the UN aims to “ensure universal (i.e., global) access to health care that fosters reproductive health (i.e., abortion and contraception) and responsible reproduction (i.e., UNdictated population control).” While the question of universal access to health care is certainly economic, here it is equated with abortion—an issue that has been central to the culture wars of the contemporary era. As Randall Balmer (1994) notes, abortion became and remains a potent issue on the right precisely because it is ideal symbolic terrain on which to reinforce regressive forms of masculinity. By adopting class as a position to defend and then linking it to this regressively articulated position, the Religious Right creates a powerful chain of equivalencies between working-class and hegemonic masculinist positionalities.

The Larger Implication of Right-Wing Forays into Class Politics Although it is uncommon to see the term working class employed by the Religious Right, and even more uncommon to see workers in its ranks refer to themselves as such, workers are nonetheless an important segment of the movement’s constituency, particularly at the grassroots level. Globalization and its economic effects have left many of these workers and others across the country subject to the whims of capital. While government officials and pundits alike celebrated the booming economy of the 1990s, the income of many working-class Americans remained stagnant or declined in real dollars (Ehrenreich 2001). Given these conditions, coupled with the large number of workers in the constituency of the Religious Right, it is not surprising that the movement’s leaders are responding to their concerns. Indeed, the capitalists and the workers who make up the ranks of the statemovement alliance that Diamond identifies as the Religious Right have

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never been a natural fit. With anticommunist rhetoric no longer resonant, leaders must guard against the potential disruption to the movement’s categorical unity that an articulated class discontent poses. Yet the decision to address class-based anxiety, even on national grounds, presents several problems. First and foremost, the right’s attempts to address class are significant when considered in the context of leftist/progressive politics. As several theorists have demonstrated in greater depth, the left in the United States has increasingly abandoned class-based struggle (Gallaher 2000; Harvey 1997, 2000; Pred and Watts 1992). There are serious debates about why the left has done so (some accuse intellectuals of navel-gazing; others blame structural forces); still, the implications are clear. The right has, as William Greider (1997) succinctly notes, “seized the revolutionary banner from the left.” Second, the implications of this seizure create another area of concern. As this chapter demonstrates, the right’s invocations to class do not occur in a vacuum, but are made in conjunction with regressively articulated social positions (such as antifeminist and antigay stances). This bundling is also significant when considered in the context of the left. As others have noted, in addition to the demise of class-based politics on the left, there is a general fragmentation within its ranks (see Epstein 1995; Harvey 1997). As such, even though feminists, gay rights advocates, and supporters of black power would define their struggles as progressive (maybe even leftist), these movements have operated largely in isolation from one another. The right’s various struggles, though not without internal debates, are far better linked. When class is discursively aligned with them, they form a potent chain of right-wing equivalencies with no counterpart on the left. Third, the mainstream Religious Right’s invocations of national sovereignty also indicate troubling linkages between it and the far right. Until relatively recently, invocations of national sovereignty had been largely reserved to elements on the far right, such as the Militia Movement and some factions of the racist right (Gallaher 2000). These linkages are significant because whenever mainstream groups advocate far-right causes (even if in less extravagant terms) far-right groups are given a measure of legitimacy for virulent positions and violent actions. It is interesting to note, for example, that the “professor” for the Eagle Forum’s online university course on global governance was Henry Lamb, founder of the right-wing group Sovereignty International. Lamb has testified before Congress on matters relating to the UN and is a paid consultant for the conservative Fox News organization. When I first encountered Lamb, however, he was giving speeches to a patriot/militia group in central Kentucky that I was studying (Gallaher 2000). In closing, it is worth considering how this research might be expanded and/or complemented. First, because the mainstream right’s invocations of national sovereignty are relatively new, further study should investigate

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how these discourses and their deployment change over time. Because there are so many groups on the right, a comparative analysis would be useful as well. In particular, it would be fruitful to see how Phyllis Schlafly’s deployment of national sovereignty compares to those of other groups on the religious and far right. Finally, it would be useful to see how the grassroots constituency of the Religious Right is reacting to these discourses. Indeed, while invocations of national sovereignty are clearly aimed at the movement’s working-class adherents, the gains are largely symbolic for them. Thus, it would be worthwhile to examine the sticking power these discourses possess, as well as how they are articulated vis-à-vis the religious tenets of the movement.

Notes 1. Religious Right has a somewhat broader meaning than Christian Right. Religious Right refers to groups staking out right-wing positions that are based on (or legitimized by) religious beliefs. Christian Right is similar except that it narrows the religious base from any religion to Christianity. In the U.S. context, the self-definition of Protestant Evangelicals as part of the Christian Right presents problems because most of them do not count Catholics (or Mormons) as Christians. This chapter’s focus on Phyllis Schlafly, a Catholic, and her religiously legitimized political organization, Eagle Forum, leads me to choose Religious Right as the appropriate designation in this instance. 2. Christian Identity is an Americanized version of British Israelism. It holds that Jewish people are spawns of Satan and that African Americans are a subhuman species. Identity adherents believe that the lost tribes of Israel migrated to and settled in modern-day England. Their descendants are believed to be the AngloSaxons, regarded as the “real” Jews. Because Anglo-Saxons settled North America, identity adherents believe the United States is the true “promised land” (J. Dyer 1997; Stern 1996). 3. In evangelical theology Christians are ensured entrance into heaven only by being “born again.” Believers must ask Jesus Christ to forgive their sins and be their personal savior. Not surprisingly, the date of salvation is an important personal day for devout evangelicals. 4. After the hijackings of September 11, 2001, national security has reentered the public’s realm of concern. Terrorism, however, is not so easily connectable to working-class politics as communism was. 5. During the 1980s, Jimmy Swaggert, an influential southern televangelist, made a series of vociferous attacks against Catholicism (Hoover 1988). The movement’s anti-Catholic strains surfaced during the 2000 presidential campaign. When George W. Bush visited fundamentalist Bob Jones University in South Carolina during a primary campaign stop, for example, the press discovered that the university’s website contained material equating Catholicism with a cult (Broder 2000; Neal 2000). The university removed the remark during the controversy but reinstated it a few weeks later (AP 2000). 6. Many may take umbrage at the assertion that Schlafly is a mainstream figure. Yet within the political right her organization is clearly more moderate than the militias and white supremacist groups that constitute its fringes.

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3

The Christian Right, Globalization, and the “Natural Family”

U.S. Catholic, Mormon, and Protestant conservative organizations are combining forces to bring what they call a “faith perspective” to the work of the United Nations. Focusing on women’s and children’s rights, population policy, and homosexuality, 1 the Christian Right (CR) movement at the United Nations is having an impact on international law and policy. At United Nations (UN) negotiations and meetings, such as the Special Session on Children or the five-year review of the Beijing Conference on Women, Christian Right activists work with sympathetic states—including Sudan, Libya, and Iran—to limit international consensus on a range of issues perceived as supporting homosexuality and abortion and as undermining parental rights. In this chapter, I look at the emergence of a Christian Right politics at the United Nations.2 CR international activism has become a distinct entity, continuous with but notably different from its U.S. domestic manifestation. For the sake of clarity, I refer to this alliance as the CR/UN to capture both its difference in make-up and arena of political struggle. The CR/UN focuses almost exclusively on the sociopolitical dimensions of global change, particularly as they are seen to affect the “natural family,” which is defined by heterosexual marriage and whose primary purpose is procreation.3 For both the domestic and international CR, there is a crisis in the natural family, but for the CR/UN this crisis has assumed global proportions necessitating international action. For many in the U.S. CR, this international focus represents a shift in a political program focused historically on domestic politics. The target of this international activism is the United Nations: its treaty/committee system, agency bureaucrats, and the UN-hosted international conference. The decision to launch a concerted CR politics at the United Nations is a notable departure from established anti-UN and antiinternational perspectives that continue to predominate in some CR thinking (see Buss and Herman 2003, chaps. 1 and 2). As a religious movement with a global orientation, the CR/UN is an unexpected member of an international civil society often portrayed as the 57

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purview of “progressive” interests (see, e.g., Falk 1995; Waterman 2000).4 With its conservative religious politics, the CR/UN is also an example of the complex relationship between religious identity and global change. Unlike religions that respond to globalization by increased relativization, insularity, and rejection of “the very idea of globality” (Robertson 1989: 18; Beckford 2000; Beyer 1995; Castells 1998), the CR/UN engages directly with the processes of global change. According to Austin Ruse, the CR/UN, the United Nations Organization, and particularly UN-hosted conferences provide the means by which feminists and other “antifamily” forces are undermining the “nation, church, and family” (Ruse, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, interview with author, 1999). Paradoxically, the United Nations, in turn, enables a CR/UN politics. As an active, if critical, member of international civil society, the CR/UN participates in United Nations conferences and meetings both to oppose the actions of feminists and others alleged to be engaged in social engineering and to embark on its own social engineering project in the name of Christianity and the natural family. An increasingly important part of CR/UN politics is to facilitate an international alliance of conservative religious actors, drawn broadly to include, at least nominally, various Christian sects, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims. Far from identifying Islam as the new enemy replacing Soviet communism (as predicted by some scholars such as Brouwer, Gifford, and Rose 1996: 19; Robertson 1992a: 406), the CR/UN embraces Islam as an important ally. The CR/UN’s increasingly urgent message is that conservative faiths must work together to defeat the forces allied against the natural family. What is not clear is whether other CR activists and grassroots members are prepared to hear this message. In this chapter, I look at the rise of a global CR as a religious social movement engaging in the process of global political change. I argue that the CR’s international activism is enabled by a changing international, political, and legal realm that provides a space for CR intervention and, in turn, shapes CR international politics. In this analysis, I do not offer a definitive explanation of the why and how of CR international activism. Rather, my intent is more limited: to explore some aspects of the complex relationship between global change and religious identity. In the first half of this chapter, I consider the rise of the CR/UN in the context of an activist international order in which groups such as feminists have placed women’s and lesbian and gay rights on the international agenda. In this discussion, I outline the close connection between feminist activism and the rise of the CR/UN. I argue that while the CR/UN is antifeminist in much of what it does, it is also motivated by an antiglobalist stance. My intent is twofold. First, I want to explore the link between global change and the rise of CR/UN activism and consider how global change is creating opportunities

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for broad activist intervention (Keck and Sikkink 1998a, 1998b; Tarrow 1998). A second underlying theme in this discussion is the CR/UN’s complex relationship with feminism. Here I contend that while opposing feminism is central to the CR/UN’s project, it is only one part of a politics premised on engagement with global change. I then shift my focus in the second half to the CR/UN’s efforts to build a global alliance of conservative religious faiths united under a “natural family” political banner. The natural family is increasingly advocated by the CR/UN as the basis for a conservative religious politics that is not merely oppositional in nature but also encompasses a proactive politics that attempts to bring about a natural family world order. But is a proactive conservative religious alliance a step too far? Is there enough common ground in a natural family politics to bind a broad alliance of conservative religious actors? Before moving into this discussion, I start by offering an overview of the key actors in the CR/UN. This is intended as an introduction to some of the more prominent CR activists and groups at the UN but is not meant to be a comprehensive account of this growing movement.5

The Christian Right at the UN The Christian Right represents a broad range of primarily U.S. organizations that have tended to form coalitions around an orthodox Christian vision and that defend the traditional nuclear family formation, referred to by the CR as the “natural family.”6 The CR/UN, in contrast to its domestic counterparts, is active in various capacities at the UN. Some of the groups I include within the CR/UN, such as Concerned Women for America (CWA), Focus on the Family, and to a lesser extent Eagle Forum, are active in U.S. domestic politics and have only recently developed an ongoing engagement with the United Nations. Other activists have organized separate internationally oriented groups for the specific purpose of engaging in a natural family politics at the United Nations. Organizations such as the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam)7 and the Mormon organization World Family Policy Center (WFPC—formerly NGO Family Voice)8 have taken a leadership role in developing a coherent CR/UN voice in the international realm. Alongside these activist groups and providing much of the policy direction for the CR/UN are several CR think tanks.9 The most notable is the Howard Center, which provides a base for some CR/UN activists and produces specialized research material on the family that informs CR/UN positions on various related issues.10 It is also one of two conveners (along with the Mormon WFPC) of the World Congress of Families (WCF), a selfdescribed “venue where religiously-grounded family systems can respond

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together to the global spread of a militant secularism that threatens the liberties and existence of all vital faith systems.”11 With its regular regional meetings and conferences, the WCF is emerging as a permanent global interfaith institution guiding the CR/UN’s attempt to build an alliance of orthodox faiths at the United Nations. Some CR/UN organizations such as CWA, the Eagle Forum, and the Worldwide Organization of Women have successfully applied for United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) accreditation as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), a status that provides them with certain privileges and rights of access at the United Nations (for a discussion of the recognition process, see Otto 1996). Other organizations, such as Human Life International (HLI), have applied and been unsuccessful.12 Some organizations, such as C-Fam and WFPC, appear to be taking a leadership role in encouraging and strategizing around a CR/UN alliance at the United Nations. Other organizations, such as the Eagle Forum and CWA, tend to work individually, charting their own international politics but in close collaboration with other CR/UN groups. All of the organizations I identify as the CR/UN cohere around a shared conviction that conservative Christians must form a bulwark against a liberal global order and the threat it poses to the natural family. Paradoxically, while a specific engagement with the United Nations is a shared feature of all the groups identified as part of the CR/UN, many of these organizations are contemptuous of the United Nations. Eagle Forum and CWA have a long-established opposition to the organization, seeing it as a large, incompetent bureaucracy, characterized by corruption, “inbreeding,” and “nepotism” (Sheila Moloney, Eagle Forum, interview with author, 1999; Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America, interview with author, 1999; see also Chapter 2, this volume). Even organizations, such as Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, whose very existence is devoted to work at the United Nations, condemn it as an incompetent “backwater” (Ruse 1999) that “couldn’t organize a cocktail party in a distillery” (Ruse 2001). This image of an ineffective United Nations seemingly contradicts the international threat to Christianity and “family values” that motivates CR international activism. If the United Nations is so incompetent, why bother with it? To a certain extent, this is the view taken by many in the CR who oppose U.S. involvement in the United Nations but have gone no further. The turning point for the CR/UN, however, appears to be the perception that this backwater is becoming a threat precisely because of an activist international order in which international civil society is able to affect law and policy. In the following section, I look more closely at UN conferences, their significance as political space, and their consequent impact on the emergence of a CR/UN politics.

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The UN Conference and International Political Space Starting with the UN Conference on the Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the 1990s became the decade of the UNhosted international conference. These conferences are formal meetings of state representatives to negotiate consensual agreements governing international and domestic action in areas ranging from the environment to human rights to housing. Informally, the UN conference has become a large, loud, and dynamic forum attracting participation by a panoply of NGOs. In addition to the main conference at which state delegates meet and negotiate complex language for inclusion in a final agreement, NGOs hold parallel meetings where more controversial proposals and ideas are discussed. NGOs are then given limited rights of attendance at the main conference, where they meet with and lobby state representatives (Charlesworth 1996; Clark, Friedman, and Hochstetler 1998: 15). The final agreements are often lengthy, technical documents that set out basic principles, objectives, and recommended state actions. Although the consensual agreements are not binding in the same way as treaties, these plans of action are subject to intense negotiations during which individual wording is scrutinized and hotly debated. Reflecting influence from a diverse range of participants, the final agreements have often moved international law and policy in new and sometimes controversial directions. The 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development, for example, produced a 20-year blueprint for international population policy affecting the design, implementation, and funding of population and related programs (for a discussion, see Buss 2000b; Sen 1995). The entire conference process—preliminary regional meetings, draft proposals, extensive negotiations, and the resulting consensual plans of action—constitutes something of an international social policy road map. The conferences have become the forums in which various policy options and formulations are considered, the negotiation of fundamental policy changes is made possible, and future agenda items are prefigured. The resulting agreements could be argued to constitute a form of “global law” (Teubner 1997) in their own right, taking on a legally binding character by, among other things, the impact of the final agreements in defining international expectations. What has emerged is a forum in which international priorities are proposed, discussed, and negotiated, all with the involvement of state and nonstate actors. The result is that the UN conference and its preparatory process have become an unexpected but dynamic political and legal space in which a diverse range of parties can contest the articulation of law and policy options (Agnew 1994; Rosow 1994: 10; Ruggie 1993). The emergence of this political space is of most interest here: the expanded role of NGOs has

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markedly changed the way in which international law and policy are generated, negotiated, and sometimes changed. Although the presence of NGOs at the United Nations and other international forums is nothing new, the growth of NGOs’ access to and their impacts on these spaces are new.13 In the context of an international legal and political regime, defined in terms of interstate behavior (Cassesse 2001: 46–47), this institutionalized involvement of NGOs is a notable development. The growth in the number of groups that operate at the international level to promote social change— sometimes described as constituting an international civil society—has been instrumental in the expansion of international regimes in areas such as women’s rights, environmental law, and international trade. NGOs in particular have seized on regime-building in these areas as a “focal point for a number of strivings for social transformation” (Scholte 1993: 77; Lipschutz 1996). Thus, under the broad rubrics of human rights and the environment, for example, NGOs have succeeded in extending the spheres of international discourse (Keck and Sikkink 1998a: 203), placing on the agenda topics such as gender equality, sexual orientation, and global structural inequality. Feminist activists have been particularly successful in placing women’s rights on the international agenda through participation at UN conferences and other events. International feminist activism is extensive and diverse, and it is beyond the scope of this paper to describe all its complexities. There are, however, a few key areas in which feminists have had a consistent, high-profile impact: women’s rights in general and sexual and reproductive rights and violence against women in particular (Bunch, Frost and Reilly 1999; Higer 1999; Joachim 1999; Keck and Sikkink 1998a, chap. 5; Stienstra 2000; West 1999). Feminist activists have been successful in using UN-hosted conferences to build an international consensus on women’s rights and to secure formal recognition of the need to incorporate women’s rights into international policy and action on a range of issues from peacekeeping to international criminal law. Many in the CR/UN point to the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development as having triggered their international activism. 14 The Cairo Conference is notable in many respects. First, it is often cited as a feminist success story because of the influence of feminist activists in securing a broad consensus on placing women’s rights at the center of international programs addressing population and related issues (Petchesky 1995; Buss 2000b). This rights-based approach has become crucial in attempts to mainstream gender equality in international agencies and programs. It is also linked to the recognition of women’s sexual and reproductive rights, introduced at Cairo and developed in subsequent meetings and documents such as the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women (Petchesky 1997). Cairo was also notable for its highly publicized confrontation between

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Western countries (such as the United States) and the Vatican, which is a permanent observer at the United Nations and a voting member at UN conferences.15 At Cairo, the Vatican resisted inclusion in the final agreement of language recognizing a rights framework and reproductive rights, arguing, among other things, that this amounted to a legitimization of abortion (Buss 1998; 2000; Mayer 1995). The Vatican eventually backed down on some issues, and an agreement was reached, setting the stage for a renewed confrontation between the Vatican and feminists the following year at the Beijing Conference on Women. The contested issues at Beijing were again abortion and reproductive rights, as well as language prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (Bunch and Fried 1996: 202; Wilson 1996: 217). Although references to sexual orientation were ultimately removed from the final document, Beijing was also seen as a feminist success story, yielding stronger language on women’s rights and particularly sexual and reproductive rights (Petchesky 1997). Since Beijing, feminist activists have continued to argue for a rights-based approach in various contexts, including the recently formed International Criminal Court (Copelon 2000: 234; Bedont and HallMartinez 1999), and lobbied for gender mainstreaming in UN activities. The combined result is that women’s rights issues have, for a variety of reasons, garnered a large degree of support from the international community. This support may prove to be more formal than real (Mayer 1995), but at least on a rhetorical level the international community has endorsed the importance of women’s rights. It is against this backdrop that the CR movement at the UN emerged. Following the 1994 Cairo Conference, with its highly publicized confrontation over abortion between the Vatican and the United States, Christian Right organizations active in U.S. politics began to take a tentative interest in the UN. Focus on the Family, for example, attended the Beijing Conference on Women to expose what it called “the most radical, atheistic and anti-family crusade in the history of the world.”16 Other activists from established U.S. CR groups such as CWA also attended, as did Mormon organizations, including United Families International (Roylance 1995a). For these activists, the Beijing Conference was, in the words of Susan Roylance, president of United Families International at the time, a “‘wakeup call’ for those who believe the traditional family unit to be an important basic unit of society” (Roylance 1995: ix). It is not coincidental that the CR/UN’s wake-up call came in the context of two conferences primarily focused on women’s rights at which feminists were influential. Much of CR/UN activism focuses on limiting women’s rights and countering what it sees as the “feminist internationale” (Ruse 2001). And though it is clearly antifeminist in orientation, it would be a mistake to see the CR/UN as a single-issue backlash movement

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(Herman 1997). Certainly the array of issues concerning the CR/UN affects women’s rights and their status in society: sexual and reproductive rights, children’s rights, lesbian and gay recognition, population policy, and abortion (see Buss 2000a; Buss and Herman 2003). But the CR/UN is also concerned with the very process by which feminists and others have influenced social policy and the threat this might pose for U.S. domestic law and policy. The UN conference has been described as contributing to globalization from below, a democratizing turn in international politics allowing for diverse participation by nongovernmental organizations (Falk 2000; Mertus 2000; Smith and Guarnizo 1998). For the CR/UN, it is precisely this development that is at issue. The UN conference, in the CR/UN’s view, is foremost profoundly undemocratic as well as a vehicle for the promotion of an antifamily politics. Far from democratizing the international realm, according to the CR, the UN conference undermines domestic law by attempting to do, through the backdoor of international law, what was unsuccessful when tried through the front door of U.S. domestic law. For some U.S.-based CR organizations, international activism is necessary because groups such as feminists are trying to circumvent democratic processes in the United States by turning to international law to influence U.S. domestic law.17 CR activists argue that UN conference agreements have been drafted into international and U.S. law in a number of ways. First, specific language agreed upon at one conference—the recognition of reproductive rights, for example—is repeated in subsequent agreements until it eventually becomes an established part of international policy.18 Second, because conference documents are consensual agreements rather than treaties requiring approval of the Senate, the U.S. government—particularly the Democratic administration under President Bill Clinton—was able to circumvent normal checks and balances and adopt them through executive order into U.S. policy. In particular, the CR/UN points to the Clinton administration’s decision to implement the Beijing agreement by establishing the Interagency Council on Women as a way of circumventing public accountability.19 While the UN conference is generally characterized by the involvement of a diverse group of NGOs, the CR/UN argues that these NGOs are, by and large, “radical groups” bent on an antifamily politics. For the CR, NGOs are the source of “all the wacky ideas in the world” (Ruse 1999), which then “percolate” through the UN system.20 These NGOs are not simply “wacky”; they are also “dangerous” (Clark 2002: 1, 9). The CR/UN argues that these NGOs are able to use the flexibility of the UN conference system as a tool of “social engineering”21 and as a means to push a minority worldview (Balmforth 1999). CR/UN activists point to conferences, such as the 1994 Cairo Conference and the 1995 Beijing Conference, as exam-

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ples of venues in which radical groups hijacked the negotiations to push a particular agenda (Balmforth 1999), namely, abortion, women’s rights, lesbian and gay rights, and population policy. More than simply a concern about an emboldened United Nations, the increased role of NGOs is symptomatic of a changing international realm in which the processes of globalization are leading to the universalization of social policy, the imposition of “a cookie-cutter standard” of social relations on all people without accounting for “differences” in culture and religion (Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America, interview with author, 1999). Globalization is the concept or ideal that tells us not that small is beautiful, but that small is pitiful and out of date. The nation replaces the family, as in the U.S.A. public welfare replaces the father, and instead of individual nations, . . . we shall create a “world community.” (Brown 1999)

The changes identified as globalization—the move to a world community and global governance—thus have implications not just at the macro level of geopolitics but also at an intimate, familial level. With its challenge to the boundaries of the nation and the nature of the family, globalization affects the configuration of the nation-state, the nuclear family, and the Christian order. The way that I talk about work at the United Nations is that from certain quarters . . . there are three sovereignties that are under attack, sovereignty of the nation, of the church, and of the family and each in their own way are defenders and protectors of us as we make our way through life, and we believe that each was instituted by God in a certain way. (Ruse 1999)

Ruse’s comment highlights the intimate connection among the crisis of the natural family, conservative Christian politics, and globalism more generally. The threat to the natural family, in this vision, is part of a larger, secularizing effort at the international level in which key institutions—the nation-state and the natural family—are supplanted by a centralized global order. The secularist dimension to this global order is most clearly described by journalist Dorian Ian Atherton (2000), who argues that globalists seek to replace God with a new religion of “Global Governance . . . a virtual cornucopia of failed Socialist tenets.” Thus, while countering feminists tops the CR/UN agenda, global change is the larger backdrop. But the CR/UN is not simply resisting globalization, though this is an important part of its political project. Its international engagement is increasingly defined in terms of a natural family politics. This activism is motivated by both antifeminism and a specific worldview, premised on the natural family as the fundamental unit of socie-

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ty. The CR/UN’s project is thus also proactive, arguing for sociopolitical change in support of the natural family. In the words of Allan Carlson, it is time for the CR/UN to “become good social engineers” (1999b: 4).22

Building a “Natural Family” Alliance Where the 20th century belonged to the neo-Malthusians and their allies, the 21st century can be the century of The Natural Family. It can be marked by the reaffirmation of the family as the fundamental social unit, and by a renewed celebration of children—and of families with many children—as pleasing to God. We have the power to make this happen if we show the will to do so. I urge all families of faith to join this movement: the alternative is the darkness of a world without children. Let us choose The Light! (Carlson 1999a: 24)

In this and other essays (e.g., Carlson 1999a, 1999b; WCF 2000), Allan Carlson, president of The Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society and a leading intellectual light in CR/UN circles, argues that the natural family is under threat and must be countered by a global alliance of “religiously-guided family people” (Carlson 1999a). This threat comes from “ideological corruptions” (Carlson 1999b: 2) that challenge the natural family as the fundamental unit in society. These corruptions include population policy and the decline of Western fertility (Carlson 1999a: 16–30), excessive individualism that “ignores marriage and trivializes parent-child bonds” (Carlson 1999b: 3), and the end of a “truly ‘traditional’ world” (Carlson 1999b: 3). For Carlson and many others in the CR, the politics of feminists and lesbian and gay activists who seek to challenge a restrictive definition of the family must be resisted by a new discourse, one that emphasizes the family as defined by nature. In this new CR familial theology (see Buss and Herman 2003: chap. 1), the qualifier natural in the phrase natural family denotes a conception of the family based in “human nature: that is, in the very biological and psychological makeup of men and women. This means that our very identity as human beings impels us toward family life; toward marriage and children” (Carlson 1999b: 3, emphasis in original). Carlson, through the Howard Center and in cooperation with the Mormon WFPC, is attempting to build an alliance of orthodox faiths united under a natural family banner. The World Congress of Families is the vehicle for that alliance. The WCF has held three full sessions to date, in Prague, Geneva, and Mexico City, and other regional meetings are to be held in the United States. Each WCF session attempts to bring together activists from around the world representing various orthodox faiths to establish connections and agree on policies on the natural family. The WCF

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III planning committee, for example, lists members from Russia, Pakistan, Germany, Australia, India, Kenya, the Cameroons, and the Philippines. The committee is described as representing various religious groups, including “Evangelical, Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, LDS/Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu.”23 Despite this claim to a broad interfaith representation, however, the WCF II was dominated by Western Christians (Buss and Herman 2003: chap. 5). And it remains unclear to what extent the CR/UN has actually allied itself with other faith organizations active at the United Nations. At the WCF II, delegates developed the Geneva Declaration, setting out the WCF’s purpose and outlining the broad principles necessary for protecting the natural family. Importantly, the Geneva Declaration also provides a definition of the natural family: The natural human family is established by the Creator and essential to good society. . . . The natural family is the fundamental social unit, inscribed in nature, and centered on the voluntary union of a man and a woman in the lifelong covenant of marriage. (Geneva Declaration, World Congress of Families II, November 1999)

In this definition, the natural family is based on two main components: marriage and heterosexuality. The list of principles necessary for supporting the natural family are grouped under the headings of family and society, marriage, children, sexuality, life, population, education, economy, government, and religion. Broadly characterized, these principles call for limited government involvement to protect the family, defined as formed by the marriage between a man and a woman. Among other things, it calls for respect of the “inherent dignity of human life,” assistance to “developing countries” to promote “family self-sufficiency, not dependency,” and the recognition of parents’ authority in the “upbringing and education of their children” (Geneva Declaration, World Congress of Families II, November 1999). The Geneva Declaration is notable in a number of respects. First, the depiction of the natural family is consistent with the ideology of the family found in the domestic politics of the CR in the United States, including an often virulent opposition to lesbian and gay rights and a largely successful “defense of marriage” campaign (Bull and Gallagher 1996; Diamond 1998: chap. 8; Durham 2000: chap. 3; Hardisty 1999: chap. 4; Herman 1997). Second, the Geneva Declaration is bland and noncommittal. It reads less as a political program of action and more as a general listing of topics of concern. One section (“The Family and Economy”), for example, simply calls for a family-friendly approach to the economy, while another section (“Government”) condemns government involvement in the family but fore-

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sees an active role for government in promoting healthy religious families. If a global interfaith alliance, as envisioned by Allan Carlson, is to materialize, one of the initial challenges will be to articulate a more specific political project beyond the vague platitudes offered in the Geneva Declaration. An obvious difficulty facing this alliance is accommodating different religious and cultural understandings of the family into a single, conservative political project. The Christian Right’s emphasis on the nuclear family, for example, may sit uncomfortably with Muslims and some Catholics who emphasize the extended family (Buss and Herman 2003: chap. 5). Some of these and other possible difficulties facing this alliance are highlighted below.

Allied with Whom? For many CR/UN activists, an alliance of orthodox religious actors is important to their mission at the UN. The idea of Christians working alongside Muslims and the Vatican to protect natural family values is highlighted in activist materials and represented as a sign of strength.24 This alliance of like-minded faiths, in some accounts, is the development that makes possible a Christian Rights politics at the United Nations. Something positive is taking place at the UN. The NGOs from around the world, speaking many languages and representing many faiths, together with the Christian and Muslim delegations and observers, work together in perfect harmony—understanding and trusting one another implicitly. It is truly a miracle which gives us the assurance that we are not alone and abandoned in our struggle against the UN serpent.25

It is not clear, however, to what extent a global interfaith alliance actually exists and the degree of support it attracts among CR grassroots members. The natural family alliance at the United Nations appears to be primarily a conservative Christian affair. Very few, if any, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu26 NGOs are specifically named by the CR/UN as “allies.”27 Indeed, the CR/UN appears to have its biggest success working with particular Muslim states rather than with fellow NGOs. UN conferences, such as the five-year review of the Beijing Conference on Women (Beijing+5) and the 2002 Special Session on Children, found the CR/UN allying itself with states such as Iran, Sudan, and Pakistan.28 For the CR/UN, the distinction between orthodox states and organizations may not be important. This is, after all, an alliance of “orthodox believers” (Austin Ruse, interview with author, 1999, emphasis added). However, working with states like Sudan and Iran may pose difficulties for the CR/UN. First, some of these states have, at best, a spotty record on reli-

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gious freedom and treatment of Christians, important issues on the U.S. foreign policy agenda for the domestic CR (Martin 1999). Second, an alliance with Muslims may sit uncomfortably with the CR grass roots. Indeed, Austin Ruse admits to receiving heated e-mail messages from members of the “Catholic Right who don’t think we ought to hang out with Muslims” (interview with author, 1999). Ruse explains that this working alliance with pariah states such as Sudan is justified by the natural family imperative: We do not work on religious freedom. We work on life and family. . . . In the context of the United Nations we make this distinction: they are our allies, they’re not our friends. That’s the important distinction. So in that way we work very well with them, at the same time having revulsion for the things that they are doing to Christians in their own countries. (Interview, 1999)

Although Ruse may be able to maintain a distinction between friends and allies, is this a position that can be supported in the United States after September 11? The early indication is that it can, at least among CR policy elites. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, activist publications, newsletters, bulletins, and updates discussing the attacks emphasized religious tolerance and pluralism.29 Most drew a distinction between good Muslims (those critical of Osama bin Laden) and bad Muslims (supporters of bin Laden), with the prevailing message30 being that Christians should not condemn all Muslims for the actions of “a few radicals.”31 Yet among CR/UN organizations such as C-Fam and WFPC, very little, if anything, has been written about September 11. This may be due to the exclusive international/UN focus of these groups, unlike Focus on the Family and CWA, whose domestic political engagement offers a platform for commenting on September 11. Nonetheless, the CR/UN’s silence is remarkable, suggesting that it is refusing to vilify Islam after September 11 and remains committed to an alliance of “orthodox believers.” All of this suggests that while there are serious doubts about whether an actual interfaith alliance exists at this time, forming such an alliance has the broad support and commitment of key CR/UN activists. In addition, UN conferences such as Beijing+5, the Special Session on HIV/AIDS (2001), and the Special Session on Children (2002) are all evidence of an increasingly vocal contingent of conservative religious interests and states. The U.S. administration of President George W. Bush has openly allied itself with the Christian Right at the UN. The U.S. delegation to the Special Session on Children, for example, included Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow to the Beverly LaHaye Institute (Concerned Women for America). CWA and other CR organizations view the Bush administration as friendly to natural family values.32 The positions taken by the U.S. delegation at the

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2002 Special Session on Children on issues such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, parental rights, and adolescent reproductive education mirror those taken by the CR and CR/UN.33 The efforts by the CR/UN to build a global interfaith alliance are clearly worth watching. However, it is one thing to envision a global interfaith alliance; it is quite another to build one. It is not clear how such an alliance would operate and whether diverse interests can and will align themselves under this umbrella. Although an analysis of its prospects is premature at this stage, there are questions useful to pose with regard to this alliance and the politics of the natural family.

The Limits of a “Natural Family” Politics? Throughout this chapter I have argued that a CR/UN politics is framed, first, by an opposition to feminist radicals and an activist United Nations, and, second, by the promotion of a natural family world order. This second objective is not clearly defined and is still emerging, linked to the nascent natural family alliance at the UN. It is at this juncture—between an oppositional and proactive politics—that the limits of a CR/UN interfaith alliance may take shape. The flexing of conservative religious muscle at past UN conferences occurred on issues where there was a clear basis of agreement among religious conservatives: homosexuality, sexual autonomy for women and adolescents, abortion, and contraception. What will happen when this alliance lobbies for policies to secure a natural family world order? That is, can there be a broad interfaith consensus on what the social engineering of a natural family would look like and how it should be attained? The very definition of the family may prove divisive within a global orthodox alliance. Equally, it is unclear if orthodox faiths share the same views on the role of political and economic structures, including the state, in securing a world supportive of the natural family. Can an alliance of orthodox actors from the United States, Africa, and the Middle East agree on, for example, the link between adolescent HIV/AIDS infection rates and the international trade in and patenting of medication? Can it agree on a plan for promoting the natural family as the fundamental unit in society without addressing the link between single-parent families and migrant labor practices? And can it continue to oppose children’s rights without addressing the link between child labor, including sexual exploitation, and the tourist industry and capital mobility? Even among U.S. CR/UN groups there is a lack of consensus on what a proactive natural family politics would look like. For some, such as Austin Ruse, a CR/UN natural family agenda necessarily requires addressing glob-

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al wealth distribution. In an interview, Ruse explained that as long as developing countries are reliant on Western aid, they would be vulnerable to antifamily forces. The task for the CR then becomes changing the United Nations, making it ostensibly fairer to developing countries, and making the developing world less reliant on Western aid. A lot of these [anti-family policies] are allowed to come in the debate because the developing world needs money. So a developing world/country will say, “Okay, we will allow this radical language and we may institute these changes in exchange for development money from the UN and the World Bank and IMF.” So, I don’t think until that monetary incentive is removed that this will change much. Sadly many on the American right don’t understand that. (Ruse, interview, 1999)

As Ruse notes, this apparently liberal position is not shared by others on the right in U.S. politics, many of whom are hostile to international aid, seeing it as a part of a global plot to “channel American’s wealth . . . into Third World countries” (James 1997; see also Robertson 1991: 206–207; Sheila Moloney, Eagle Forum, interview with author, 1999). While Ruse may, at one level, recognize the link between the politics of the CR/UN and a larger geopolitical context, it is far from clear that other CR organizations support him in this. Indeed, the link drawn by Ruse between redressing global inequality and the United Nations highlights another area of contention within the CR/UN: the role of the United Nations in securing a natural family world order. For some CR/UN activists, the United Nations is—or was—an essentially good institution until it was corrupted by feminist and secularist forces (e.g., Carlson 1999a; WCF 2000). Part of the CR/UN project is thus to reform the United Nations and return it to its original state as a profamily institution. In a recent speech, Allan Carlson (1999a: 10; also see WCF 2000) outlines some strategic priorities for the reformation of the United Nations: To identify, protect, and help advance existing friends of the family within the UN Secretariat; To place such friends in positions of current or potential influence within the UN Secretariat; and To build an international movement of religiously grounded family morality systems that can influence and eventually shape social policy at the United Nations. This commitment to reforming the United Nations is not shared by all CR/UN groups. Concerned Women for America and Eagle Forum, for example, view the United Nations as fundamentally corrupt. For these

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activists, the United Nations is a force for the centralization of power and therefore is essentially anti-Christian. As a form of big government with global aspirations, the United Nations must be resisted. Coming from a Christian perspective, walking into the UN and listening to these conferences, it is a stark contrast to the principles by which Christians stand. The very essence of Christianity is the realization that God is the ultimate ruler and that God is our provider. The concept of the UN is that government is the ultimate ruler and that government will be the provider and decide what is best for everyone. (Denesha Reid, Concerned Women for America, interview with author, 1999)

If the United Nations is fundamentally flawed, what hope can there be for a natural family politics? For groups like CWA and Eagle Forum, the answer must be that their task is short-term: to resist feminists and minimize the impact of global institutions and actors such as the United Nations and radical NGOs. For groups like C-Fam and WFPC, in contrast, the task is more long-term and proactive: to reform the United Nations and usher in a new natural family world order. This suggests a fundamental split in the CR/UN on how and to what end it is working. Is this a short-term intervention merely to prevent feminist gains and natural family losses, or is there a more proactive, long-term vision? If it is the latter, can the United Nations ever be an instrument for securing a natural family world order, or will it always be a corrupt organization under the sway of antifamily and globalist forces? This split also has implications for an interfaith alliance. Is this an alliance for opposition, or can it share a vision of future change? If the latter, what role will the international community and its institutions play, and how will the alliance frame a natural family politics?

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that the CR/UN’s political activism is partly attributable to a changing global landscape in which political, legal, and economic changes have helped create the conditions for a CR/UN international engagement. Unlike other globally active movements (Keck and Sikkink 1998a: 217), the CR/UN has not turned to this arena because of a lack of success elsewhere. For the CR/UN, international activism is necessitated by the perception that a new global front is opening up in the “war on the family.” In this respect, a CR global politics needs to be seen as occurring in a global political space that is not simply domestic politics writ large. For the CR/UN, global politics may still be dominated by the same old enemies, but the issues and arenas have taken on new dimensions and a new sense of urgency.

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Global change is essential to understanding CR/UN activism, but so, too, are feminist successes in the international realm. Despite attempts to define itself as a natural family movement, the CR/UN’s politics are, to a large extent, defined by an opposition to feminism. It would be a mistake to see the CR/UN as simply a backlash movement (see Herman 1997). It has seized on the international realm as also offering new terrain on which to advocate for social change in the name of the natural family. In this respect, the CR/UN offers a complex case study of the relationship among global change, religious identity, and the meaning of resistance. The CR/UN’s attempt to forge a natural family alliance of orthodox faiths suggests a political religious identity defined against a global backdrop of perceived secular change. This focus on the relationship between changing political economy structures and CR/UN activism should not be read as a dismissal of other factors influencing the rise of a CR/UN politics. My intent here has been to elaborate the connection between global change and religious identity. However, factors such as domestic politics and individual personalities are also important in shaping activism. Indeed, individual personalities, including some such as Allan Carlson and Austin Ruse, play an important role in fostering the CR/UN movement. Perhaps the most significant challenge facing the CR/UN, however, comes from the presidency of George W. Bush. The Bush administration aims to be a leading actor in promoting an alliance of conservative religious states at the United Nations. One of the uncertainties facing the CR/UN is its future in a global order dominated by this administration. How will a conservative, religion-friendly presidency affect the CR/UN? Will Bush displace the CR/UN in leading the push for an alliance of orthodox faiths? Or will the Bush administration, increasingly perceived in some circles as anti-Muslim and with its affinity for the CR and CR/UN positions, undermine efforts to build a broad orthodox coalition? In this fluid international environment, the answers to these questions are far from clear.

Notes Many thanks to Didi Herman, Mary Ann Tétreault, and the anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting upon earlier drafts of this chapter. 1. The term homosexuality arguably has a pejorative resonance. In this chapter, I use homosexuality, rather than lesbian and gay, in contexts where it is used by the CR and CR/UN. For a further discussion of homosexuality in CR/UN politics, see Doris Buss (2004). 2. This chapter draws from research conducted for a larger project on the global politics of the Christian Right (Buss and Herman 2003) to explore more fully the relationship between CR/UN politics, including alliance-building, and global change.

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3. Many of the leading organizations in this international alliance agreed upon a definition of the family at the 1999 World Congress of Families II in Geneva. See below. 4. For a critical discussion of international civil society, see Ann Marie Clark, Elisabeth Friedman, and Kathryn Hochstetler (1998: 2–6); Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (1998a: 32–34); R.B.J. Walker (1994: 690–691). Like these authors, I am skeptical about the existence of an international civil society. However, I use the term, in part, to challenge a conception of society as solely contained within the nation-state (Agnew 1994: 92; Colás 2002). The rise of social movements and transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998a) and their formalized participation as NGOs in UN processes have resulted in a form of civil society that influences and has become a significant part of international law and policymaking. I cautiously use the term international civil society to refer to that phenomenon. 5. For a closer examination of the CR/UN and individual CR/UN organizations, see Doris Buss and Didi Herman (2003); Jennifer Butler (2000); Anick Druelle (2000); Frances Kissling and Jon O’Brien (2001). 6. Excluded from this definition of the CR are survivalist, militia, and racebased CR organizations (see Aho 1990, 1996; Barkun 1994); included are conservative Catholic and Mormon organizations instrumental in the formation of the CR alliance at the UN. Although American organizations dominate the CR/UN, groups from Canada (REAL Women), Australia (Australian Family Association), and the UK (Peter Smith, International Right to Life) are also actively involved. 7. Founded in 1997 by Human Life International, C-Fam is located in New York, across the street from the United Nations. It produces a weekly bulletin, the Friday Fax, which provides a regular update on UN actions and the work of the CR/UN. 8. According to the World Congress of Families website, WFPC is a partnership among the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, the Reuben Clark School of Law, and the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. WFPC’s mission is “to provide worldwide democratic input and effectively educate the United Nations System on pro-family and other value-based issues.” Its managing director is Richard Wilkins, a law professor at Brigham Young (www.worldcongress.org/wcf3/wcf3_home.htm) (accessed April 23, 2002). The active involvement of Mormon organizations is part of a growing political rapprochement among different conservative Christian denominations within the United States (Wilcox, Rozell, and Gunn 1996; Wuthnow 1988). 9. This rise in the number of CR think tanks and the use of social-science research to bolster CR policy positions appear to be a growing trend. Other notable research centers include the Beverly LaHaye Institute (Concerned Women for America), the Family Research Council, and the new John Paul II Center for the Study of International Organizations (C-Fam). The mandates of organizations such as C-Fam and WFPC focus on educating (international actors) and disseminating research (supporting the family as the central unit in society). See www.C-Fam.org and www.worldcongress.org. 10. With clear links to the Rockford Institute, the Howard Center has two specialized research units, the Family in America Studies Center and the Religion and Society Studies Center, and the Swan Library, a “clearinghouse of truthful and effective information” in support of “the natural family” (see www.profam.org). 11. See www.worldcongress.org.html (accessed May 23, 2002). 12. HLI was denied accreditation in 1993 for, according to one observer, its

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anti-UN stance (see Butler 2000: 6ff). According to a study by the feminist organization Catholics for a Free Choice, HLI’s failure to gain ECOSOC accreditation led to the formation of C-Fam (Kissling and O’Brien 2001: 8). Other CR organizations, such as Eagle Forum, also have faced tough questioning from the accrediting committee about their anti-UN position (Sheila Moloney, Eagle Forum, interview with author, 1999). 13. Nongovernmental organizations have a long history of international involvement, and their work at the United Nations has become increasingly formalized (Charnovitz 1997). Starting in the 1970s and continuing into the 2000s, the number of NGOs and the nature of their involvement at the United Nations has grown in size and complexity. For example, in 1993 nearly 1,000 NGOs were ECOSOC-accredited (Otto 1996: 109). As of November 2004, the United Nations website reports that 2,350 NGOs have consultative status with ECOSOC. 14. Austin Ruse, for example, refers to the Cairo Conference as the birthplace of the CR/UN: “Toward a Permanent United Nations Pro-Family Bloc,” speech delivered at the World Congress of Families, November 14–17, 1999, on file with author. 15. I use the term Vatican to refer to the international representatives of the administrative center of the Catholic Church. In this capacity, the Vatican is generally referred to as the Holy See, a term that technically means the diocese—“the seat”—of Rome and, practically, is the official face of the Vatican at the UN. I prefer the term Vatican because it has a broader meaning and includes both the Holy See and the offices through which the Pope functions and the Church is governed (for a discussion of these different offices, see Reese 1996). 16. James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, Newsletter, August 1995, on file with author. 17. See, for example, Austin Ruse (1999); Concerned Women for America, “CEDAW Sells Out Women and Families: Feminists Renew Drive for Federal ERA Through CEDAW,” on file with author; James Hirsen (1999: 31). 18. See, for example, Isabel Bilmore, “The ‘Right to Health’ According to WHO,” Insight, Family Research Council, on file with author; James Hirsen (1999, 6); Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America, interview with author, 1999. There is a growing concern in CR/UN circles that the formation of international norms in this way may also be used in the U.S. domestic legal system to argue that U.S. laws violate international standards. See, e.g., Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, “Texas Lawyers Attempt to Use UN Resolutions to Overturn US Law,” Friday Fax 4(50): December 6, 2001. 19. Concerned Women for America, “In the Aftermath: The U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women,” August 7, 1997; Gracia Jones (1995). Most of this analysis was developed during the administration of President Bill Clinton. The administration of George W. Bush has shown itself to be much more amenable to the objectives of the CR/UN, and it is unclear what impact this will have on CR/UN analysis of the interplay between international and domestic legal orders. 20. “Powerful NGOs Gather to Put Left-Wing Pressure on UN General Assembly,” Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute 3(13) (February 18, 2000), on file with author. 21. Quoted in Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, “Conservative NGOs Warn Congressional Staffers About Beijing+5,” Friday Fax 3(6) (December 24, 2000), on file with author. 22. Carlson goes on to note that “this answer may upset many, who correctly see certain forms of ‘social engineering’ as a cause of contemporary family disar-

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ray” (1999b: 4). He explains his usage of the phrase as a call to resist “modernity,” using the methods of the Amish communities found in the United States (1999b: 4). Despite this effort to distance himself from other social engineers, it is difficult to see how Carlson’s argument is anything other than the promotion of one set of values/worldview over another. 23. World Congress of Families Newsletter 2(9) (2001), on file with author. 24. See, for example, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, “Tempers Flair as Child Summit Negotiations Go Down to Wire,” Friday Fax, 5(20) (May 10, 2002); Population Research Institute, “Women’s Conference Features Face-off Between Vatican, Pro-Abortion Groups,” PR Newswire, June 5, 2000, on file with author; Jones (1995). 25. Real Women of Canada, “Taming the Serpent of the UN,” REALity, March/April 1999; Carlson (1999: 14, 23); Carlson, “A History of the ‘The Family’ in the United Nations,” presentation to UN Observer training seminar (Canada) St. John The Evangelist Church, New York, June 2, 2000, available from www.worldcongress.org (accessed June 6, 2000). 26. The reference to representatives of the Hindu faith on the WCF website is a new addition and a notable departure from earlier CR/UN activist publications in which Hinduism is disparaged. See, e.g., Austin Ruse, “UN ‘Peace Summit’ Ends in Discord,” NewsMax, September 1, 2000, available from www.newsmax.com (accessed November 12, 2000). 27. The only exception to this I could find was a reference to the “al-Khoei Foundation,” a London-based Shiite Muslim foundation that joined the C-Fam campaign in support of retaining the Vatican’s Permanent Observer status at the UN (“Campaign in Support of Holy See at UN Grows to More than 2,000 Groups,” Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Friday Fax, 3(26) May 19, 2000). The organizing committee for the World Congress of Families is drawn from a wide range of faiths and nationalities and includes some Muslim—primarily Iranian— organizations. However, none of the individuals from orthodox Jewish or Muslim groups appear to be otherwise active with the CR/UN. For a discussion of the multifaith character of the WCF, see Doris Buss and Didi Herman (2003: chap. 5). A further reason for a lack of Muslim NGOs in this alliance may be the limited opportunity for such organizations to form and access international arenas. 28. Austin Ruse, newsletter, June 9, 2000, on file with author; “Women’s Conference,” PR Newswire; Janice Shaw Crouse, “U.S. Earns An Outstanding Report Card for the United Nations Children’s Summit,” Concerned Women for America, May 13, 2002, (www.cwfa.org); Austin Ruse, “Address to the Southwest Regional Meeting of the World Congress of Families,” Arizona, November 10, 2001, on file with author. For an overview of the conference negotiations, see Tonya Barnes et al. (2000). 29. Focus on the Family, “Dr. James Dobson Reflects on a Changed Nation,” news release, Citizenlink, September 20, 2001, available from www.family.org (accessed April 23, 2002). 30. It is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the impact of September 11 on CR politics, and more research is required in this area. But a review of the Concerned Women for America website (conducted spring 2002) suggests that CWA, at least, is less vocal then others in its support for religious pluralism. For example, Chuck Colson argues that the September 11 terrorists were not “simply anarchists” but a product of a “major power struggle within Islam.” See “A View from the Afghan Border: Bin Laden’s Actions Represent a Major Power Struggle within Islam,” November 5, 2001, available from www.cwfa.org (accessed

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April 23, 2002). Other CWA publications emphasize the persecution of Christians by the Taliban or suggest that only Christianity can save Afghanistan from the Taliban. See Tanya L. Green, “Afghan Women Brutalized by the Taliban: Afghanistan’s Ruling is Reportedly the Most Misogynistic in the World,” October 29, 2001, available from www.cwfa.org (accessed April 23, 2002). 31. See, for example, Mark Cowan, “Terrorism: A Cause for Reflection,” Focus on the Family, Citizenlink, September 13, 2001, available from www.family.org (accessed April 23, 2002); Mark Hartwig, “Osama Examined,” Focus on the Family, Citizenlink, September 17, 2001, available from www.family.org (accessed April 23, 2002); Trudy Chun, “Of Terrorism and Hope: Muslim People Are Not Our Enemy,” Concerned Women for America, October 2, 2001, available from www.cwfa.org (accessed April 23, 2002). 32. See, for example, Janice Shaw Crouse, “U.S. Earns an Outstanding Report Card for United Nations Children’s Summit,” Concerned Women for America, May 13, 2002, available from www.cwfa.org (accessed May 24, 2002); Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, “Bush Administration Stops Abortion at UN Child Summit,” press release, May 13, 2002, on file with author; Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, “U.S. Takes Pro-Family Stance at UN Population Commission, EU Defends UNFPA,” Friday Fax 5(16) (April 12, 2002), on file with author. 33. For a discussion of CR/UN politics on children’s rights and adolescent sexuality, see Buss (2000a).

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4

The Triangle of Conflict: Fundamentalisms in Israel and the Territories

In 1993, after almost a century of violent interaction, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) recognized each other and agreed to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via peaceful negotiations. The architects of the Oslo peace process assumed that economic benefits would secure peace; many academics and policymakers also adopted this view (e.g., Peres and Naor 1993; World Bank 1993; Fischer et al. 1994). The Oslo plan was simple: Israel would gradually transfer land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (the territories) to a newly formed Palestinian governing body—the Palestinian Authority (PA); in turn, the PA would assist Israel in squelching Palestinian radicals who rejected the Oslo process. Over time, both sides expected that Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation would bear fruit, political relations would improve, and the two would sign a permanent peace agreement. So far, this rosy scenario has not materialized. In July 2000, the leaders of the two sides convened in the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, with the goal of resolving the conflict once and for all. This summit failed. Then, on September 28, 2000, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, accompanied by more than 1,000 Israeli policemen and soldiers. The visit outraged Palestinians on religious and nationalistic grounds, particularly given Sharon’s highly publicized rejection of the formation of a Palestinian state. Galvanizing Palestinian anger over the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Sharon’s visit triggered Palestinian protests that quickly turned into a revolt against Israel—a second intifada, or “uprising” (Mitchell Report 2001). Even so, Israel and the PA continued to negotiate, and by January 2001 it appeared that progress had been made (EU Special 2002). However, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak lost the elections held shortly thereafter. The new government formed by Prime Minister Sharon in February 2001 rejected the evolving Israeli-Palestinian progress, and the conflict escalated. 79

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This chapter has two goals. First, I seek to explain why the Oslo process failed. Second, assuming that a Palestinian state will form a part of any eventual settlement, I propose policies that could raise the probability of reaching and sustaining a stable Israeli-Palestinian peace. To the extent that one can learn from history, I believe that the period since 1994 is the best time frame from which to draw inferences in this regard, because this is when Palestinian state-like attributes that did not exist before first appeared (e.g., security forces, territorial control). One always needs to be careful when using history as a basis for policy analysis. No one can foresee the future. Many social science studies, therefore, use history as a laboratory. The working assumption is that consistently observed historical patterns are likely to persist in the future should no policy intervention be taken. Events since 1994 show fairly consistent patterns: one is that the Israeli-Palestinian relationship exhibits cycles of violent conflict. This suggests the existence of structures and forces that inhibit the likelihood of peace. In my view, the failure of the Oslo process was caused primarily by the synergistic interaction of three forces. This triangle of conflict-promoting forces includes Palestinian economic decline, Palestinian Islamic fundamentalism, and Israeli Jewish fundamentalism. To streamline the discussion, I will use the terms Islamic fundamentalism and Jewish fundamentalism in this chapter.1 Palestinian economic decline has raised Palestinian public support for Hamas, the largest Palestinian Islamist organization. The lack of participation by Hamas in the peace process also feeds the conflict. The Jewish fundamentalists’ sometimes violent rejection of the Oslo process also fuels the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel and hardens positions on both sides.2 Yet despite the grim history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, I believe that peace between Israel and a future Palestinian state is possible. To achieve that, it is necessary for both sides to choose the right policies. Before I turn to this controversial proposition, I will explain how the forces combined to undermine the Oslo process.

The Israeli-Palestinian Relationship Since 1994: Stylized Model and Data The Israeli-Palestinian relationship since the initiation of the second intifada in September 2000 has been highly conflictual. The two sides attempted from time to time to stop the violence and return to the negotiating table, but so far all these attempts have failed. This alternation of conflict escalation and deescalation (cooperation) did not begin in September 2000: the Israeli-Palestinian relationship has cycled between conflict and cooperation

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since 1994. In earlier analyses (Reuveny 1999, 2000), I described the mechanics of these cycles by using a stylized model. Here I extend this model to consider the role of domestic opposition to peace. The goal is not to explain the political-economic reasons for the change in the Israeli position in the early 1990s that enabled the beginning of the Oslo peace process, but rather the dynamics that have followed since then.3 The model includes two “states”—Israel and Palestine—that fought over land and are now negotiating a territorial compromise.4 Israel is more developed economically and is militarily stronger than Palestine. Many Palestinians work in Israel, and most Palestinian trade is with Israel, but these activities are not so important for the much larger and more diversified Israeli economy as for the Palestinian economy. Each nation can be envisioned in terms of three actors: the government, moderate popular forces (“moderates”), and fundamentalist forces (“extremists”). Moderates on both sides generally support the peace negotiations, whereas extremists reject them. In Palestine, the extremists compete with the government for popular support and leadership status. In Israel, extremists pressure the government to accept their position. Both governments try to appease their respective extremists. At the beginning of a cycle, government forces influenced by extremists provoke or attack the other side. In response, that side’s extremists demand retaliation, which typically follows. Regardless of who instigates the conflict, Israel employs sanctions against Palestine, demanding that the Palestinian government arrest its extremists. These sanctions may include banning Palestinians from working in Israel, suspending Israeli-Palestinian trade relations, and undertaking various military measures. At first the Palestinian government refuses to move against its extremists, fearing destabilizing consequences for its regime. As the conflict escalates, Palestinian welfare deteriorates at a faster rate than Israeli welfare. Eventually, the Palestinian government yields to Israel’s dictates and moves against its extremists. Israeli sanctions are then reduced (but rarely removed), and the two sides cooperate again. Eventually, the Palestinian government suspends actions against its extremists. Over time, bad feelings accumulate, public support for extremist positions rises, and a new cycle commences. Empirical data since 1994 support the model. Economic data show wide variations in the average annual number of Palestinian workers in Israel. The numbers fluctuated from 115,600 in 1992, nearly 40 percent of the Palestinian labor force; to 32,000 (8.6 percent) in 1993–1995 (the first agreement in the Oslo process was signed in late 1993); 50,000 (8.5 percent) in 1999; and 38,000 (6.4 percent) in 2000. 5 Lost work days for Palestinians working in Israel was 6.1 percent in 1993, 31.9 percent in 1996, 2.5 percent in 1999, and 18.8 percent in 2000. These layered variations reflect Israeli closures. When fewer Palestinians worked in Israel,

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Israel imported more foreign replacement labor (Yediot, April 23, 1999), reducing demand for Palestinian workers and also workers’ wages. From 1995 to 2000, the average real wage of Palestinians working in Israel declined about 18 percent. The average daily wage for Palestinians working in the territories also declined in real terms, about 17 percent from 1995 to 2000.6 The Palestinian economy could not reabsorb workers previously employed in Israel. The average unemployment rate in the territories thus also fluctuated. It was 18.5 percent in 1995, 23.9 percent in 1996, 11.8 percent in 1999, and 14.5 percent in 2000. Trade is important for the Palestinian economy. About 90 percent of Palestinian imports come from Israel, and 80 percent of Palestinian exports go to Israel. These exports consist mainly of agricultural products and labor-intensive goods; imports are primarily necessities such as fuel, cement, and food. The ratio of imports to gross domestic product (GDP) in the occupied territories declined from about 65 percent in 1991 to 40 percent in 1997–1998 (due to closures); it rose to about 70 percent in 2000. The share of exports in GDP declined from 14 percent in 1991 to 7 percent in 1993, remained low in the late 1990s, and then rose to 12.8 percent in 2000. The effects on Israel of the decline in Israeli-Palestinian economic relations were relatively small, but the effects on Palestinians were devastating.7 Real gross national product (GNP) per capita declined about 50 percent from 1992 to 2000, whereas Israel’s real GNP per capita grew by about 16 percent. The sharp Palestinian economic decline promoted hostility toward Israel. From 1994 to the eve of the 2000 summit at Camp David, there were eleven major upsurges of violence (Reuveny, 1999, 2000). Each time, Israel imposed closures on the territories and demanded that the PA arrest members of the Islamic fundamentalist movement Hamas. The PA would at first refuse but eventually yield. After Israel lifted the closures, the PA would ease its grip on Hamas. Some cycles of violence started with Hamas attacks. Others started with Israeli governmental provocation or Jewish fundamentalist attacks. Meanwhile, as the vulnerable Palestinian economy declined, Hamas became more popular, and the PA became less able (and willing) to oppose it. Harsher Israeli pressure was needed to compel the PA to oppose Hamas. At first, Israel imposed external closures. Then, accusing the PA of supporting Hamas, it imposed internal closures as well (i.e., restricting movement within the territories). Eventually it resorted to military measures. The second intifada saw a considerable increase in the level of IsraeliPalestinian violence. Israeli closures and military activities intensified Palestinian economic decline. By 2001, Palestinian unemployment stood at about 25.5 percent. Palestinian per capita income fell about 50 percent relative to 1992: about half of the population lived in poverty.8 As in the 1990s,

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Palestinian economic decline continued to promote hostility and anger toward Israel, increasing support for Hamas (e.g., Siegman 2001; Ha’aretz, November 29, 2001; The Economist, August 11, 2001). This model emphasizes the primary active role of Israel in Palestinian economic decline since 1994 through its use of internal and external closures, economic sanctions, and punitive actions. Interestingly, a recent report by the World Bank (World Bank 2003) reached a similar conclusion. Reversing its previous call for Israeli-Palestinian economic integration, the World Bank concluded that the Palestinian economy needs to break its tight links to the Israeli economy (a new position that resembles one of my earlier recommendations; see below). The Israeli economy also has deteriorated during the second intifada, but much less so than the Palestinian economy. According to the Israeli finance ministry, the second intifada cost the Israeli economy NIS24 billion (new Israeli shekels) during its first year (about U.S.$5.5 billion, or 5 percent of Israeli GDP), and 80,000 Israelis lost their jobs due to the conflict. The office of the prime minister puts the damage to production activity alone at NIS12.3 billion (Ha’aretz, September 16, 2002). Preliminary data for 2002 show that Israeli exports of manufactured goods to the European Union declined 20 percent, and Israeli hotel accommodations fell by 37 percent relative to 2000 (Ha’aretz, 2 August 2002). In addition, the Israeli public became considerably less accommodating, voting Barak, from the center-left Labor Party, out of office in January 2001 and electing Ariel Sharon, from the right-wing Likud bloc, as prime minister.

The Roots of Jewish and Islamic Fundamentalisms The Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not start in 1994: Israelis and Palestinians have been traumatized by almost 100 years of conflict. The 1967 war is particularly important for our story, setting in motion the processes that nourish Jewish and Islamic fundamentalisms. Fundamentalism generally combines religion and a political platform to achieve radical sociopolitical change.9 Although the specifics differ across movements, fundamentalists believe that they alone possess true knowledge of God’s will. In their eyes, sociopolitical/socioeconomic hardships are the result of the political leadership defying the will of God. However, better times are possible if the people change their ways. Nationalist fundamentalist movements define national identity in religious terms and see the work of God in daily life. This conviction drives their actions. At the extreme, they may resort to violence against people who threaten the implementation of their platforms (Hanauer 1995). Fundamentalism is favored by some structural and micro-oriented

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forces. Economic underdevelopment can provide conditions for the rise of fundamentalism. This force has played an important role in the Palestinian case but far less in the Israeli case. Inspiring leadership and an efficient organizational structure also can be important; both played a role in the Israeli and Palestinian cases. Perhaps the most important support for Israeli and Palestinian fundamentalism lies in an extraordinary event: the June 1967 war. Given my policy focus, this section considers the structural factors generated by the 1967 war that promoted the rise of Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism.10 Jewish Fundamentalism Their victory in the 1967 war amazed Israelis. Virtually overnight, Israel was transformed from a small country facing constant threats to its existence from neighbors into a regional power (Oren 2002). Religious Zionists—those belonging to a branch of Zionism that sees the formation of Israel as the will of God—were particularly moved by the victory; its sheer magnitude had to be a sign from God that the time had come to reinstate the Kingdom of David in all of Palestine. Gush Emunim, the largest Jewish fundamentalist group, coalesced from among religious Zionists in 1974, with the goal of settling movement members in the territories.11 Before 1977, it had built a few settlements in the West Bank, at times without government permission. Sometimes, Gush Emunim settlers were evicted by the government, only to try again later. All that changed in 1977 when Likud, a bloc led by the revisionist Herut (Freedom) Party, won its first election. The Likud assertion that Jews could settle in all of Palestine made it a natural partner of Gush Emunim: Likud provided land, military power, and money, and the fundamentalists (Gush Emunim) provided settlers. By the mid-1980s, Gush Emunim was a strong force in Israeli politics. Its current level of support is not precisely known, but observers estimate that Gush Emunim is supported by 30–40 percent of the settlers and controls about 50 settlements (Goldberg 1993; Alpher 1995; Joffe 1996; Gazit 1999; Smith 2001; Leibovich-Dar 2002). Jewish fundamentalists stress the sanctity and integrity of Eretz Israel, or “Greater Israel” (Palestine). God chose Greater Israel to be the land of the Jews and prohibited handing over any of its territory to gentiles. Jewish fundamentalists say that Palestinians settled without permission on property that is not theirs, when its owners—the Jews—were absent, due to their expulsion by the Romans about 1,900 years ago (Pichnik 1968; Schnall 1984). To support their cause, Jewish fundamentalists have resorted to terrorism against Palestinians. Some fundamentalists attack Palestinians they deem hostile to Jews (e.g., attacking Palestinian mayors associated with the

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PLO in 1980). The number of these attacks rose during the second intifada beginning in September 2000 (U.S. State Department 2001). Others seek to hasten Jewish redemption by destroying Muslim shrines or driving out the Arabs from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount (e.g., the 1983–1984 plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem). A third trend attacks Palestinians indiscriminately in order to escalate the conflict and thereby prevent territorial compromise (e.g., the 1984 plan to bomb Arab buses, the 1994 Hebron massacre, the 2002 plan to bomb a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem; see Segal 1988; Weisburd 1989; Kass and O’Neill 1997; Dudai 2001; Ringal and Ben Haaim 2001; Shragai 2002; Ha’aretz, May 16, 2002). Islamic Fundamentalism In the early years of the Israeli occupation, Palestinians, still dismayed by the 1967 Arab defeat, accepted (albeit with increasing unease) the growing Israeli presence. Eventually, as the occupation persisted, they became more nationalistic, and in 1987 they revolted against it. This revolt, the first intifada, turned the Palestinian Islamist movement into a major force in Palestinian politics. In the early 1980s, economic recessions in the Arab oil countries and Israel—two important labor markets for Palestinians at the time—spread to the occupied territories. From 1982 to 1985, real GNP per capita fell 16 percent in the Gaza Strip and 9 percent in the West Bank. Population density and growth rates were high, living conditions grim, and local work opportunities scarce. Health, sanitation, education, and other social services were inadequate, particularly in refugee camps.12 Palestinian socioeconomic decline provides the background for the 1987 Palestinian uprising (Schiff and Yaari 1990; Nassar and Heacock 1990; Alin 1994). Israeli measures, employed to subdue this first intifada, further damaged the Palestinian economy. In 1988–1989, real GNP per capita fell 20 percent in the West Bank and 30 percent in the Gaza Strip, and social services almost collapsed. Palestinians faced a socioeconomic crisis without the tools to deal with it. The Palestinian Islamic movement stepped into this vacuum (Reuveny 2000). The contemporary Palestinian Islamic movement is an offspring of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) movement. The Brotherhood opened its first offices in Palestine in 1945. By 1948, it had thirty-eight offices and 10,000 members. Palestinian Islamists fought Israel in 1948, alongside Arab armies. After the 1948 War for Independence, and particularly since the early 1980s, Islamists have focused on providing social services through local mosques to poor Palestinians (e.g., nursing homes, day care, schools).

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Palestinian nationalism in the territories, evident since the early twentieth century, intensified in the late 1970s, primarily in response to the increasing Israeli settler presence in the territories. Reacting to the changing times, Palestinian Islamists in the territories in 1985 decided to oppose Israel but without resorting to arms. The first intifada served as notice that the Israeli occupation was not sustainable. Inspired by the revolt, the Palestinian resistance movement developed a new cadre of local leaders and strengthened Palestinian national identity. In response, the Islamist trend, which was a relatively small force in Palestinian society, decided to resort to arms in opposing Israel. The name Hamas first appeared on leaflets in January 1988, and within a year Hamas became a strong political force in the territories.13 The ideology of Hamas is grounded in Islam: “Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran is its constitution, Jihad [holy war] is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes” (Hamas Covenant 1988: art. 11). The movement has two main goals. The first is to liberate Palestine and obliterate Israel for the sake of God. Like Jewish fundamentalists, Hamas also stresses the holiness and wholeness of Palestine. Palestine is a waqf (a sacred trust), dedicated to Islam. No one has the right to give away any part of it. From now until judgment day, says Hamas, Palestine belongs to the people who lived there at the time of the Islamic conquest (about 1,400 years ago)—that is, the Palestinians (Hamas Covenant 1988: art. 11). The second goal of Hamas is to build an Islamist state in place of Israel, a reflection of its rejection of the secular worldview of the PLO. “The PLO has adopted the idea of a lay state . . . [which] totally contradicts the idea of religion. . . . The Islamic nature of Palestine is a part of our religion. . . . The day the PLO adopts Islam as its rule for life, we will be its soldiers” (quoted in Legrain 1990: 185). Given these goals, Hamas rejects the PLO’s pledge to resolve the conflict with Israel via peaceful negotiations: “the conflict with Zionists in Palestine is a conflict of survival [and calls] to fight the Zionists until they leave Palestine [West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel] the way they migrated to it” (Reuveny 2000: 232, brackets in original). The difficult conditions under Israeli occupation enhance the appeal of Hamas. Its goal of creating a Palestinian Islamic state in place of Israel has attracted many adherents (Sabella 1991; Gazit 1999). High schools, universities, mosques, refugee camps, and Hamas’s social-religious institutions proved to be fruitful sources for recruiting new followers, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where socioeconomic conditions are worse than in the West Bank. Hamas’s activities are financed externally by private donors, Islamic charities, and Islamic aid agencies from the Gulf States, including Saudi

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Arabia and Iran, and Western Europe and the United States (Mishal and Sela 2002; Hatina 1997; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1997).14 Some donations take the form of goods and materials given by local Palestinian businesses and wealthy individuals (Martin 2002). The exact budget of Hamas is not known, but Hamas’s resources in 1994 were valued at U.S.$30–50 million (Mishal and Sela 2000). In recent years, the biggest financial backer of Hamas is assumed to be the Saudi government (Martin 2002), but the financial link to Iran also is important (Hatina 1997). In 1998, Hamas is supposed to have received U.S.$15 million from Iran and U.S.$35 million from the other sources cited above (Macor Rishon, June 6, 1998).

The Mechanics of Fundamentalism and the Peace Process In the first section of this chapter, I attributed the failure of the Oslo process to its rejection by fundamentalists on both sides. Here I seek to elaborate, suggesting a theoretical framework for understanding how fundamentalists derailed the peace process. We can think about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as a two-level game. Suggested by Robert Putnam (1988), this general framework describes interactions that take place during international negotiations. On the first level, diplomats and foreign ministers bargain over a treaty, each side trying to maximize its own payoff. On the second level, national leaders bargain with forces within their respective societies to get the treaty approved. Consequently, international negotiators face concurrent domestic and international pressures. The likelihood of arriving at an agreement depends on the nature of the disputed issues, the positions of each side, and the feasibility of getting the treaty ratified at home. The model of the two-level game simplifies a complex and dynamic social/political/economic reality. International negotiations that focus on the resolution of territorial conflicts are particularly complicated, as they may involve interacting on more than two levels (i.e., with actors in addition to foreign counterparts and domestic institutions). These additional forces may be third-party governments, diplomats, and international mediators, as well as nonstate participants at home and abroad, such as political parties, grassroots organizations, terrorist movements, fundamentalist groups, settlers, business corporations, and transnational organizations. Moreover, any of these negotiations can include secret contacts leading to undisclosed understandings. None of these complexities is modeled explicitly in the two-level framework. It is evident that the Israeli-Palestinian case exhibits many of the above-mentioned complexities, including interactions on more than two

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levels. For example, the fundamentalist oppositions on both sides have external supporters, and third-party countries, particularly the United States, play important roles in the negotiation process. It is important to note, however, that all models are simplifications designed to focus on particular elements of the real world, and the two-level game offers a reasonable first approximation of underlying political realities. The study of these complexities and others is deferred to future research. Applying the two-level game to the Oslo process demonstrates that both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators tend to represent the views of the moderates in their societies. The primary domestic opposition came from fundamentalist movements on each side. At the beginning, many on both sides took (implicitly or explicitly) a wait-and-see position. Should the peace process move forward, most would support it. If the process should stall, they could reject it. Either way, the peace process faced two primary problems. If most Israelis or most Palestinians were to adopt a fundamentalist position, negotiating Israeli or Palestinian governments or regimes that by definition would be moderate would be replaced by more extremist regimes. Yet, even if most people on both sides were to support the evolving agreement, fundamentalists still might attempt to prevent its implementation because their ideologies reject any possibility of compromising. From a game-theoretic perspective, it seems as though Jewish and Islamic fundamentalists colluded tacitly to derail the peace process. Whenever there were signs of evolving compromises at the first level, fundamentalists promoted violence either externally—toward the other side— or internally—toward the moderates on their own side. The objective of external violence is to trigger counterattacks that would intensify the conflict. The goal of internal violence is to limit the scope of peace offers at the first level of the game by threatening civil war, assuring their rejection by the other side. Internal violence by itself, however, also could turn into civil war, with high-stakes risks for the fundamentalists’ programs. Fundamentalists on both sides, therefore, also have called for national unity and prevention of war among brothers.

The Settlements and the Peace Process During the Oslo process, Israel insisted that the issue of settlements be postponed to the final stage of negotiations. The Palestinians dissented strongly but in the end accepted the Israeli dictate (Savir 1998). The understanding was that the spirit of Oslo called for a halt to settlement expansion (Mitchell Report 2001). However, even this did not occur. Shortly after the 1967 war, the Israeli government offered to hand over

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the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights to the Arabs in return for peace. But the government was divided on the fate of the West Bank. One group wanted to annex it for security, economic, and religious reasons. A second group wanted to return the land to Jordan, citing demographic concerns, international responses, and the immorality of the occupation. Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon suggested a compromise: Israel would settle in West Bank areas that were considered important for security reasons and hand over the rest to Jordan. This plan informally guided Israel from 1967 to 1977. By 1977, there were 5,000 settlers in the West Bank, none in the Gaza Strip, and 33,000 in East Jerusalem. By 2001, there were 206,000 settlers in the West Bank, 6,900 in the Gaza Strip, and 180,000 in East Jerusalem (e.g., Foundation for Middle East Peace [FMEP] November 2001; Ha’aretz, January 23, 2002). Most of the settlements were built between 1977 and 1992, when Likud was in power.15 From 1967 to 1977, Labor governments had built settlements, mostly in remote areas deemed important for Israeli security. After 1977, Likud governments inspired Israelis to settle throughout the West Bank in order to prevent the formation of a Palestinian state. Fundamentalists, in particular, settled inside or close to major Palestinian cities (e.g., Gazit 1999; Makovsky 1996). All Israeli governments have supported the settlers economically. Public spending includes deploying Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to guard settlements, as well as providing settlers various grants, mortgage assistance, subsidies, tax reductions, land, and employment.16 Relative to their respective populations, Israeli governments have allocated more funds to the settlements than to Israel proper. For example, in the 1990s, 17.2 meters of road per person were paved for settler use, compared with 5.3 meters of road in Israel proper. From 1989 to 2001, 65 percent of settler houses were publicly financed, compared with 38 percent in Israel proper. In 2000 and 2001, per capita government spending in the settlements was about 8,000 shekels, whereas in Israel proper it was about 3,000 shekels (Ha’aretz, December 27, 2001, March 8, 2002; see also Yediot, April 24, 2002; Peace Now 2000, 2001; FMEP 2000). State-supported incentives to settlers have encouraged relocation to the territories. About 55–60 percent of settlers relocated to the territories in search of a higher standard of living subsidized by public spending. About 5 percent relocated to promote Israeli security. The rest came because of their fundamentalist ideology (Alpher 1995; Meridor 1997; Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies 1999; Economist, April 13, 2002). Hence, the behavior of more than half of the settlers is influenced by economic incentives. It is worth noting that economic motivations also influence Palestinian behavior. Specifically, Palestinian economic decline and under-

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development have increased support for Islamic fundamentalism among Palestinians. Hence, economic motivations play a role in both Israeli and Palestinian behaviors in the territories. In addition to supporting settlers financially and defending them militarily, all Israeli governments also expropriated land in the territories and handed it over to settlers. In the 1970s, these seizures were justified as a military necessity. The Israeli High Court accepted this policy as long as a military need could be demonstrated. In 1979, the Israeli High Court found that proposed seizures had become political, saying they were intended to promote annexation of the West Bank to Israel proper, and ruled against them. In response, the Likud government declared land in the territories to be state-owned (based on a nineteenth-century Ottoman law) and continued to give it to settlers. To prevent confiscation, Palestinians had to prove ownership. This was not easy to do, because much of the Palestinian land registration system was informal. Many Palestinians were not able to prove ownership of land that had been in their immediate family possession for many years (see, e.g., B’Tselem 1997; Gazit 1999). By 2000, the Israeli government had seized about 49 percent of the land in the West Bank through these means. The settlements continued to expand during the Oslo process. From 1993 to 2001, average settler population growth was 9.51 percent per year in the West Bank and 5.65 percent per year in the Gaza Strip. In contrast, population growth in Israel proper was 2.79 percent. Settlers also built illegal outposts that were not approved by the Israeli government. Some were dismantled, but the settlers quickly built new ones in their place.17 The geographical distribution of the settlements, and Israeli insistence on keeping them where they were, led the architects of the Oslo process to divide the occupied territories into three categories. Area A defined Palestinian cities to be controlled by the PA. In Area B, civic affairs were to be controlled by the PA, with security controlled jointly by the PA and Israel. Area C encompassed the settlements and the roads leading to them, all of which remained under the control of Israel. On the eve of the second intifada, Areas A and B covered about 40 percent of the territories, but this land was broken up into 161 noncontiguous enclaves (Isaac and Gahanyem 2001). It also was crisscrossed by many checkpoints as well as bypass roads built exclusively for settler use.18 Palestinians argue that in 1988 they accepted the idea of partition and gave up claims on the pre-1967 territory of Israel proper, but they view the territories as an occupied area.19 From this perspective, the expansion of settlements is seen as a sign that Israel intends to hold the land forever, which contradicts the spirit of the Oslo process. In contrast, Sharon’s government continues to argue that the Oslo process does not require an evacu-

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ation of settlements and that their expansion does not bias the end game (Mitchell Report 2001). Regardless of this legalistic debate, it is important to note that most Palestinians interact with Israelis only through the IDF-defended settlements and IDF-manned checkpoints on the bypass roads. The archipelagolike PA inconveniences Palestinians, and the checkpoints humiliate and anger them. All the settlements represent expropriated land and symbolize occupation, fueling Palestinian hostility toward Israel (Mitchell Report 2001). Direct settler-Palestinian interaction also contributes to the escalation of conflict. Reacting to a deadly settler attack on Palestinians in 1994, for example, Hamas attacked Israelis. During the second intifada, Palestinian attacks on settlers were followed by Israeli responses and vice versa.20 Settlers lobby the Israeli governments for even stronger responses. In 2001, for example, they protested Sharon’s restraint, blamed him for the death of settlers, and demanded the removal of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and the PA (Ha’aretz, October 17, 2001, March 16, 2002; Yediot, June 22, 2001, January 1, 2002). In a meeting with settlers, Sharon promised stronger measures (Ha’aretz, October 17, 2001). Shortly thereafter, Israeli leaders began saying publicly that there could be no peace with the Palestinians as long as Arafat remained in power (Ha’aretz, May 19, 2002).

Jewish Fundamentalism and the Oslo Process Since 1967 there have been three types of Israeli governments, each taking a different stance toward the Palestinians. Governments led by Labor generally sought a land compromise. Likud-led governments were inclined to hold on to the territories.21 Labor-Likud coalition governments exhibited frequent intragovernmental disputes over the fate of the territories. In practice, however, all Israeli governments supported the settlers. And though labor governments since 1992 supported the need to evacuate settlements verbally,22 they did not evacuate settlements and even tried to show that they were prosettler.23 The settlers’ success in maintaining their position rests in large part on fundamentalists’ threats that evacuating settlements would lead to an Israeli civil war. These threats appear credible because fundamentalists have broken Israeli law numerous times, often with impunity. They increasingly have resorted to violence as a political tool, first against Palestinians, then against other Israelis. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the settlerPalestinian relationship became more hostile, a comprehensive report issued by Israeli government in 1984 found that the settlers’ armed violence against Palestinians was common (Karp Report 1984). Fundamentalist vio-

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lence toward Israeli moderates soon followed. Earlier, in the mid-1970s, Gush Emunim repeatedly tried to build settlements without permission. Evacuations of these settlements by the IDF were contentious, but armed violence was avoided. In the late 1970s, some fundamentalists threatened to use force to resist evacuation of settlements (Sella and Yishai 1986), but in 1982, when Gush Emunim clashed with the IDF over the evacuation of settlements in the Sinai Peninsula, there was no resort to arms. As public debate on the fate of the territories intensified in the late 1980s, however, fundamentalist settlers warned explicitly of civil war (e.g., Ben-Nun 1990). Given that fundamentalist armed violence against Palestinians had become common, many Israeli officials came to believe that evacuation of settlements could lead to civil war.24 For Jews, civil war brings bitter memories. About 1,900 years ago, the Jews fought the Romans for political independence. It was clear that the Jews were much weaker militarily than the Roman Empire. As the war dragged on, Jewish moderates supported a compromise with the Romans. Convinced that this contradicted God’s will, Jewish zealots rejected the idea and turned against the moderates, resulting in a painful civil war. Over the years, the Jewish collective psyche came to attribute the destruction of the Second Temple and the expulsion of the Jewish nation from its homeland to the civil war (e.g., Yerushalmi 1982; Rapoport 1982; Harkabi 1988; Ravitzky 1993). This collective memory has been so deeply engrained in Jewish minds that it affected contemporary policymaking during the Oslo process. The transfer of land to the PA, initiated by the Oslo process, presented the ultimate threat to the Jewish fundamentalist ideal of Greater Israel. As transfers progressed, fundamentalist settlers protested more violently in order to change the course of events. They blocked traffic, rioted, called Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a traitor, urged the IDF to refuse orders to evacuate settlements should they come, and warned of an impending civil war (Smith 2001; Sprinzak 1999). Rabin’s Labor government debates over what to do about the settlements should be viewed against this backdrop. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres advocated a quick evacuation, whereas Prime Minister Rabin feared settler opposition (Smith 2001; Makovsky 1993). In the end, the government decided to postpone the issue of settlements until the final stage of the Oslo process. Alluding to the destruction of the historical Jewish nation, Peres explained later that the government did not order an evacuation of settlements because it feared that it would lead to a terrible clash in Israel: “we thought that any different approach [i.e., evacuating settlements] would split the nation beyond recognition” (Makovsky 1996: 141; also FBIS, November 29, 1993: 41; and December 6, 1993: 34). Meanwhile, in February 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a settler and member

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of the fundamentalist group Kach (Thus), killed almost forty Muslim worshipers in a mosque in Hebron in an effort to stop the peace process (Report/Massacre 1994). Following the massacre, some settlers praised Goldstein for his act.25 Attempting to contain the violence and pacify Palestinians, Rabin’s government ordered an evacuation of a small number of settler extremists from Hebron. But the government quickly backed down when fundamentalist rabbis announced that Rabin’s order contradicted Jewish law and called on Israelis to reject it (Ha’aretz, March 7, 30, 1994; Ha’aretz, April 1, 6, 1994; Sprinzak 1999). Fundamentalists blamed Rabin and the Oslo process for both the Goldstein massacre and the Palestinian attacks that followed. Some settler rabbis even pondered openly whether Jewish law allowed for the killing of Rabin.26 The opposition wave peaked in 1995 with Rabin’s assassination. The assassin, Yigal Amir, claimed that God wanted Rabin dead in order to stop the Oslo process (Report/Assassination 1996). In the period leading up to Camp David, settlers again rioted and threatened civil war. They damned government ministers (Yediot, May 31, 2000), compared Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Hitler (Ha’aretz, June 11, 2000), said that he had not learned lessons from the killing of Rabin (Ha’aretz, June 20, 2000), compared evacuating settlements to the Holocaust, warned of a severe response (Ha’aretz June 4, 23, 2000), and said they would refuse to evacuate settlements even if it were supported by most Israelis (Yediot, July 24, 2000).27 The Israeli Security Service and some settler leaders warned that extremists might attempt to murder Barak should he order the evacuation of settlements (Yediot, May 30 and July 24, 2000). The campaign affected governmental policy. For example, in June 2000, Regional Development Minister Shimon Peres said that while holding the isolated Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim did not offer any benefits to Israel, and that its presence had long been a source of Israeli-Palestinian friction and hostility, it would not be evacuated, thus preventing domestic strife. In August 2000, Justice Minister Yossi Beilin said that Barak’s Camp David plan (which the Palestinians had rejected) annexed settlements to Israel in order to appease the settlers (Yediot, June 24, 2000; Ma’ariv, August 18, 2000). Israel and the PA continued to negotiate during the first months of the second intifada, but as the gap between their positions narrowed, fundamentalist settlers again warned of an imminent civil war (Yediot, December 29, 2000). A few months later, Sharon’s Labor defense minister, Benjamin Eliezer, explained that Barak did not evacuate illegal settler outposts, despite their inciting effect, because he feared the fundamentalists’ violent response (Ha’aretz, June 28, 2001). Settlers also have lobbied Sharon’s government successfully for settlement expansion (Ha’aretz, May 7, 2002). This proved to be relatively easy,

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given Sharon’s well-known ideological positions and his political support for the idea of Greater Israel. 28 During the first year after Sharon took office in February 2001, thirty-four settlements were expanded, and fortyfour new sites were established (Yediot, January 25, 2002; Ha’aretz, March 18, 2002). Palestinians continued to demand an end to settlement expansion (Ha’aretz, May 27, 2002), but Sharon invited fundamentalists to join his government and vetoed any government discussion of the fate of the settlements until he left office (Ha’aretz, April 22, 2002). In October 2002, Sharon refused to reduce budget allocations for the settlements, prompting Labor representatives to leave his government (Ha’aretz, October 31, 2002).

Islamic Fundamentalism and the Oslo Process Had the Oslo process been rejected only by Jewish fundamentalists, it might not have collapsed. But the process was also rejected by Islamic fundamentalists. Spurred by the vicious cycle I described earlier (see the second section of this chapter), as the conflict intensified, the Palestinian economy declined. That decline in turn raised support for Hamas and paved the way for more violence. The relationship between Hamas and the PLO/PA plays a crucial role in this cyclical dynamic.29 The PA, the PLO, and Hamas each include several factions. Fatah (Secularist Palestinian National Liberation Movement) joined the PLO in 1967–1968. Fatah’s leader, Yasser Arafat, won the chairmanship of the PLO in 1969, and Fatah has dominated the PLO ever since. In 1994, the PLO became the basis of the PA, and in the 1996 elections for the Palestinian parliament, Fatah won 77 percent of the votes. All along, Fatah has been the dominant faction (although not the only faction) in the PA. The overlap leads me to equate the PLO/PA with Fatah, which I denote as the PLO before 1994 and the PA thereafter. Hamas, perhaps because of its religious basis, is generally more unified than the PLO/PA, and I will treat it as such.30 Middle-class and upper-class Palestinians typically joined secular parties.31 These parties did not dwell on issues of poverty or the place of religion in society. Hamas fills the vacuum left by the secular parties’ ideological and practical neglect of populist issues and also offers the poor a welfare network centered around mosques. The tension between religion and secularism is an important feature of the Hamas-PLO relationship (see also Legrain 1990; Litvak 1996, 1998; Sela and Mishal 1999). In the late 1980s, this tension was reflected in arguments over goals. Hamas contended that the PLO wanted to accumulate political power, whereas Hamas wanted to improve the religious well-being of Palestinians (Litvak 1993).

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When the PLO argued that the intifada had originated from the PLO struggle against Israel, Hamas insisted that it was an Islamic uprising (Reuveny 2000). In 1988, the Hamas-PLO relationship became focused on Israel. Both groups rejected the Israeli occupation and called for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons, and removal of the settlements. But where the PLO agreed to a partition of Palestine between Israelis and Palestinians, Hamas called for a religious war to liberate all of Palestine. As the first intifada intensified, Hamas demanded to represent the Palestinians alongside the PLO. In 1992, the two groups discussed the possibility of Hamas joining the PLO. In return, Hamas demanded almost half the seats in the Palestinian National Council, which the PLO rejected. The Oslo process aggravated the Hamas-PLO/PA rivalry. Hamas argues that in signing Oslo’s Declaration of Principles (DOP), the PLO committed an act of national treason (Ha’aretz, September 13, 1993; October 23, 1998). According to Hamas, the Oslo process does not meet the immediate needs of Palestinians, that is, statehood, removal of the settlements, Israeli withdrawal, return of refugees, and control of East Jerusalem. Moreover, Hamas argues, the process actually creates economic hardship for Palestinians by fostering settlement expansion and increasing Palestinian dependence on Israel. Most important, the partition of Palestine along the 1967 line, which the PLO/PA accepted, contradicts Islam. The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the DOP reflected the PLO dilemma over how to deal with both Hamas and Israel. This dilemma became the focal point of Israeli-PA-Hamas interactions and mirrored the dilemma presented by the settlers to Israeli governments. When Israel demanded that the PA move against Hamas, some Palestinian officials told Israel that Arafat would crush Hamas and end the attacks against Israel, while others said that Arafat could not control Hamas (Makovsky 1996). As in Israel, a bold PA move against Hamas was seen as a trigger of Palestinian civil war and political collapse. The dilemma induced a complex PA maneuver. To appease Israel, the PA would arrest some Hamas militants and close Hamas institutions. Then, to appease Hamas, the PA would release some detainees, reopen Hamas institutions, and praise Hamas’s patriotism. Hamas boycotted the 1996 PA elections. Participating in these elections could have implied its acceptance of the partition of Palestine. During the summer and fall of 1999, about 75 percent of Palestinians supported the peace process (CPRS June 3–5, September 2–4, and October 14–16, 1999). Hence, by attacking Israel, Hamas risked Israeli and PA penalties, the latter presumably supported by a majority of Palestinians. At the same time, acceptance of the Oslo process would have required Hamas to recognize

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Israel, which would have subjected it to the risk of losing support from its followers. Thus, even Hamas was divided about what to do. Some leaders wished to intensify the fighting against Israel, whereas others proposed a temporary cease-fire (Ha’aretz, October 10, 1995, October 10, 1997; The Economist, April 18, 1999). By late 1999, only 36 percent of Palestinians still supported Fatah and its allies, 39 percent were neutral, and 21 percent supported Hamas and its allies. Hamas had strong support among university students (CPRS September 2–4 and October 14–16, 1999; Ha’aretz, November 10, 1999). PA attempts to convince Hamas to suspend the armed struggle against Israel and join the PA political system in the late 1990s could have been an attempt to control its strongest domestic rival in addition to being a way to appease Israel (see Shikaki 1998; Yediot, March 26, 31 1999; Ha’aretz, November 10, 1999). Despite PA attempts, however, Hamas maintained its original positions.

Islamic Fundamentalism and the Second Intifada The basic PA dilemma in dealing with Hamas in the 1990s played an important role in the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the second intifada. This helps to explain the inability of both sides to return to the negotiating table. Religious fervor (an important element of Hamas ideology) mobilized Palestinians in the early stage of the second intifada and provided them with targets to attack (e.g., Joseph’s Tomb), but the uprising at this stage was led primarily by the secular Fatah, not the religious Hamas. Unlike before, however, Hamas joined the Fatah-led activities (Hammami and Tamari 2001), and the following months saw increasing Hamas-Fatah cooperation in fighting Israel (The Economist, December 1, 2001; Yediot, July 27, 2001; Ha’aretz, December 12, 2001, August 12, 2002). Although in the mid-1990s Fatah had denounced Hamas attacks on Israel, in 2001 it attacked Israelis when Israel assassinated Hamas activists (The Economist, August 2 and December 1, 2001). At the same time, the second intifada aggravated the PA dilemma in dealing with Hamas. Before the uprising, the PA’s menu of actions against Hamas included restricting freedom of expression, mobilizing Fatah in support of the PA, blaming Hamas for hurting national interests, and, in extreme cases, arresting Hamas members (Haas 2001; The Economist, December 1, 2001). The use of these tactics during the second intifada has been problematic. The archipelago-like structure of the Palestinian entity and repeated Israeli incursions into and closures of the territories weakens the PA’s ability to enforce order (U.S. State Department 2002). In addition, Fatah had cooperated with Hamas in the resistance movement and could not suddenly turn against it. More important, most Palestinians today reject

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PA actions against Hamas and believe they amount to attacks on patriots fighting a war for freedom. The Palestinian situation has created a culture supporting suicide bombings; bombers are depicted as heroic martyrs, and the social standing of their families has risen (Schiff 2002; Nickerson 2002). In 2001 it became increasingly clear that if Arafat were to comply with Israeli demands and move against Hamas in force, he would become a traitor in the eyes of most Palestinians. However, if Arafat were to refuse Israeli demands, the PA risked severe penalties from Israel. In navigating between these two options, the PA typically refrained from moving against Hamas in full force. In the few cases where PA forces did move against Hamas, they were met by stiff resistance. Hamas supporters also broke into PA prisons, clashed with guards, and freed Hamas prisoners (Ha’aretz, October 12, 2000; Time, October 21, 2000; South China Morning Post July 26, 2001; Ha’aretz, November 15, 26, 2001). In July 2001, the PA yielded to growing Israeli pressure and arrested a few Hamas activists, but this action was so unpopular that the PA soon suspended it (South China Morning Post July 26, 2001; Yediot, July 27, 2001). Hamas was particularly popular in the Gaza Strip, where 65 percent of the people supported attacks on Israel, 95 percent supported attacks on settlers, and almost everyone rejected a PA crackdown on Hamas (Yediot, July 27, 2001). Public support for Fatah and its allies declined throughout the territories, from 37 percent in July 2000 to 29 percent in July 2001, while support for Hamas and its allies rose from 17 percent to 27 percent (CPRS July 5–9, 2001). Facing the rise in Hamas popularity, Arafat invited Hamas to join his government in August 2001, which Hamas refused (The Economist, August 18, 2001). The invitation signaled growing PA weakness: instead of arresting Islamist fundamentalists, the PA sought to share power with them. By December 2001, more than 80 percent of Palestinians supported the armed struggle against Israel. For the first time, public support for Hamas and its allies (29.6 percent) was larger than that for Fatah and its allies (26 percent) (Jerusalem Media and Communication Center [JMCC] poll 43, December 6–9, 2001; Jerusalem Post December 19, 2001). When Hamas intensified its attacks in the fall of 2001, Israel intensified its response against the PA. The PA tried to convince Hamas to agree to a cease-fire with Israel, but Hamas refused to end the violence. HamasFatah unity crumbled as PA-Hamas tensions rose. On December 16, Arafat called for a cease-fire, which Hamas rejected. Pressured by Israel, PA forces engaged actively in preventing attacks on Israelis, arresting about 200 Islamists and closing fifty Islamic institutions (Ha’aretz, January 1, 2002). PA and Hamas forces fought in Gaza, though the PA tried to avoid damaging Hamas’s socioreligious infrastructure (Ha’aretz, December 28,

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2001). In late December, Hamas agreed informally to stop the attacks in Israel proper but not in the territories (Ha’aretz, December 3, 6, 17, 19, and 23, 2001). Following a few relatively calm weeks, Hamas attacked IDF forces stationed in the territories (January 10, 2002). Shortly thereafter, Fatah renewed attacks in the West Bank. Israel responded harshly, and the informal cease-fire collapsed. Throughout 2002, it was evident that the PA was losing control. In February, a Palestinian mob broke into a PA prison in Hebron and freed Hamas prisoners. In Gaza, the PA freed Hamas prisoners on its own, trying to calm the crowds. By March, 83.7 percent of Palestinians supported the armed struggle. In April, Israel reoccupied all of the West Bank, rendering the PA powerless (Ha’aretz, December 17, 19, 23, 28, 2002; January 10, 17, 22, 2002; and February 12, 2002; JMCC Poll 44, March 20–23, 2002). In August, only 26 percent of Palestinians supported Fatah, and 27 percent supported Hamas (CPRS poll, reported in Ha’aretz, August 26, 2002). Other forces contributed to the conflict during the second intifada. For example, harsh Israeli responses and targeted assassinations of Palestinians led to Palestinian retaliations (The Economist, August 2, 2001). Hamas and Fatah competed over which movement was more successful in attacking Israel, reflecting their basic rivalry over Palestinian political leadership (Luft 2002; Ha’aretz, July 11, 2002, August 4, 2002). The strife inside Fatah between younger, more militant factions and older, more moderate factions reduced the PA’s ability to govern (Shikaki 2002). These dynamics are driven primarily by Hamas-PA-Israeli interactions. The rise of Hamas’s popularity during the second intifada was assisted by the declining Palestinian economy and Hamas’s welfare services. As Hamas’s popularity grew, the PA became less able and willing to move against it. The increasing harshness of Israeli actions against the PA intensified Palestinian economic decline and weakened the PA. Israel, in effect, assisted Hamas. Israeli prime minister Rabin believed that Islamic fundamentalism posed a serious threat to the Oslo process, but he assumed that the PA would cooperate with Israel in fighting it (Makovsky 1996; Gilbert 1998). History indicates that Rabin was correct in his concern but that his plan for dealing with Hamas failed: the PA stopped short of fully opposing Hamas out of a fear of Palestinian civil war. In this respect, the PA has not been all that different from the Labor governments that stopped short of fully opposing Gush Emunim out of a similar fear.

The Policies of Israeli-Palestinian Peace This discussion shows how Jewish and Islamic fundamentalisms combined with economic forces to promote the failure of the Oslo process. It is evi-

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dent that economic forces played an important role in trapping the IsraeliPalestinian relationship in a vicious cycle. Israeli governmental spending attracted many settlers to the territories, lured by prospects for a higher standard of living subsidized by Israeli tax payers. The continuous rise in the number of settlers and settlements in the territories and increasing settler–Palestinian friction and violence fueled Palestinian nationalism and intensified the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The military conflict and harsh Israeli measures damaged the Palestinian economy and pushed many Palestinians below the poverty line. Economic collapse and grim living conditions raised Palestinian public support for uncompromising fundamentalists, who then attacked Israelis, and so on. The current state of affairs, however, does not have to be permanent. Stable Israeli-Palestinian peace is still possible, provided that both sides choose particular policies. I conclude by offering carefully considered (albeit controversial) policy suggestions that could increase the probability of arriving at and maintaining a stable Israeli-Palestinian peace. Establish a Fait Accompli The Israeli architects of the Oslo process felt that instead of striving for a full agreement it was best to chart a gradual rise in Palestinian commitments while ensuring Israeli security. The Oslo plan assumed a constant buildup of goodwill and trust, but this was derailed by both Jewish and Islamic fundamentalists. The combination of Israeli government–financed settlement expansion, fundamentalist construction of unapproved settlement outposts, Palestinian terrorism, and Jewish terrorism quickly eroded the initial goodwill. As bad feelings accumulated, the Oslo process was delayed, and attainment of each succeeding target became a minicrisis. Together, these factors led to the eruption of the second intifada. With the benefit of hindsight, the primary fault of the Oslo process seems to have been its gradual nature. Gradualism gave the hard-liners on both sides time to organize and derail the peace process. Should Israel and the PA return to the negotiating table, they need to decide on the end game rapidly and implement it immediately, as a fait accompli. Strengthen the Moderate Mainstream The tenor of Israeli-Palestinian relations is largely dictated by extremists on both sides. As conflict escalates, mainstream forces radicalize, and support for compromise declines. Getting out of this dead end requires strengthening moderate mainstream support for peace. At this stage, the two sides know each other’s bottom lines. Offers that do not pass the threshold are likely to be rejected and even exacerbate the conflict. The two sides should

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demonstrate support for the process in advance before returning to negotiations. For example, the Oslo process postponed the issue of a Palestinian state to the final stage. The movement toward peace could benefit from an Israeli declaration that it supports the formation of a Palestinian state. This would give the PA the political capital needed to govern as an autonomous regime. To increase Israeli trust, Palestinians could declare that a final agreement accepted by both sides would terminate the conflict. Another contentious issue involves the right of return to Israel for Palestinian refugees from abroad. One can certainly think of moral arguments in favor of the right of return. However, Israel rejects the right of return because it would result in the loss of the state’s Jewish character and identity. Palestinians could promote Israeli trust by giving up demands for the right of return at the start of negotiations and agree to settle the issue financially, through reparations. Viable Political Separation The Israeli occupation exhibits attributes of colonialism. Palestinians are denied independence, and Israel controls their lives militarily. Israel builds settlements, and settlers and Palestinians live in separate and unequal societies. The settlers are richer than the Palestinians and command the lion’s share of natural resources. The settler standard of living is even higher than the average in Israel proper (Leibovich-Dar 2002; Meridor 1997); in 2001 about 50 percent of Palestinians lived in poverty (World Bank 2002). The settlers’ water consumption per capita is six times that of the Palestinians, many of whom do not have running water (Yediot, March 8, 2001; Hass 1999; B’Tselem 2001). The settlers are only 15 percent of the West Bank population yet control about 42 percent of the land (Ha’aretz, May 14, 2002). In the Gaza Strip, they consist of only 0.5 percent of the population and control about 20 percent of the land (Haas 1999). Historically, colonialism has remained intact only as long as native populations did not demand independence. Some colonial rulers left peacefully. When native populations revolted, the conflicts ended only when the rulers abandoned their colonies. If history can serve as a model, the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict may not end unless Israel accepts decolonization and unless a viable Palestinian state is established. Such a state cannot take the form of an archipelago within an Israeli sea. As I have argued, this reduces the ability of the PA to govern, fuels Palestinian hostility toward Israel, and offers ample opportunities for continued conflict. A contiguous Palestinian state may not prevent all Palestinian attacks against Israel, but an archipelago-like state is obviously worse in that regard. The issue of Jerusalem is particularly sensitive. At Camp David, Palestinians demanded full control over parts of East Jerusalem, seeking to

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make it their capital. Israel rejected this demand. The implications for attaining Israeli-Palestinian peace are clear. Jerusalem should be partitioned between the two sides so that a major part of East Jerusalem will be under full Palestinian control. Viable Economic Separation More than thirty-five years of Israeli occupation have left the Palestinian economy underdeveloped and dependent on Israel (e.g., Arnon et al. 1997; Hass 1999; Reuveny 1999). Some authors (e.g., Roy 1995; Hass 1999) argue that Israel promoted Palestinian economic dependence and underdevelopment in order to maintain the occupation. Indeed, many Palestinians believe that Israel seeks to dominate them economically. 32 Hence, Palestinian dependence on Israel is unlikely to promote friendliness and, consequently, is not sustainable. It is evident that Palestinian economic decline increases moderate Palestinian support for Hamas. Hence, to the extent that economic separation from Israel can promote Palestinian development, it could promote peace. The separation also would decrease Palestinian economic vulnerability and, therefore, Israel’s ability to exert pressure on the PA. This should strengthen the PA’s position relative to Hamas’s position in Palestinian society and, by extension, strengthen support for the peace process. Structurally, separation would reduce Israeli-Palestinian interaction. It is possible to argue that interaction promotes peace. However, that hypothesis is not supported under the conditions described here. Indeed, it is doubtful that contacts between poor Palestinian workers and affluent Israeli business owners offer a sound foundation for friendliness. The specific mechanisms through which Israeli-Palestinian economic separation may be attained are beyond the scope of this work. However, this economic separation requires significant external assistance in the form of foreign aid and alternative external markets for Palestinians, a restructuring of the Palestinian economy to generate more domestic employment, and, most important, the formation of a contiguous Palestinian state within boundaries agreed upon by both sides. Coping with the Settlers The approach to peace charted here calls for Israel to evacuate most, if not all, of its settlements in the territories. Fundamentalist settlers have threatened many times that this move would lead to a civil war. So far, they have been successful in persuading all Israeli governments to support their cause and refrain from evacuation of settlements. It is important to note, however, that a full-blown Israeli civil war over

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the settlements does not have to happen. First, most Israelis reject violence as a mode of opposition to the evacuation of settlements. There also is significant public support for settlement evacuation as part of an overall Israeli-Palestinian peace process.33 Second, the settlers are not homogeneous. The 5,000 or so settlers in the Jordan Valley communities established by the Labor governments before 1977 probably would leave peacefully. These settlers came to the Jordan Valley to promote Israeli security and would leave, with compensation, once told their stay is no longer necessary. Most of the settlers who came for economic reasons live in urban communities along the Green Line (the pre-1967 Israeli border). They also are likely to leave peacefully if compensated financially. Third, some fundamentalist leaders say they would accept a Jewish majority decision to evacuate. Others say that the Jewish people’s well-being is more important than land (e.g., Ben Meir 1995; Porat 1994; Zarembski 2000; Yediot, June 22, 2001). Most settlers believe that evacuation of settlements is inevitable. In fact, since the initiation of the second intifada many settlers have left voluntarily.34 Fundamentalists (30–40 percent of the settlers) who resist evacuation might not necessarily take up arms (The Economist, April 13, 2002; Ringal and Ben Haaim 2001; Ha’aretz, November 2, 2000). About 14 percent of settlers say they are ready to consider violence, and 2 percent say they would resort to violence should the government order them to evacuate settlements (Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies 1999). In 2002, 2 percent said they would take up arms to stop the evacuation (Peace Now 2002). Others (e.g., Lemonick 1995) have put the number of Jewish extremists who might use violence to resist evacuation of settlements at 15,000. Should such violence occur, a forcible governmental response would be needed if the goal were Israeli-Palestinian peace. Coping with Hamas It is in the interest of Israel and the PA to look for ways of incorporating Hamas into the peace process. The evolution of the PLO experience suggests that Hamas’s position toward Israel could moderate once it is brought fully into the process. Israeli leaders should invite Hamas openly to join the peace process, an adjustment similar to their recognition of the PLO in 1993. Such an Israeli move also would force Hamas to make a choice: either to abandon the armed struggle or risk losing the support of many Palestinians. The PA should accept Hamas’s demands to be fairly represented in PA institutions. When Hamas is kept out of the leadership, it has incentives to derail the peace process, thereby distinguishing itself as an alternative to the PA. Although terrorism should be resisted, Israel should not insist that

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Hamas endorse the peace process as a precondition for its inclusion, just as parties that reject the views of a particular government in power continue to participate in Israeli institutions. The only requirement should be that Hamas accept the principles of peaceful negotiation and democratic decisionmaking. An open Israeli-Hamas dialogue may not happen soon, but forces on both sides have considered the idea. Hamas’s rejection of the Oslo process in 1993–1994 was predicated on the assumption that Israel would not implement the Oslo accord (Al-Hayat [London] September 9 and October 2, 1995). When Israel did implement the accord, some Hamas officials concluded that this created a new reality that might even support a temporary truce with Israel (The Economist, January 9, 1999; Moshe Dayan Center Bulletin, no. 29, 1999). In 1994, Israeli deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin said Israel should consider talks with Hamas (Time, November 7, 1994), and some Hamas officials were prepared to talk with Israel (Christian Science Monitor, November 4, 1994). Indeed, the second half of 1995 was a period of apparent truce between Hamas and Israel, and Hamas representatives participated in Israeli-Palestinian talks (Jerusalem Post May 18, 1996; Smith 2001). Even after the informal cease-fire collapsed in 1996, pragmatic forces on both sides continued to consider coexistence. For example, in 2000, Hamas’s spiritual leader, Ahmed Sheikh Yassin, said that in return for Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, Hamas would support a cease-fire (Ha’aretz, July 24, 2000). The head of the Israeli Security Service, Ami Ayalon, said that Israel should consider talks with Hamas (Yediot, September 5, 2000). In July 2002, Hamas apparently considered stopping attacks on Israel just before Israel killed a Hamas leader, halting the initiative (Ha’aretz, July 26, 2002). The August 2002 discussions between Hamas and Fatah over the goals of Palestinian society further indicate the possibility of moderation in Hamas. Fatah stated its goals of ending the Israeli occupation of the territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Hamas stated its goals of ending the Zionist occupation of Palestinian lands and the establishment of a Palestinian state (Al Ayam, August 16, 2002) but left the definition of what constitutes “Palestinian lands” open. This indicates the possibility of movement in the Hamas position. In the longer run, the participation of Hamas in PA institutions implies a check on the PA’s authoritarian tendencies that could strengthen Palestinian democracy. If it is true, as some believe, that democracies almost never fight each other, such a move could strengthen IsraeliPalestinian peace. All this is predicated, however, on Hamas’s willingness to stop the violence against Israelis and accept the idea of democratic decisionmaking, on the PA’s willingness to share power with Hamas, and on Israel’s willingness to invite Hamas openly to the negotiating table.

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Gambling on Peace Let us assume that Israel and the PA sign a peace agreement. What if extremists were to continue to attack the other side following such an agreement? This possibility cannot be overlooked. Still, once Israel and Egypt resolved their territorial problems, their border became quiet. The Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 also led to a sharp decline in border clashes. A mutually agreed Israeli-Palestinian separation also could lead to peace. Political-economic separation, however, is not a sufficient condition for peace; it is only a necessary condition. The issue on the table, then, is whether to take a gamble on peace or to continue the protracted conflict.

Notes 1. Jewish fundamentalism includes several groups, the largest and most important of which is Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful). On the Palestinian side, the largest and most important fundamentalist group is Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement). Several smaller Jewish and Islamic fundamentalist groups are noted below. 2. As detailed in the next section, while the effect on the Israeli economy of Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1994 to 2000 was very small, the intense IsraeliPalestinian conflict during the second intifada (beginning on September 28, 2000) has caused significant damage to the Israeli economy. 3. For a discussion of Israeli motivations for the move for peace, see, e.g., Nitzan and Bichler (2002). Their argument sites Israel firmly in the global economy and says that the move toward peace was motivated by Israeli elites’ realization of the need to attract foreign investment to Israel and generally improve Israeli economic competitiveness relative to other countries. 4. Formally, Palestine currently is not a state. But as noted, it exhibits many statelike attributes. 5. The data discussed here come from Reuveny (1999), the World Bank (2002), and the United Nations Office of the Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories (UNSCO) (2001). The data exclude illegal (hard to verify) Palestinian labor in Israel, set at 50,000 (UNSCO Autumn 1998). Economic data since the initiation of the second intifada are provided later in this section. 6. The unemployment figures do not include about 10 percent of Palestinian workers who wished to work but were discouraged by the situation. Unemployment in the Gaza Strip peaked at times at 50 percent (UNSCO various; Hass 1999). 7. Palestinian exports to Israel are less than 2 percent of Israel’s total imports. Israel’s exports to Palestinians peaked at 8 percent of total exports. The Palestinian share of Israel’s total labor force was 8 percent in the early 1990s and has fallen to 2 percent since 1998. 8. See, e.g., World Bank (2002), The Economist (August 11, 2001), and Ha’aretz (February 5, 2002). In the first two quarters of 2002, the average Palestinian unemployment rate was about 31.3 percent (Palestinian Bureau of Statistics 2002).

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9. This definition particularly applies to political economy but may be deemed less accurate in the religion literature. 10. On Jewish fundamentalism, see, e.g., Harkabi (1988), Rapoport (1988), Wiesburd (1989), Ravitzky (1993), Aran (1993), Don-Yehiya (1994), and Sprinzak (1999). On Islamic fundamentalism, see, e.g., Legrain (1990), Ahmad (1994), Kurz and Tal (1997), Esposito (1997), Litvak (1998), Mishal and Sela (1999), and Reuveny (2000). On organizational and leadership factors in the Israeli case, see Sprinzak (1999) and Zarembski (2000); and in the Palestinian case, see Schiff and Yaari (1990) and Abu-Amr (1997). 11. Other groups include Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach (Thus), Kahane Chai (Lives), Chai Ve-Kayam (Alive and Existing), and Zo Artzenu (Our Land). See Sprinzak (1999) for details. 12. See Sabella (1991) and Gilbar (1997). 13. Another relatively large Islamic fundamentalist group, yet much smaller than Hamas, is Islamic Jihad (Holy War). 14. In December 2001, for example, the U.S. government froze bank accounts and raided the offices of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Islamic charity in the United States, said to have given Hamas in 2000 (directly and indirectly) U.S.$15 million (Martin 2002). 15. The Likud governments (1977–1984, 1990–1992) built 112 settlements, Labor governments (1967–1977) built 25, and Labor-Likud governments (1984–1988) built 16. Data on the number of settlements built per year are available in Foundation for Middle East Peace, Settlers, and Foundation for Middle East Peace, Charts. 16. Inside the Green Line, 33 percent of the labor force is on the public payroll. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 60 percent of the labor force is on the public payroll (Ha’aretz, December 15, 1995). 17. In fall 2002, there were 91 active outposts (Ha’aretz, September 14, 2002). Data on Israeli population growth are based on Israeli statistical abstracts (various years) and include immigration to Israel. 18. Goldblum (2001) lists 190 Palestinian enclaves, 43 permanent IDF checkpoints in the West Bank, and 40 in the Gaza Strip. For additional geographic details, see Peace Now (2000), and Gazit (1999). 19. See, e.g., The Economist (April 13, 2002), Arafat in Die Welt (June 8, 1998), Nabil Shaat in Ma’ariv (July 21, 2001), and Mohammed Dahlan in Ha’aretz (January 31, 2002). 20. For a list of violent settler-Palestinian encounters since 1993, see FMEP (various). 21. These have not been simply diplomatic formulas but have actually affected policies. 22. Prime Minister Rabin believed the settlements had no security value, and Prime Ministers Peres and Barak wanted to evacuate settlements (Aronson 1996; Savir, 1998; FMEP September 1999; Yediot, November 24, 2000). 23. See, e.g., FMEP (January 1996) on Prime Minister Peres, Ma’ariv (September 27, 1995) on Minister Beilin, and Ha’aretz (October 13, 1999) on Prime Minister Barak. 24. See, e.g., Deputy Prime Minister Yadin (Yediot, June 6, 1980), Likud officials (Jerusalem Post, February 26, 1983), Prime Minister Peres (FBIS June 6, 1986: 16), Israeli presidents (FBIS April 18, 1983: 14–15; Jerusalem Post, September 7, 1983; Independence Day Speech, April 25, 1985), Likud and Labor

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officials (Israeli Democracy Winter 1989: 5–9). See also Talmon (1980), Barzillai (1990), and Lustick (1993). 25. See, e.g., reports on Rabbi Lior (Yerushalim March 4, 1994), settlers attending Goldstein’s funeral and Rabbi Ariel (Yediot, February 28, 1994), and the book glorifying Goldstein (Ben Horin 1995). 26. The rabbis asked if Rabin was a rodef—a Jew who endangers the life or estate of Jews—and/or a moser—a Jew who intends to turn in Jews to gentile authorities, both of whom can be killed under Jewish law (Lior et al. 1996). 27. On the anti–Camp David settler campaign, see also Ma’ariv (July 17 and 24 and August 11, 2000). 28. Sharon headed the settlement-building effort of the Likud governments in the 1970s and 1980s, which was intended to prevent the formation of a contiguous Palestinian political entity in the future and, thereby, the creation of an independent Palestinian state. 29. On Hamas-PLO/PA relations before the second intifada, see Ahmad (1994), Al Jarbawi (1994), Klein (1996), Kurz and Tal (1997), Shikaki (1998), Sela and Mishal (1999), and Reuveny (2000). 30. In some respects, this conceptualization may oversimplify things. Since the mid-1990s, Hamas seems to include two groups. The group operating in the territories is relatively more moderate than the one outside the territories. I do not explore this division in the current study. On the groups inside Hamas, see Ha’aretz (July 23, 1999); The Economist (May 16, 1998 and January 9, 1999); and Yediot (August 13, 1999). During fall 2002, it seemed that there were growing gaps between the PA and some members of Fatah, and between factions inside the Fatah, an issue I discuss later in the text (see Ha’aretz, September 10 and 11, 2002). 31. For example, the Jordanian government in the 1950s-1980s and the PLO since the 1970s. 32. At the zenith of the peace process, 53 percent of Palestinians rejected Israeli-Palestinian joint ventures; 74 percent rejected economic cooperation; and 76 percent thought Palestinian economic cooperation with Israel promoted Israeli domination (Awartani and Awad 1994; Kasham 1995; FBIS Trends February 8, 1995). 33. In October 1999, 91 percent of Israelis rejected such violence (MidEast Web, www.midestweb.org/mewnews/newpools2.htm, October 26, 1999). In November 2000, 86 percent rejected violence (Yediot, November 3, 2000). In July 2002, 64 percent supported evacuation of most of the settlements, and 47 percent supported return to the 1967 borders with small modifications (Ha’aretz, August 6, 2002). 34. In 1999, 80 percent of the settlers believed Israel would evacuate 70 percent of the land and were ready to leave (Yediot, May 7, 1999). In 2001, settlers left at an annual rate of 5 percent (compared with 1 percent before), and 15 percent were in the midst of leaving (Ha’aretz, July 1 and 13 and August 9, 2001; Yediot, January 4, 2002).

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5

To Be Modern, but in the “Indian” Way: Hindu Nationalism

Since the early 1990s, Hindu nationalism has made rapid headway into the mainstream of Indian politics and, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the helm of the Indian government, it is now well entrenched in the political landscape. There is no question that the underlying vision of the BJP rests on an exclusivist, gendered, classist agenda, yet it is one that expresses itself in culturalist/nationalist formulations through its articulation of the “Hindu/Indian nation.” What is interesting is how this vision has come to occupy such a dominant place in the Indian imaginary after years of being marginalized. In this chapter, I attempt to locate the emergence of contemporary Hindu nationalism in India within the economic and social dislocations caused by failed developmentalist projects and late capitalism, as well as new discontents generated by the state’s more recent adoption of neoliberal economic policies in an increasingly globalized political economy. The chapter focuses on recent changes in the Indian political economy that have resulted from the new economic policies, programs, and discourses that are generally classified under the rubric of “economic liberalization” and the corresponding integration of India into globalized systems of production and exchange. I am not arguing that this shift in India’s political economy causes the emergence or success of Hindu nationalism in any simple, linear way. A host of independent forces affects the trajectory of both India’s liberalizing initiatives and the BJP’s increased influence. But I do argue that the conjuncture of these two forces in the late twentieth century was not entirely coincidental and that how they interpenetrate within the contemporary sociohistoric conditions in India requires explanation. The thrust of this chapter is to examine the social and cultural dislocations and discontents wrought by liberalization, as well as the BJP’s success in speaking to those concerns in new and innovative ways. Rather than arguing that the politics of Hindutva, the ideology of Hindu nationalism, is merely an anti107

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modern, reactionary response to the social dislocations caused by modernization and globalization, I argue that it makes use of the discontents generated by those changes to create a new consensus on dominant caste/class interests. My argument is that the politicization of the emerging marginal caste/class interests, fast becoming a significant political force in India’s multiparty democratic structure, has positioned the BJP very favorably. It can step into a space created by the Congress Party’s inability to hold together a variety of caste/class interests through a more inclusive (even if hegemonic) politics. Speaking in the name of an inclusive Hindu identity (defined in juxtaposition to a Muslim other), the BJP has come to represent the interests of dominant caste/class interests that find the Congress Party unable to assure their place within the political structure. These middleclass, upper-caste urban groups—the fastest-growing source of support for the BJP—are also the most clearly supportive of (and in many ways are best and most immediately served by) the liberalization programs of the Indian government since the late 1980s. Hence, it is not difficult to understand the BJP’s generally enthusiastic reception of economic reforms and foreign capital, even as it speaks persuasively (in its capacity as the voice of Indian cultural nationalism) to the anxieties, concerns, and issues that emerge from India’s integration into a global political economy (often expressed as Westernization and the loss of the Indian way of life). In that sense, the BJP is perhaps the best-positioned of all existing political formations in contemporary India to speak to the postcolonial desire to be modern—but in the Indian way—and it does so with alarming success. I begin with a discussion of the political landscape within which the BJP has emerged and established itself as a national party representing dominant caste/class interests. I then discuss the agenda of Hindu nationalism, focusing in particular on the exclusionary manner in which it defines the Indian/Hindu nation and its attempt to rework the secular identity of the postcolonial Indian state. The central argument comes in the second part, where I turn to the political economy of Hindu nationalism. I begin that part by discussing the liberalization measures undertaken by the Indian government and their effects on the economy. Finally, I analyze how the BJP plays upon the cultural-political effects of such liberalizing measures and with what degree of success.

Hindu Nationalism in Contemporary Indian Politics Communalism (like casteism) is not the reflection of underlying ethnic structures but is generated within a competitive socio-economic context as the instrument of political intervention aimed towards vertical multi-class

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solidarity as a safe substitute for horizontal class solidarities, i.e., to substitute continuing upper class dominance for emerging lower class consciousness and organization. (Lieten 1996: 239)

Since the early 1990s, Hindu nationalism has made fairly rapid headway into the mainstream of Indian politics, and since 1998 the Hindu nationalist BJP has headed a coalition government under the prime ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. My attempt in this section is twofold. First, I trace the emergence of the BJP in the Indian political landscape as a response of threatened dominant caste/class interests to the rising political salience of different marginal groups within Indian democracy. Then I describe some of the contours of the political formation called Hindu nationalism, focusing in particular on its exclusionary agenda. The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Political Mainstream For most of postindependence Indian history, the Congress Party has been in power. Even though Congress faced different degrees of political opposition at different times across the states, it has enjoyed relative security at the national level. Led mostly by middle-class and upper-caste leaders, Congress generally enjoyed widespread electoral support from the dominant upper and middle classes as well as from minorities and lower economic classes. The stability of Congress rule in that period was partially ensured through institutional and patronage networks that the leadership established at local levels. As a result, social, cultural, and political hierarchies were reproduced through Congress rule, with a substantial degree of popular support. In the later years of Indira Gandhi’s rule, this system started dissolving, as a centralization of power was effected through populist politics that overrode local levels of authority by appealing directly to the people (Kohli 1987; Kothari 1988; Brass 1994; Jalal 1995). This had the effect of politicizing social groups and social claims that had been marginalized through existing networks of political authority, producing effective challenges to Congress power from at least two different quarters. On the one hand, organizations and parties that spoke more directly to the concerns of lower classes, castes, and other marginal groups became increasingly prominent. These forces coalesced in the United Front government that served until early elections in March 1998 brought the BJP to power. As a result of an elaborate system of “reservations” (affirmative action programs), these formerly peripheral groups now include a substantial middle-class element and strong leadership. The rising economic, social, and political clout of a very diverse group of middle- and lowercaste groups also benefited from some of the reforms and redistributive

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measures of the postindependence government, especially in rural areas. These groups are included within the constitutionally recognized category of Other Backward Castes (OBCs) (Bose 1997). Contemporary Indian politics is marked by the increasing influence of organizations and parties representing these groups, among which alliances have often been difficult to craft. This significant alteration reflects the changing caste/class configurations of postcolonial Indian politics. On the other hand, the rise and the success of the BJP, which reflects the interests of the urban middle classes and upper castes, is a response both to the perceived inability of the Congress Party to address the concerns of these dominant groups, as well as to political challenges from the left, growing out of the emergence of the United Front and other organizations as avowed representatives of marginal groups. An oft-cited example is the BJP’s response to the controversial Mandal issue. The governmentsponsored Mandal Commission’s 1980 report recommended that 27 percent of central government jobs and places in government-supported higher education institutions be reserved for the 52 percent of Hindus that were classified as OBC. This extended reservations beyond those assigned for Scheduled Castes (15 percent) and Scheduled Tribes (7.5 percent), bringing the total close to 50 percent. The August 1990 decision to implement these recommendations by the V. P. Singh government generated significant and quite violent protests in urban northern India by upper-caste students from middle and lower-middle class families, including some dramatic selfimmolations. Without addressing the merits of the Mandal Commission’s report, which generated an intense debate among Indian scholars, it is important to point out that it was read within Hindu nationalist ranks not so much as an effort to achieve distributive justice but one that divided a preexisting (and organic) Hindu community. Ayodhya, in northwestern India, is the site of a Muslim mosque (Babri Masjid) that is also claimed to be the historical birthplace of the Hindu mythological figure Rama (Rama Janamabhoomi). This dispute has persisted over decades, but it was only in the mid-1980s that the issue became highly politicized through the efforts of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a militant nationalist affiliate of the BJP. The staging of the Ayodhya issue through BJP party leader L. K. Advani’s Rath Yatra (Chariot Pilgrimage) in 1990, and its sudden prominence after several years of attention (mainly by Hindu nationalist organizations), has to be understood within this context (Gopal 1993). Advani led a procession through western, central, and northern India to mobilize Hindu support for the Ayodhya issue. The march was forcibly thwarted in Uttar Pradesh by then–Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, a leader of the Janata Dal Party, and led to the dismissal of the V. P. Singh government when the BJP withdrew its support. The violent communal riots and the emotive appeal of Hindu pride generated in the wake of

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the procession deflected attention away from the caste and class conflict, so that new legislation on reservations was deferred. The BJP became the voice of an alienated middle class that saw itself as seriously disadvantaged by the economic policies of the state. The Mandal Commission’s report resulted in the sharp polarization of caste allegiances in Northern India. The upper-caste, middle-class urban electorate, especially in Uttar Pradesh, was dissatisfied with Congress’s equivocation on the reservations issue. It found the BJP’s strongly articulated position on an indivisible, organic Hindu identity very appealing and shifted its electoral support from the former to the latter. At the same time, OBC support of the Janata Dal and its support for the reservations policies was consolidated by the conflict over the Mandal recommendations. The Mandal controversy also is a contemporary instance of the way in which the “Muslim other” provided discursive resources to generate a powerful consensus in favor of Hindutva among the upper castes/middle classes whose interests were most threatened by the reservations policy. When asked in an interview about caste in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Advani answered that he believed that “the Ayodhya agitation most successfully sublimated caste tensions” (quoted in Dasgupta and Bhaumik 1997: 19). “While Mandal had divided the people,” noted BJP leader K. R. Malkani, “Ayodhya united the people” (Malkani 1995: 45). The close juxtaposition of Mandal and Ayodhya led to its labeling in the press as the Mandal-Mandir controversy (mandir means “temple”). The “Muslim threat” supplied the ideological threads with which Hindu nationalism attempted to suture a fractured Hindu identity. It became one of the sites through which the BJP attempted to address the threat to dominant Hindu caste/class interests in the face of the widespread politicization of subordinate caste/class interests. Thus, the BJP has emerged as a prominent national party that primarily represents dominant caste/class interests in contemporary India. The principal and most stable base of support for Hindu nationalist parties and organizations has been the northern Indian urban (and small town), predominantly high-caste, lower-middle class of professionals—shopkeepers, merchants, traders, petty bureaucrats, and clerks—or, more generally, la petite bourgeoisie. More recently, this base has expanded to incorporate economically successful, educated, upwardly mobile, middle-class, largely upper-caste urban groups that include a very large number of professionals and bureaucrats. The BJP has also done well attracting young and new voters. The BJP-affiliated VHP has helped the party establish links with a large number of religious leaders who frequently take political stands. The grassroots organizational network of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteers Organization) has been used to build support in rural areas as well as among lower-caste and tribal populations; although grow-

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ing electoral support for the BJP is visible among these groups, the gains remain small. Hindu Nationalism: (Re)Imagining the “Indian Nation-State” The steady electoral success of the BJP throughout the 1980s and 1990s is often offered as evidence of the popularity and influence of Hindu nationalism in Indian politics. But the success of the BJP and of Hindu nationalism more generally extends beyond electoral performance. To focus exclusively on electoral success draws attention away from the widespread communalization of everyday life that is reflected in the increasing visibility of several Hindu nationalist organizations—many quite militant and most associated with the BJP—in Indian politics and society. It also can be measured in the significant rise in communal violence from the 1980s on. Groups in this movement include the VHP, RSS, the Shiv Sena, and the Bajrang Dal, which, with others, are often referred to as the Sangh Parivar (Family of Organizations). Even though there are some differences among and tensions between these organizations and the BJP, it is important to recognize the very strong connections. This gives them a measure of organic unity, making it possible for the BJP to project a politically benign face, while the RSS and the VHP carry on aggressive mass campaigns on controversial and overtly communal issues, such as cow slaughter and Ayodhya-like liberations of temples. The influence of Hindu nationalism is also reflected in the communalization of state institutions such as the judiciary, the civil service, the police, paramilitary forces and sections of the armed forces, and large segments of both print and broadcast media (Gupta and Sharma 1996; Rajagopal 1994; Sonwalkar 2001). What is particularly significant is that the BJP and these other organizations have changed the political idiom and discourse of Indian politics. The changes are reflected not only in the substance and form of political debate but also in popular culture and everyday language. In addition to the BJP’s electoral successes, there is an ongoing and significant reorientation of shared social meanings about what it means to be Indian, one that is structured along a Hindu/Muslim axis. Here I examine how this shift has been effected through an exclusionary redefinition of the Indian nation and a rearticulation of the secular state. Bounding the Indian/Hindu nation. Part of the Hindu nationalist project is to claim the essence of the Indian nation as primordially and fundamentally Hindu. Hence, a BJP White Paper points out that “the nation in India always remained Hindu, whether the State was controlled by Turks, Afghans, Moghuls, Portuguese, French, English or Nehruvian Secularists.” Hindutva, as an ideology of cultural nationalism, is an attempt to reclaim this fundamental essence. Recuperation of this nation-as-culture requires

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the imagining of a “golden past,” or Ram Rajya, in which “not only human beings but every creature was happy and contented.” “Pre-Moghul India” is presented as the ideal example of a harmonious and pluralist society that could accommodate all religions, while it is “the invasion by fanatic religious statecraft that intervened and introduced inter-religious disharmony and hatred toward all indigenous faiths” (BJP White Paper 1993: 14–15). If the essence of the Indian nation has always been and remains Hindu, Indian national identity is “naturally” coterminous with “Hinduness.” Implicit in this BJP discourse on the Indian nation is a discourse on the Hindu community. The success of Hindu nationalism depends on being able to speak in the name of a Hindu nation with a pregiven identity and a fixed set of interests. Hence, the claim about the essence of India as Hindu requires further interrogation. First, it incorporates an implicit claim about who belongs to India and who is an outsider. Second, it assumes the existence of an a priori Hindu community whose boundaries are clear and selfevident. To establish that Hindus are the natural or original inhabitants of India requires erasing the history of Aryan conquest and settlement. A proliferation of literature attempts to rewrite this history by demonstrating the indigenous roots of Hinduism. Hindu militant organizations like the RSS have been working among the tribal and hill people in India and attempting to bring them into the fold. Labeling such groups as vanvasis or girijans (forest-dwellers) rather than adivasis (original dwellers) suggests a conscious attempt to erase the association of Hinduism with “alien” Aryan roots (Pandey 1993b). It is always accompanied by an attempt to project Muslims as foreigners, invaders, and conquerors. The second assumption about who belongs to the Hindu community is even more problematic and has had a much longer history of contestation. There are at least two sources of resistance to the Hindu nationalist definition of the Hindu community. Romila Thapar’s work has done much to problematize the very conceptualization of a Hindu religion or community. She claims that it was Orientalist scholarship that attempted to reconstruct the various parallel systems, practices, and religious beliefs that existed in India (better called Hindu religions, in the plural) into a coherent and rational faith called Hinduism, imagined from the familiar perspective of Semitic religions (Thapar 1985, 1989, 1990, 1991). Even more important, the construct of the Hindu community that Hindu nationalists draw on is a particularistic Brahmanical Hinduism maintained through caste hierarchy. Groups now designated as “untouchables” have sometimes been considered as “outcastes” and hence not really Hindus. Such groups have themselves often resisted being included within a generalized, monolithic Hindu political community (Illiah 1996). Other religious groups claimed by Hindu nationalists to be part of the

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community also reject incorporation. They include Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and various Bhakti sects, all of which the BJP regards as offshoots of Hinduism but that, themselves, always have resisted such inclusion. For instance, the construction and consolidation of a singular, well-defined Sikh identity came from the earlier antiassimilationist resistance of the Singh Sabha movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Madan 1991). The Sikh demands that led to the Punjab crisis are seen by the BJP as a creation of a pseudo-secularist politics in which groups claim a minority status to use the state for their own interests. This attempt to appropriate Sikh identity erases the legitimacy of many genuine political demands. The claim to a greater Hindu community is assisted by juxtaposing the Hindu self against a Muslim other. Not only are Muslims homogenized into one monolithic community; they also are associated with essentialized negative characteristics such as dirt, excessive libidinal energies or animal sexuality, and backward cultural norms. VHP propaganda stresses both the practice of polygamy and the virility of the Muslim male as contributing to differences in fertility rates that could result in the Muslim population eventually outnumbering the Hindus. Says a VHP leader, “Muslims follow a more insidious path to conversion—seduction and then marriage with innocent Hindu girls” (Bhaumik 1997: 15). A VHP pamphlet states that the Muslim family planning motto is Hum paanch, hamare pacchis (“We are five—one Muslim man and his four wives—and we have twenty-five children”), a parody of the Indian family planning slogan, Hum do, hamre do (“We are two, and we have two children”). It is further claimed by Hindu nationalists that Pakistan is the object of the extraterritorial loyalty of Indian Muslims, rendering their patriotism suspect. The Hindu nationalist definition of all “true” Indians as Hindus is an attempt to appropriate many non-Hindus, while simultaneously rejecting Muslims as Indians. This is what makes the definition of the Hindu-nation in BJP discourse both problematically broad and dangerously narrow. In addition to redefining the essence of Indianness in culturally exclusionary terms, the agenda of Hindu nationalism also includes an attempt to rethink the secularism of the postcolonial Indian state. Defining Hindu secularism. At the time of independence in 1947, the Indian state, under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, officially adopted secularism as part of its constitutional framework. Hindu nationalist discourse rejects the secularism associated with Nehru on a number of grounds. That Nehru and his like-minded colleagues were Westernized elites, alienated from their cultural roots, serves to delegitimize Nehruvian secularism as a framework for Indian reality. As Girilal Jain, the well-known journalist turned Hindu ideologue, has argued, these

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elites wanted to “remake India in the Western image,” and their secular nationalist ideology was “a euphemism for irreligion and repudiation of the Hindu ethos” (Jain 1991: 20–23). In the words of BJP leader Advani, “For the Left-inclined, secularism has become a euphemism to cloak their intense allergy to religion, and more particularly, to Hinduism” (Advani 1992a: 43). Their “repudiation of the Hindu ethos” is seen to arise from a contempt for their heritage and is offered as evidence of an uncritical acceptance of modernity and rejection of tradition. It is this that the BJP seeks to counter, as in the popular slogan—Garva se kaho hum Hindu hain (“Proudly proclaim that we are Hindus”). Nehruvian secularism also is criticized for being pseudo-secularist. BJP leader Advani classifies such pseudo-secularists into two groups. There are those who basically subscribe to the Marxist view that religion is the “opium of the masses.” For them only an irreligious state can be truly secular. The second and larger group, mainly of politicians, is that for whom secularism is only a euphemism for vote-bank politics. They are not concerned with the welfare of these so-called minorities. Their only interest is: the minority vote! (Advani 1995b: 9)

It is the latter group that the BJP focuses upon, claiming that the Nehruvian version of secularism ultimately failed, as it became “a euphemism for Hindu-baiting” and as “Hindu-bashing became synonymous with secularism” (Malkani 1994: 1). Rather than remaining neutral or equidistant from all religions, as in the Nehruvian ideal, the state actually has been biased in favor of minorities, resulting in a politics of “minorityism.” The claim is that secular politicians in India manipulate minority religious communities for electoral purposes, treating them as “vote banks.” In this view, “appeasement of minorities” and “pandering to minorities” for such cynical political purposes not only ignores and neglects the needs and interests of the majority Hindu community but also puts into question the secular credentials of the Indian state. In BJP discourse, this minority bias effectively translates into a proMuslim bias: “Every country has some kind of minorities. . . . But no country on earth tries to bribe its minorities the way we do it. A pro-Muslim secularism seems to be the ‘Established Church’ in Congress India” (Malkani 1994: 1). Non-BJP parties claiming secular credentials are imputed with an automatic Islamist bias. Hence the Left front is projected as the arm of a global Islamic conspiracy; the communist government in West-Bengal is presented as pro-Muslim because it allows the sale of beef; other parties, such as Congress and the Janata Dal, are treated similarly and, in the ultimate stigmatizing move, anyone opposed to the Hindu nationalist worldview becomes a Muslim (Pandey 1993; Dutta and Sarkar 1994).

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In place of “pseudo-secularism,” the BJP claims to offer what it calls “positive secularism.” The word positive serves a double ideological purpose here. On the one hand, it sets the “good” BJP version of secularism against the bad, biased, negative ways that Nehruvian secularism has functioned, so that “positive secularism . . . stands for ‘Justice for All and Appeasement for None’” (Manifesto 1989: 6). On the other hand, it connotes an active role for the state on religious issues rather than the neutrality envisioned by the Nehruvian ideal. The BJP claims that rather than the state being free of religion, it should be fundamentally informed by religion. Further, Hinduism is the religion that provides this foundation for India, just as Islam has done for Pakistan since 1947 and for Bangladesh since its formal adoption of Islam in 1988. Yet, fundamental to this worldview is to claim Hinduism less for its religious value than for its cultural and civilizational resources. As claimed by Hindu nationalist ideologue H. V. Sheshadri, “Hindu is not the name of religious faith like the Muslim and the Christian; it denotes the national life here” (quoted in Varshney 1993: 240). Hence it is important that India not be a theocratic state in the manner of Pakistan and Bangladesh but a secular state founded in Hinduism. It is repeatedly asserted that “unlike our two neighbouring countries, the BJP has never made a bid for a theocratic state” (Sinha 1996: 8–10) and that “India never was, and never will be, a theocratic state” (Vajpayee 1996). But it is made clear that Indian secularism should derive from its Hindu essence or, in the words of Advani, the BJP “believes that Indian secularism has its roots in Hindutva” (Advani 1994a: 4–6). This is significant because the otherness of Pakistan and Bangladesh is fundamental to the Indian self in the moral universe of the Indian people. In 1947, even though partition was based on religion, and even though Pakistan declared itself an Islamic State, India opted for secularism. This happened because Indian nationalism has its roots in the age-old culture of this country, which is essentially Hindu. Theocracy is alien to Hindu polity, history, and culture. It is significant that Bangladesh, which became independent in 1971 with India’s help, started off as a secular country but with the passage of time it jettisoned secularism, and became, like Pakistan, an Islamic state. (Advani 1995b: 9)

“Common sense” in India is that secularism is what has made India an open, tolerant polity that has sustained democracy, as opposed to the militaristically authoritarian and religiously intolerant Islamic regimes in neighboring states. This understanding fires the Indian imagination and is a symbolic resource that cannot be easily dismissed. Secularism forms an integral part of the liberal democratic discourse, and its articulation with the ideas of progress and justice within this discourse gives it a certain salience, especially among the middle class in India, which forms the

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largest support base for the BJP. When Vajpayee says that India will never be a theocratic state because secularism “is integrated into our lives,” it is this middle-class prejudice that he is drawing on and speaking to (Vajpayee 1996: 6–9). The issue then becomes one of claiming secularism as part of Hinduism. Hence the BJP leadership claims that secularism is natural to Hinduism because it is “impossible for the Hindus to evolve an established church or proclaim a state religion and call upon the state to impose it by force” (Advani 1992b: 1–22). The uniqueness of Hindu/Indian civilization is based on the claim that “religious tradition in India has been remarkably free of taboos or intolerance” (Advani 1988: 12) and that “‘Hindu’ and ‘fundamentalist’ are contradictory terms” (Diwan 1995: 23). In other words, Hindu nationalists claim that it is the inherent, innate tolerance of Hinduism that makes Indian secularism possible. In the words of BJP leader Advani, “India is secular because it is essentially Hindu. Theocracy is alien to Hindu tradition and history” (Advani 1994a: 4–6). Advani has claimed that all religious groups in India could be accommodated beneath Hinduism’s cultural/national umbrella. Thus, in addition to Hindus, the Indian nation-state could include Mohammadi Hindus, Christian Hindus, and Sikh Hindus who, to free themselves of the charge of being outsiders, would have to accept their status as subordinated elements within the Hindu fold. In that vein, Advani advises the Muslims of India to “trust the Hindus, who have made India a secular country” (Advani 1995b: 4–6). The basic claim here is that despite the abuse of secularism by the Indian elite, and unlike its Islamic neighbors, India has been able to remain secular only because it is essentially a tolerant and inclusive Hindu country. Offering Hindu secularism as the only true form and rejecting all other versions as pseudo secularisms, this Hindu nationalist rearticulation is a narrow and exclusivist state project. It taps into and reproduces a larger Orientalist common sense among middle- and upper-class Hindus that Hinduism is a democratic, pluralistic, and tolerant religion in its essence and practices, in contrast with the fundamentalism and fanaticism that are associated with Islam as a religion and Muslim practices and politics in India. In all, the Hindu nationalist reimagination of the Indian nation-state puts at peril subordinate and minority interests in contemporary India.

The Political Economy of Hindu Nationalism [A] swadeshi of a self-confident, hardworking modern nation that can deal with the world on terms of equality. . . . India must liberalize, industrialize and modernize—but it must do so the Indian way. (BJP 1992: 10–11)

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The resurgence of Hindu nationalism in the middle to late 1980s occurred with the opening up of the Indian economy and its increasing integration into globalized systems of production and consumption. The liberalization program, inaugurated formally and with substantial vigor in 1991 by the Congress government under Narasimha Rao, had been in progress at least since the middle 1980s and is part of what is seen as the globalization of market forces and the triumph of capitalism in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union. The reforms initiated under the Congress government in 1991 were continued by the United Front government in 1996–1997 and by the BJP-led coalition government since 1998. The emerging consensus on liberalization within India is truly remarkable, given that it attempts to replace a well-entrenched, statist, developmentalist apparatus with roots in the postcolonial national project of Nehru’s India. There seems to be a generally enthusiastic reception for a market economy, incorporating foreign capital on both the political right and left. Public opinion surveys show rising numbers of people, especially among the college-educated, urban middle classes, reporting an improvement in their economic situations. There is general agreement among India’s political parties that economic reforms are largely responsible for this increased sense of well-being (India Today 1996a, 1996b). State governments of all political hues have turned investor-friendly. Even what is arguably the most radical group within the United Front alliance, Jyoti Basu’s Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), has welcomed economic reforms and courted foreign capital. Although in the recent past BJP-led states like Maharashtra and Gujarat were the top investment destinations in the country, press commentator Shefali Rekhi (1995: 71) notes that “chief ministers of various states are not letting the political ideologies of the parties they belong to stand in the way of attracting investment.” Before examining how the BJP situates itself ideologically and in practice, I outline the history of India’s postindependence closed economy and draw attention to some of the dimensions of contemporary liberalization and its socioeconomic effects. In subsequent sections, I analyze the discursive mechanisms through which the BJP emerges as a party able to speak to the postcolonial desire to be modern, but in “the Indian way.” Swadeshi, a central pivot in articulating this desire, literally means “from one’s own country” or “native” and translates in Indian political argot as “economic nationalism.” Swadeshi has a particular resonance in postcolonial Indian political discourse given its use by Mahatma Gandhi in the nationalist struggle. As a form of protest, Gandhi called for the rejection of foreign goods (Manchester textiles) and the embrace of handspun cloth. Examining the ambivalences in the Hindu nationalist discourse on globalization and the anxieties that liberalization generates within India, I suggest that within the generally enthusiastic acceptance of liberalizing initiatives by the BJP

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government, the theme of swadeshi functions to resolve the many contradictions and tensions between tradition and modernity that are the hallmark of globalization in postcolonial settings. Liberalization in India Most commentators see the liberalization of India’s economy in the late 1980s as marking a significant ideological and policy rupture. With the adoption of the second five-year plan (1956–1961), India embarked on the closed-economy model, emphasizing import substitution, state-led investment, state-regulated access to domestic and foreign private capital, stateadministered price and distribution controls, and state coordination through the system of five-year plans. This remained the overarching policy framework for the Indian economy until the 1980s. Critics of the closed economy consistently pointed to the inefficiencies of state intervention, advocating economic reforms and a free-market orientation. As Jayati Ghosh points out, tensions between the pro- and antiliberalization forces within India played out on two levels: at the level of academic debates (reflecting different ideological positions and/or different understandings of the nature of the Indian economy), and in governmental policy actions (reflecting different configurations of interests). The occasional merging of the two levels produced periods dominated either by state control or by “episodes of liberalization” (Ghosh 1998). Ghosh identifies four significant episodes of postcolonial liberalization, placing India’s contemporary liberalization measures within a historical continuity. India’s most recent adoption of liberalization occurred in global and domestic contexts within which liberalization arguments won, so to speak. The initial period of high growth experienced after the adoption of the second five-year plan soon settled into a longer period of relatively low growth. A spurt of domestic economic reforms started in the 1980s during the latter part of Indira Gandhi’s regime and were continued by Rajiv Gandhi’s government. The very large medium-term loan (SDR5 billion), negotiated by the Indian government with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1981, is seen by many as inaugurating the first serious trend toward liberalization. As Ghosh (1998) points out, the impetus for these early liberalizing initiatives emerged not just from external IMF pressures but also from political forces inside the government. Although some have hailed the 1980s IMF program in India as highly successful, reliance on external borrowing and an expansionary period of public expenditure resulted in the negotiation of another IMF loan in 1991. Some small steps were taken toward deregulating industry and lifting trade restrictions in the 1980s, but “in terms of actual economic practice, what was more significant than these explicit moves towards policy liberalization was what

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remained officially unsaid: the demise of planning as the operative framework within which economic growth occurred” (Ghosh 1998: 320). This period has been labeled “liberalization by stealth rather than by declaration.” Even so, all major economic indicators showed that in 1991 India remained an extremely closed and heavily controlled economy. Economists Vijah Joshi and I.M.D. Little noted that “in June 1991 India was the most autarkic non-communist country in the world,” a judgment echoed by the IMF (quoted in Nayar 2001: 3529). The 1991 IMF loan is seen by most observers as inaugurating the contemporary period of structural liberalization. The proximate cause of this borrowing was a severe fiscal and balance-of-payments/foreign exchange crisis. The latter was exacerbated by the hike in oil prices following the 1991 Gulf War, the drop in remittances from migrant workers in Kuwait and Iraq, capital flight as a result of domestic political instability, and the consequent downgrading of India’s international credit rating. However, this crisis explains the relatively less significant stabilization measures adopted by the government more than the economic restructuring, some of it fairly radical, that followed the IMF loan (Nayar 2001). Reform and liberalizing measures appeared to be attractive and politically feasible due to the success of the Asian tigers and the discrediting of the Soviet planning model. Key players in the government, such as Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, Commerce Minister P. Chidambaram, and, of course, Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, along with a select group of advisers, were strongly supportive of liberalizing measures. Certain newly organized business interests were also in favor of opening access to the global market, and there was an increasingly favorable response to liberalization among an influential vocal and voting public, the globally conscious “articulate middle-classes” (Nayar 2001: 3530). The basic purpose of the liberalization measures was to deregulate the Indian economy and to integrate it into the global market. Deregulation, or internal liberalization, included the dismantling of a very complex and cumbersome industrial licensing system, opening up a number of sectors to private investment, reducing some state subsidies (such as for fertilizers), and decontrolling administered prices. External liberalization measures included the removal of nontariff barriers, reductions in import tariffs, the decanalization of a number of imported items, elimination of export subsidies, and the removal or easing of restrictions on foreign investment. (Before liberalization, all imports were required to be routed through monitoring and regulating organizations that kept track of different categories of imports. This routing was called canalization. With liberalization many imports have been decanalized to reduce bureaucratic hurdles that could be construed as nontariff barriers.) Assessments vary as to how much the Indian economy has really

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opened in response to these measures. Some (Sachs, Varshney, and Bajpai 1999) find the reforms slow and partial while crediting them with dismantling four decades of central economic control. The reforms have been significantly wider and deeper in the case of industrial, trade, investment, and exchange-rate regimes than in agriculture, labor, and public finance. According to others (Dutt and Rao 2001), there has been a clear increase in India’s integration with the international market, both in international trade and capital transactions, even though this is much more pronounced in the former than the latter (especially with respect to foreign direct investment). As Nayar (2001) points out, the extent of openness is enormous compared to previous periods in India’s history, but economic integration has proceeded only in fits and starts, which helps explain why India’s overall liberalization record is modest compared to other economies. Even though India has attracted a considerable amount of recent foreign investment (the indicator that economic nationalists focus on the most), these capital inflows have been less in the category of foreign direct investment (or ownership, which itself has mostly been directed at accessing the Indian market or buying out local firms), and more in the category of portfolio (equity) investment. This indicates only modest transnationalization of production. In terms of macroeconomic stabilization, the reforms have been fairly successful in reducing the current account deficit, lowering and containing the double-digit inflation rates marking the 1991 crisis, and returning foreign exchange reserves to satisfactory levels, even though controlling the fiscal deficit has continued to be difficult (Ahluwalia 1999). Studies indicate steadily rising rates of economic growth since the modest initiatives of the 1980s rather than a sudden jump in response to the radical restructuring of the 1990s (Nagaraj 2000; Dutt and Rao 2001; Ahluwalia 1999). This is impressive, both with regard to the record of many other countries in the 1980s, as well as India’s ability to withstand the Asian financial crisis so well a decade later. I would like to highlight two dimensions of India’s pattern of growth. First, in addition to an increase in the growth rate, “an unambiguous increase in inequality in the Indian economy over the last two decades or so” reflected by declining rural as compared to urban per capita income, deterioration in the ratio of income earned in the informal sector as compared to income earned in the formal sector of the economy, which has increased inequality across the major states, and a changing factor share of GNP favoring capital (profits) as against labor (wages). Hence, “the gains of faster economic growth since 1980–81 have been unequally shared by different sections of the Indian society. Growth has favored urban India, organized sector, richer states and property owners—against rural India, unorganized sector, poorer states and wage earners” (Nagaraj 2000: 2836–2838; see also Dutt and Rao 2001). Studies also suggest that the

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decline in poverty rates since the late 1970s, believed to be a result of sustained and considerable direct poverty-alleviation programs undertaken by the government, especially with respect to rural poverty, seems to have slowed down, if not reversed, in the postreform period (Byers 1997; Ghosh 1998). Based on evidence that “the reforms in India seem to be making life harder for the poor, and they are making Indian society more unequal,” others argue that “while it may not be accurate to speak of the reforms in India as being ‘anti-poor’ in some crass or intentional sense, it would not be inaccurate to describe their effects thus far as being ‘pro rich’” (Corbridge and Harris 2000: 165–166). Significantly, this polarization of the Indian economy occurred along with the increased politicization of subordinated groups discussed earlier. Second, S. L. Rao points out that liberalization marked a clear change in investment priorities away from basic industries and key sectors producing capital goods and processed materials such as steel and cement toward manufactured consumer goods and, with that, a sharp turn toward brandbuilding, customer focus, and marketing (Rao 2001). Surveying expanding consumer markets in India in the wake of liberalization, Rao points to the strong growth in demand for durable and nondurable consumer goods, with foreign-owned brands dominating national consumer markets, as imports of manufactured consumer products rose under the World Trade Organization (WTO) (Rao 2000). In addition to necessary products (like soaps and detergents) and emerging products (toothpaste), these also include lifestyle products (chocolate and coffee). There has been a parallel growth in markets for leisure and entertainment services (health clubs—“health parlors” in India—amusement parks, shopping malls). The rise in consumerism, especially among urban middle-class Indians, has gone hand in hand with the opening of the Indian economy. Hence, despite higher aggregate growth, “the growth pattern is one which is based on the market created by (at most) the upper one-third of the population” (Ghosh 1998: 326). Liberalization and Swadeshi: The Ambivalences in Hindu Nationalist Discourse The BJP position on liberalization and foreign capital reflects much ambivalence and many contradictions. The party has quite clearly adopted a procapitalist position since the 1980s, moving away from the more socialist Gandhian orientation of older parties as exemplified in the economic philosophy of Deendayal Upadhyaya’s “integral humanism.” Upadhyaya’s philosophy seeks a middle ground between capitalism and socialism, evaluating both systems on their respective merits, while being critical of their excesses and alienness (Upadhyaya 1985). His proposal for a desirable economic system for India is based on a critique of the tendency for a capitalist

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system to produce an endless cycle of wasteful consumption, and it ends by examining social welfare policies (education, health care), economic decentralization (small-scale industry with worker participation), and especially swadeshi. Upadhyaya advocates reducing dependence on foreign capital, technology, and consumption patterns and relying on indigenous industry based on “Bharatiya (Indian) technology” that would “develop suitable machines for Bharatiya conditions taking note of the availability and nature of the various factors of production” (Upadhyaya 1985: 57–58). Even though the BJP continues to advocate Upadhyaya’s economic philosophy, what is more interesting is the effective marginalization of the anti–foreign capital swadeshi camp within the ranks of the movement. States governed by the BJP have been quite receptive to foreign investment, and the national leadership has often supported this as well. Yet BJP discourse continues to be characterized by ambivalence on the issue of liberalization. A survey of the official biweekly BJP Today features an abundance of articles focusing on the swadeshi theme and critiques liberalization quite heavily. Party leaders often make public pronouncements toeing the swadeshi line yet also go out of their way to affirm their openness to liberalization and foreign investment. Why is the BJP so divided over the question of liberalization and swadeshi? What explains this ambivalence, and how does the BJP resolve these contradictions? Part of the ambivalence arises from divisions within the ranks of Hindu nationalists. The relatively more right-wing RSS has taken a fairly consistent stand against liberalization and globalization. In early 1992, the RSS advocated a new policy of swadeshi, drawing up a list of 326 products produced by multinational corporations (MNCs) and alternative products produced by Indian-owned manufacturers and urging “true patriots” to consume local goods and reject the contamination of culture through Western-style consumption (Hanson 1996). RSS strategists issue calls to boycott firangi (foreign) goods that often target well-known MNC brands such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Colgate. Recently a company named the Swadeshi Vijay Consumer Services Private Ltd. was launched by a group associated with the RSS to set up a chain of swadeshi stores in Vadodara and popularize what they called swadeshi consumerism (Times of India November 1, 2001). The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), a group created by the RSS to fight exploitation by multinationals, has organized protest marches and undertaken nationwide propaganda campaigns to raise consciousness about economic colonialism. Prior to the 1996 elections, the RSS instructed other offshoot organizations, such as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (Indian Worker’s Organization) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarti Parishad (All India Student’s Council), to take the message of swadeshi to 100,000 rural villages to convince the population to reject the Congress government’s liberalization policy (Newsnotes, December 31, 1994: 15).

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This strong pro-swadeshi activism has created substantial dissension within the BJP. Many BJP leaders come from the RSS and maintain strong ties and rely heavily on it for grassroots organization. Hardliners like Mahesh Sharma, former secretary of the Deendayal Research Foundation in Delhi, are totally opposed to the entry of foreign capital and multinational corporations. RSS chief Rajendra Singh points out that “in the name of liberalization, multinational corporations are coming in, as a result of which our small scale units are folding up” (India Today 1995: 63). But a substantial segment of BJP leaders remains ambivalent about liberalization and economic reform. Party moderates feel that the RSS is forcing the BJP to adopt swadeshi as an election issue without understanding the problems that poses for a victorious party faced with the exigencies of governance. At the same time, its rapidly growing popularity among the upwardly mobile urban middle classes makes it difficult for the BJP to take an antireform position in light of the emerging consensus on the necessity for economic liberalization within this group. Ashutosh Varshney argues that the Congress government of Narasimha Rao was able to push through the initial reforms in 1991, despite parliamentary weakness, because other parties across the ideological spectrum felt it more necessary to ally against the BJP on issues of communalism than to oppose the government on economic reforms. Varshney also points out that the unevenness of the reform process reflects an elitist bias in liberalization initiatives. Reforms in the investment and trade regimes and in the capital markets supported by upper- and middle-class elite circles (the immediate beneficiaries) have been more successful than agriculture and labor market reforms that have direct, visible, and short-run detrimental effects on mass welfare (Varshney 1999). When the BJP came to power, it inherited this mantle of economic reforms and found it expedient to continue and deepen them in the sectors most directly beneficial to its upper- and middle-class urban supporters. Yet, the emerging consensus on liberalization within the BJP has its own ambivalences, and opening the Indian economy also generates certain kinds of anxieties in these economic classes. Furthermore, the BJP’s image as the authentic and legitimate voice of Indian/Hindu nationalism must also conform to the modernist aspirations of middle-class India. Swadeshi is one of the mechanisms for resolving contradictions in the articulation between tradition and modernity. One way that the BJP tries to resolve pro- and antireform contradictions is by disaggregating the category of economic reform. In BJP discourse, one often finds a distinction made between internal liberalization (reforms) and external liberalization (globalization). Internal liberalization refers to dismantling the bureaucratic apparatus and the rules and regulations inhibiting private industry in India: the license-permit-quota Raj. The BJP claims that the party has advocated these reforms much longer than the

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Congress and that, in fact, it is the Congress that created and propagated the system that the BJP now must reform (Advani 1994b). Thus, the BJP represents itself as the original reformist party in the country, and the claims of Congress to that achievement are represented as spurious. External liberalization or globalization in this context refers to the opening of the Indian market to MNCs and foreign investors. It is here, of course, where the ambivalence within the BJP ranks is most prominent. The BJP has always been opposed to the License-Permit-Quota Raj inflicted on the country by the Congress. We have therefore, been protagonists of internal liberalization, that is, decontrol and deregulation. . . . But in the name of liberalization, New Delhi, has developed an infatuation for globalization which, in a country like ours cannot only aggravate our problem of unemployment, but also widen the chasm between the rich and the poor. (Advani 1995a: 4–6)

Prior to 1991, Hindu nationalist statements tended to favor internal deregulation more than external liberalization. It is also true that there has been much more consistent and widespread support among political parties and supporters of liberalization for the former rather than the latter, sometimes expressed as sequencing—domestic liberalization must precede external liberalization. Yet, although the BJP stands on solid and popular political ground, it is clear that this distinction, especially in the contemporary context, makes little sense. It is true that domestic reforms are a prerequisite for external integration, but many domestic deregulation measures adopted since 1991 and continued under the BJP government were undertaken with the objective of attracting foreign capital into the Indian economy. It also is interesting that while the swadeshi theme is prominent in speeches made to party members and workers, the BJP takes a more guarded approach to liberalization in statements to the press and general public. For instance, the section on economic policy in the 1996 BJP Election Manifesto is titled “Our Economy and Direction: Economic Growth and Employment through Swadeshi,” but there is barely any discussion of swadeshi, whereas enthusiasm for liberalization (as globalization) is clearly reflected in the manifesto’s rejection of inward-looking, isolationist policies. Indeed, the manifesto (BJP 1996: 23–24) states that “the BJP welcomes foreign investment, because we hold that it supplies knowledge, technology and know-how and sharpens the quality and competitive edge of our economy. . . . BJP stands for a modern and progressive India, open to new ideas, new technology and fresh capital.” When this ambivalence is reflected in policy, it creates uneasiness in the urban middle classes, especially in business circles, about the economic orientation of the BJP. Two prominent examples are the KFC (Kentucky

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Fried Chicken) controversy in Delhi and the Enron controversy in Maharashtra. In December 1995, the BJP-governed Delhi administration charged a Pepsico-owned KFC outlet with using excessive amounts of potentially carcinogenic sodium aluminum phosphate in the food. When that charge did not stand up, the outlet was closed on sanitary grounds after a few flies were found in the kitchen, a temporary yielding to the pressures imposed by pro-swadeshi forces, although it subsequently was allowed to reopen. In the state of Maharashtra, the BJP and its more radically nationalist, pro-swadeshi local coalition partner, the Shiv Sena, sought to scrap a multimillion-dollar joint venture with the Enron Corporation for the construction of a power plant. They cited the corruption of Congress Party officials who had negotiated the deal and claimed that it would subject the Indian consumer to foreign competition. But the project was revived in spite of continued strong opposition from within the BJP. The Maharashtra case is interesting because the participation of the radical Shiv Sena in the Hindu nationalist ruling coalition had created apprehension about the government’s orientation toward economic liberalization. Indeed, when the coalition first came to power in Maharashtra, the administration felt compelled to reassure the business community inside and outside India of its openness to foreign investment. Answering a question on future economic policy, the newly elected chief minister, Manohar Joshi, declared that “the present government policy need not be changed. Maharashtra will always welcome investments but we will carefully scrutinize the terms and conditions before accepting them” (Joshi 1995a: 43). When the Bombay Stock Exchange index dropped in reaction to the newly elected BJP–Shiv Sena government in March 1995, Joshi declared that his party was not “totally opposed to liberalization,” and Javadekar, the BJP state secretary, declared that “we are investor-friendly. MNCs which bring in technological advancement are welcome. But not those which duplicate our local industries” (Rattanani and Koppikar 1995: 45). After the Enron controversy was resolved, Joshi asserted that “our policy is to welcome liberalization, we welcome foreign investment in all products. I must make this clear—for all products. Enron was an individual issue, it was not against the company but against the terms and conditions on which the previous contract was signed” (Joshi 1995b: 40). This emphasis on “all products” was a radical departure from the fairly consistent opposition of the BJP to foreign investment in consumer nondurables (as popularized in the slogan “computer chips, yes; potato chips, no”), and it was a controversial statement even at the time. That it came from the radical Shiv Sena leader makes it all the more interesting. Given the emerging consensus on liberalization at the national level, commentators in the press treat the BJP’s swadeshi as merely rhetorical,

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assuming that it is a smokescreen rather than a platform. Commentator Uday Mahurkar reacted to the new BJP government in Gujarat in precisely this way: The saffron wave in Gujarat may have evoked suspicion elsewhere, but in the state, the emerging consensus is that the BJP will not be inimical to the state’s new industrial policy. . . . After all, no one actually believes that there can be a reversal in the way things are going. (Mahurkar 1995, emphasis added)

Similar views came from commentators on the Shiv Sena–BJP government in Maharashtra: Although the BJP is perceived to be pro-industry, people are apprehensive about the Shiv Sena. Yet, experts feel that the Sena is unlikely to do anything to harm industry. . . . Industrialists do not seem too perturbed by the stand. . . . The BJP knows that it has nothing to gain from an anti-industry image, especially if it wants to stake its claim to New Delhi in a year’s time. (Rattanani and Koppikar 1995: 45, emphasis added)

At the national level, one of the first acts of the short-lived Vajpayee government following the 1996 Lok Sabha elections was to address concerns raised in the foreign press about India’s future economic trajectory and to alleviate the worries of foreign investors. Vajpayee’s selection of Jaswant Singh, widely seen as a moderate in favor of the free market, as his finance minister, attempted to address concerns both abroad and among urban middle classes in India. Addressing the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) before and during the 1996 elections, Vajpayee said that “in the interdependent world we live in . . . no country is an island” and offered assistance to the business community. The BJP now and in the future is committed to economic reforms and to Liberalization. By reforms we mean a process of cleaning up the plethora of regulations put in place earlier for centrally controlling the economy. Simultaneously, reforms mean the introducing of appropriate legislation to facilitate trade and industry by removing all unnecessary rules, regulations, and restrictions bearing in mind the public good. In our view, liberalization is the logical corollary to economic reforms. (Vajpayee 1995)

BJP national general secretary and chief spokesperson K. L. Sharma addressed several forums during his tour of the United States, in which he attempted to convince the international business community that foreign investors would be welcomed by a BJP government. But if the BJP policy on economic reform is not very different from Congress reform policies, then what does the high-pitched swadeshi plank serve?

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The Cultural Discontents of Liberalization and Globalization This desire to compensate for real fractures through symbolic unities mirrors the double movement of the market, which unifies the nation as a single system of exchange and circulation while also fragmenting it into infinitely competing individuals, firms, communities, and regions. In short, then, the market both unites and fragments the nation in a single motion. It alone cannot hold the nation together, especially in the context of scarcity and of acute maldistribution of what is available within that scarcity, and a society, moreover, which is the world’s most heterogeneous in its sociological composition. The ultimate logic of “liberalization” and the market, if left to its own devices, leads toward disintegration. (Ahmad 1996: 1336–1337)

“One must take account of the fact that India is not just a market of trading activities; it is a Nation! While we welcome liberalization and are allowing foreigners to do business, we make it clear that the paramount importance is our National Interest” (Sharma 1995: 23–4). The opening of the Indian economy to world markets seems to have generated at least two related cultural reactions to which the BJP, as the party claiming to represent Indian cultural nationalism, has had to respond. First, liberalization and globalization raise the question, “What is India’s distinctive place in the world?” Second, the process itself released a host of insecurities and anxieties related to the Indian way of life and raised questions about how best to preserve Indian culture (Hansen 1996). Both anxieties are responses to the particular postcolonial predicament of Indian nationalism—how to retain authenticity in the face of mimicry. Both speak to what BJP leader Advani calls the “cultural dislocation caused by unchecked globalization of the Indian economy” (Advani 1994c: 12). The first takes on the nationalist challenge of refusing to be colonized in this postcolonial world by retaining sovereign authority over Indian political space. The norm of sovereignty functions here as the anchor for authenticity, defined as the capacity to have a say in who can or cannot infringe on Indian political space. Swadeshi helps define this anti-imperialist position, which strikes a chord even in those otherwise opposed to the BJP’s communal politics. In the words of the former chief justice of India, V. R. Krishna Iyer, “While I see highly objectionable factors in the BJP and elsewhere, there are certain matters like swadeshi, self-reliance and anti-U.S. hegemony, which are welcome aspects of BJP politics,” although he is quick to add the disclaimer “if what it says is what it really means” (Iyer 1996). The second anxiety arises more directly from the fear of cultural imperialism, where authenticity gets translated into an internal quality of Indianness (read: the Hindu way of life) that is imperiled by Westernization. It is here that BJP discourse helps create a tradition/modernity dichotomy where the

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theme of swadeshi helps partially, though problematically, to resolve the contradictions that emerge from that dichotomy.

Indian Distinctiveness in the World In India, as in many postcolonial economies, articulation of the nationalist imagination with themes of self-reliance and economic independence occupied a central place in state discourses and practices. The growing urban middle classes, increasingly experiencing the inefficiencies of the very large, developmentalist state, demanded and supported reform and liberalization efforts, but that did not necessarily mean any quick and easy resolution of the issues raised about Indian national identity. The Nehruvian mixed-economy was perceived as increasingly dysfunctional by these middle classes, and liberalization was adopted as a means of redress. But the ideational implications of liberalization’s place in the Indian national imagination had not yet been worked out. Liberalization efforts in India have largely occurred in a piecemeal fashion (Sachs, Varshney, and Bajpai 1999). They have stalled at different times and on different issues because none of the political parties pushing for liberalization were willing to articulate a coherent and persuasive ideology linking the free market, growth, and development (Sachs, Varshney, and Bajpai 1999). In one sense, the articulation of Nehru’s nationalist vision of a “third path” between capitalism and socialism and what that vision entailed about Indian distinction and distinctiveness in a bipolar world were increasingly coming apart under the pressure of liberalization. That raised various questions, including how to deal with the disjuncture between long-held self-perceptions of middleclass Indians, of India as the “natural” leader of third world states, and the current marginalization of India in world politics and in the global economy, particularly compared to East Asia and Southeast Asia. How could India hold its own, politically and culturally, in the face of external pressures? (Hansen 1996). In the words of BJP leader Malkani, “There was a time when the Congress had a philosophy: it was Gandhism before 1947 and Nehruism after 1947. Today the Congress is neither Gandhian nor Nehruite; it is IMF-World Bankite” (Malkani 1995: 19–20). How is it possible to maintain Indian distinction in such a world? Swadeshi is a theme through which it becomes possible to speak to these anxieties and, in so doing, partially resolve them. Guarding against economic imperialism and the fear of losing economic sovereignty in the face of IMF–World Bank pressures is a recurrent theme in many writings and speeches by BJP leaders and advocates. In 1991, when Congress accepted the IMF economic package, the opposition

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BJP criticized the reform program for encroaching on the economic sovereignty of India. This fear of losing India’s autonomy in a world of strong powers is reflected in Advani’s (1993) address: Government’s impassioned advocacy of globalization often smacks of diffidence and helplessness. If the world has something to offer us, we too have a great deal to offer to the world. Indians do very well outside India. Why can’t they do as well, or better, in India? We cannot shut ourselves off from the rest of the world but we have to be careful to see that we are not swamped by the world either. (quoted in Dubashi 1994: 11, emphasis added)

It is in that sense that Enron is now celebrated in BJP discourse. It is the symbol not of opposition to liberalization but of the BJP’s ability to stand up to the superpowers, even as BJP administrators go out of their way to convince investors that an Enron-like case would not arise under their administration. Swadeshi discourse emphasizes that India is not a dependent regime: BJP is totally opposed to the Rao government’s approach to foreign investment. It seems to believe that this country cannot progress without foreign capital. This is ridiculous. India is not a banana republic. We have a high savings rate, though perhaps not as high as it could be, or as high as in China and other countries in Southeast Asia. (Dubashi 1994: 13, emphasis added)

It is not just economic dependency that is important here. Globalization also entails the risk of losing political sovereignty, since “the constitution of India will have no meaning once you become a member of the WTO” (Joshi 1994: 9). This resonates well with postcolonial anxieties over the loss of political autonomy in a hegemonic world and loss of the place that India enjoyed as a resister of colonialism and as a world leader in such resistance. Without its distinctive place, India loses its role as the leader of the third world. A decision has to be made whether India will continue its Political and Economic sovereignty as an Independent Nation, or it will get transformed into a Commission Agent on behalf of multinationals of the Capitalist—G-7 countries. . . . You (the government) have a banana spine, where there should be a spine of steel. You do not have either the capacity or the capability to take other nations along with you in respect of these issues. . . You are pushing India into an unequal and exploitative world order. (Joshi 1994: 7–12, emphasis added)

With this loss of political sovereignty, globalization is shown to threaten Indian security interests as well. Commenting on what he perceived as

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the Congress-led Indian government’s meek international position on issues such as Jammu and Kashmir, nonproliferation, production, and test of fissile materials, BJP president Advani asks: Is this the price we have to pay for globalization? Does India have to surrender its security interests to attract foreign investments? Is our sense of self-esteem so low that even a hint of American displeasure can prompt us to go crawling for forgiveness? These are not incidental questions. They touch upon our very existence as a proud, independent nation of 880 million. The question is: do we earn respect internationally if we are seen to be a pushover? A pushover is what the Rao government is turning India into. (Advani 1994c: 10, emphasis added)

What is special about the BJP and its position on swadeshi is that it allows the party to articulate Indian national pride in a way that others cannot. An article in BJP Today recognizes that other parties have critiqued liberalization, but it identifies the BJP as the only legitimate critic because the others are a loyal opposition that accepts the basic premises of Western rational thought. Such parties may criticize the performance of the economy, but they also accept the modernization/Westernization paradigm. What they offer is dismissed as an internal critique. Diwan insists that only the BJP and its position on swadeshi can and has offered an “ideological opposition,” drawing explicitly on Indian heritage and culture (Diwan 1995: 20). Ultimately, since swadeshi speaks in terms of what is broadly claimed to be authentically Indian (i.e., not Western), the BJP claims to be the only political party able to restore Indian pride without sacrificing economic growth. The efforts of all economists and multinationals of the world will not be able to achieve the tiger-ization of India if we lose sight of our ethical base, our inheritance, or Dharma. . . .As we approach the general elections it is important that the BJP project this distinctiveness. (Advani 1995c: 5–6)

Westernization as Cultural Imperialism A related set of postcolonial responses are aimed at the flood of Western cultural products transmitted through satellite TV, advertising, and consumer goods (Hansen 1996). The penetration of satellite TV has created a sense of social and cultural insecurity in urban middle-class India. An opinion poll by India Today and affiliates showed that 64 percent of respondents agreed that the “western way of life was affecting the Indian way of life.” Further, 49 percent of the respondents were “afraid that western culture might overpower Indian culture” (India Today 1997). BJP discourse draws and elaborates on this Western/Indian dichotomy, referring often to

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the threat to the Indian way of life presented by the decadent, materialist culture of the West. Such contrasts are stark and plentiful: “On the strength of the purchased majority in Lok Sabha you want to introduce the culture of consumerism in place of the great culture of this country which places value on ‘simple living’ and ‘high thinking’” (Joshi 1994: 12). Another article comments on the problem facing postindustrial societies such as the United States, where economic growth is now seen to be threatened by social decay: The decline of family values, particularly in [the United States as exemplified] by high divorce rate, millions of births out of wedlock, one-parent families and the disturbed childhood of millions of youngsters. . . . This is where the inherent superiority of the Indian social system comes in. With our stable family life, we produce stable integrated men and women who, given the chance, can outshine . . . Indian scientists, engineers, doctors and other professionals in the [United States]. (Anonymous 1995)

Yet the party also claims the mantle of modernity. If there is a contradiction between the Indian way of life and the desire for modernity, it can be resolved by disengaging the discourse of modernization from that of Westernization. The current globalization and GATT is not modernization—but westernization of Indian life styles, which, in turn, is linked to habits which determine the needs of the people and which, in turn, decide the technology and socio-economic models a nation chooses. The damage which GATT and Globalization would inflict on our cultural and civilizational institutions including family and community living which is practically nonexistent in the West, and which has preserved the socio-economic stability of India, is not being adequately realized. This damage cannot be undone. The baneful invasion of the Indian mind—particularly of the young— through the foreign media and TV programmes—now Doordarshan [Indian National Television] too has begun competing with its foreign counterparts—will have far reaching consequences on our [nationhood] itself. (Memorandum 1994: 4–7)

In other words, it is important to emphasize that India can and needs to be modern, an assertion that occurs repeatedly in BJP discourse. Modernity is, after all, a postcolonial desire that cannot easily be dismissed, notwithstanding all the apprehensions and ambivalences it raises. To be modern by drawing on Indian heritage and culture is what the BJP offers to assuage some of those apprehensions and ambivalences. The theme of swadeshi provides the discursive resources to make those connections. Without rejecting the modernization implicit in liberalization, national identity articulated through swadeshi becomes the site through which the contradictions of that vision are partially resolved.

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The Party is pledged to build up India as a strong and prosperous nation, which is modern, progressive and enlightened in outlook and which proudly draws inspiration from India’s ancient culture and values and thus is able to emerge as a great world power playing an effective role in the comity of nations for the establishment of world peace and a just international order. (Objectives 1989)

The opening of India’s economy is experienced also as a loss of economic, political, and cultural autonomy. In this general fear of external infringement on cultural and political space, the Hindu nationalist articulation of economic prosperity with a strong and proud nation through the theme of swadeshi takes on a certain resonance. The argument that I have made is that the sense of cultural dislocation caused by liberalization provides conditions of possibility for such discourses of national pride. The promise of national pride—to ensure India’s true potential and rightful place among the great nations of the world—plays quite well into these insecurities. It enables a discourse on the integrity and unity of the Indian (Hindu) nation to take on renewed salience as a unifying and coherent national ideology. Hence, BJP discourse based on the ideology of Hindutva resonates quite well with the Hindu middle classes. As the first part of this chapter points out, the attempt to recuperate lost pride in the modern world occurs through positive efforts to recover the authenticity of India’s Hindu past as a glorious golden age of plenty and prosperity as much as through rejection of a degenerate, materialist West (which nevertheless has to be emulated). This recuperation is achieved in part also through an othering of Islam and India’s Muslim minorities. What is important for our purposes here is that the BJP—enthusiastic inheritor and supporter of Congress-led liberalization efforts—also offers to the dominant, urban, upper- and middle-class Hindu India a certain vision of the nation that speaks to the cultural dislocations of liberalization.

Conclusion

The “withdrawal of the state” in economic terms is a chimera; most decontrol is not only very consciously designed to retain the underlying influence of government but also reflects a very conscious and ultimately statist economic policy. . . . The basic question, which is one of political economy rather than normative economics, is ultimately that of which groups in society are benefited or harmed by the supposed liberalization of economic activities, and how state policies further these processes. Thus, in India as well as elsewhere, the politics of economic policy remains the most critical, if unstated, determinant of its content. (Ghosh 1998: 299, emphasis added)

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This chapter has traced the emergence of the BJP since the early 1990s back to the threat to dominant interests from the rise and empowerment of a range of marginal caste/class groups in contemporary Indian politics. It is also clear that the BJP, offering a culturally and politically exclusionary agenda, has emerged as the voice of upper-caste, urban, upper- and middleclass Hindu India, notwithstanding the many complexities and contradictions within that political formation. It is clear that this group has been most informed about, most supportive of, and most directly and immediately advantaged by the liberalizing reforms undertaken by the Indian government since the early 1990s. Hence, it is no surprise that the BJP, inheriting the reform process from the Congress government, has continued its general thrust and tenor. It is important to point out, however, that I am not arguing that the earlier protectionist phase in Indian economic history was propoor, or that the complex regulations and restrictions of the past were necessarily effective or beneficial. Here I agree with Ghosh that “the recent trend towards liberalization, just as much as the earlier explicitly dirigiste and protectionist strategy, primarily serves the economic interests of dominant groups within society” (Ghosh 1998: 331, emphasis added). In other words, I do agree with those who argue that without a significant restructuring of the social and political hierarchies within which liberalization occurs, the question, “Who benefits from liberalization?” remains moot. Yet liberalization is more than just a package of economic reform measures. In addition to the many socioeconomic and cultural consequences, liberalization has necessitated a certain ideological reorientation of Indian national identity, even if such a reorientation remains in many ways incoherent, contradictory, and open-ended. There are many among policymakers and scholars who believe that liberalization in India has not gone far enough, and they have been pushing for a second generation of economic reforms. However, there are also many voices, spanning the political spectrum, that have critiqued the economic and social consequences of liberalization. What makes the BJP unique is that it is able to speak in both voices simultaneously and to resolve the contradictions of doing so via the cultural resources of Indian (read: Hindu) modernity. Of all political formations in contemporary India, the Hindu nationalist claim to authenticity positions it such that it is able to support liberalization and offer a prejudiced and exclusivist vision of Indian national identity in order “to be modern, but in the ‘Indian’ way.”

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6

Modernity, Civil Society, and Religious Resurgence in South Asia

The growing presence of religion in the public spheres of South Asia and elsewhere has raised fresh doubts about familiar accounts of the cultural and cognitive underpinnings of social development, modular conceptions of modernity (Gellner 1995), as well as established views on the nature of the public/private distinction that has for long remained the central plank of Western social and political thought (Weintraub and Kumar 1997). This chapter spotlights some of these misgivings by comparing two contemporary forms of political religion in South Asia, namely, Hindutva in India and Islamic resurgence in Pakistan. More positively, it examines religious resurgence within conceptual spaces opened by extending recent postcolonial scholarship on the subject. Specifically, I undertake: (1) a reinterpretation of the relationship between religion and civil society in South Asia; (2) a rejection of the extant conflation between modernity and modernization, which constricts alternative accounts and misdirects explorations of both the trajectory and antecedents of religious resurgence; and (3) a brief examination of the special problems linked to the globalization of the postcolonial state and its implications for deepening the cultural divide, including the strengthening of religious impulses. The general aim is to link religious resurgence with new processes released within civil society. Although the terms religious resurgence and fundamentalism can be used interchangeably to avoid terminological purity, I prefer to use the former to underscore the political nature of contemporary religious social movements seeking to redesign state and civil society and not merely to promote adherence to theological fundamentals. In the South Asian context, both terms are now easily recognizable, though they also tend to shelter a fairly wide range of religiously inspired social and political practices under a common roof. Against this backdrop, it is useful to draw a distinction between religion and religious resurgence, the latter referring mainly to new postcolonial social movements operating within modern spaces of political thought and practice. The former connotes no discernible political project to 135

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reshape the state or civil society but a fairly heterodox set of quotidian cultural and religious beliefs and practices. Religious resurgence is intrinsically a modern political phenomenon, though embedded in a wider cultural milieu. First, despite its assumed transcendental aspects, in the South Asian context it aims primarily to restructure national space, to redefine nationalism, and to redirect modernization. The reliance of religious resurgence on modern historiography (Chakrabarty 2000) is a case in point, whether in the invention of tradition, the homogenization of culture and religion (Chatterjee 1992), or the rewriting of the national narrative (Deshpande 1995). Second, religious resurgence seeks a strengthening of the modern state and its capacities via megascience, technology, and knowledge. Militaristic in nature, religious resurgence is not a project of peaceful tolerance within and without the nation-state. The uses of the past are clearly instrumental in this context, servicing power. Taking instrumental rationality to its logical limits, a third modern feature of religious resurgence is its dependence on mass communications and the expansion of the public sphere. This point will become more obvious in subsequent sections below. To anticipate the argument, however, let me note that the mass appeal of religious resurgence is inconceivable without the availability of the modern apparatus of long-distance communication, as well as the technology and expertise of representation and political marketing. Religious resurgence no longer operates within the sequestered spaces and places of traditional society but rather in the heartland of modern society: in universities and colleges, think tanks and research institutions, newspapers, radios, televisions, and the Internet. Its political campaign is to secure not only salvation but also electoral votes, popular consent, and a legitimate role in public debate. And its strategies spring from modern means of discourse and publicity. Religious resurgence, in a nutshell, is an inversion of modernization, from previously state-directed social engineering to a project of social transformation that takes civil society as the instrument and site to reshape political society. Acknowledging the historical role played by the state in articulating the relationship between religion and politics in South Asia, the emergence of new social forces within political economy, and the expansion of modern institutional apparatuses, this process is now concentrated mainly within civil society. Religious resurgence is not a rejection of modernity but an inversion of its statist (and previously secular) character. The rise of the middle classes and the consolidation of mass media are two principal elements, among others, linking religious resurgence to civil society. These elements have to be situated within the context of growing cultural divisions and declining state capacity, which give civil society a new prominence. Within the context of neoliberal globalization especially, the

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wedge between globalizing elites and the vast majority harboring more indigenous sensibilities in South Asia instantiates historical social divisions. The apparent state retrenchment in the areas of welfare and development bolsters the shift toward civil society for social recompense. Hence, in South Asia and elsewhere, religious resurgence is a dynamic process, historically and structurally embedded in the shifting relation between state and civil society. A notoriously contested concept (Cohen and Arato 1992; Blaney and Pasha 1993; Pasha and Blaney 1998; Hall 1995), civil society is viewed throughout this chapter in structural, not descriptive terms. Civil society denotes specific spaces and institutions produced within modernity “as a complex structure of relations among state, economy, individual, and associational life existing within modern society” (Blaney and Pasha 1993: 6), a view different from popular accounts in which the concept is unhinged from modernity. The central point is to appreciate both separation and mutuality between state and civil society, on the one hand, and civil society and capitalism on the other. In this view, mutuality and separation cannot emerge without the emergence of both capitalism and the modern state. To this suggestion can be added the historical specificity of a colonial/postcolonial political economy in which civil society is ensconced. In the South Asian context, therefore, civil society is best conceived in heterodox terms, underscoring different complexes of state-society relations and practices. A rejection of the notion of a timeless civil society in South Asia allows the possibility of recognizing its modern character—a sphere of needs, interests, and practices that can materialize only under capitalism and its ancillary institutions. Given also the peripheral nature of capitalism in South Asia, one is likely to discover processes that do not replicate the idealized logic of Western civil society. For instance, the expectation that the rise and consolidation of civil society would privatize religion has been defeated by an alternative historical process. Specifically, rather than offering a framework of tolerance and civility, civil society in South Asia increasingly appears as a site of largely illiberal, exclusivist, and parochial social and political projects. The Western dream of civil society as a realm of emancipation (Mardin 1995) has been negated by festering social tensions, including religious hatred. This alternative image of civil society as a site of tension, inequality, and contradiction stands in sharp contrast to established accounts (Cohen and Arato 1992; Bratton 1989; Woods 1992). As in the West, despite opposing views on this issue (Casanova 1994), religion has been a divisive—not a stabilizing—force for civil society, rarely aiding democratic projects. In the contemporary context especially, religion has given civil society greater divisions, sectarianism, and strife. Understanding the problematic relation

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between civil society and religion can be an important dimension of any analysis of the growing religious resurgence in South Asia. How has civil society come to play a crucial role in supporting religious resurgence? Part of the answer lies in the character of postcolonial social formations in India and Pakistan that are inextricably linked to the peculiar career of modernity. Unlike the modular forms it is presumed to have taken in the West (Anderson 1983; Chatterjee 1991), modernity in the South Asian context has largely presented itself as a project of modernization—state-sponsored social engineering in both colonial and postcolonial times. A distinguishing mark of modernization is its dependence on a framework of “dominance without hegemony” (Guha 1997), subordinating civil society to the state. The design, scope, and character of modernity, therefore, have been conditioned by the state, not by civil society. In both India and Pakistan (albeit to varying degrees), civil society has shown the effective markings of a historic compromise in favor of the state and its projects for constructing the nation. The subordinate status of civil society has been most vividly expressed in its lumpen character, supporting narrow passions and interests—those of caste, ethnicity, or communalism—but it also is evident in its historical incapacity to check the excesses of the state (Nandy 1989). Two modes of civil society—one autonomous and stable, the other subordinate and unstable—become more recognizable in terms of a distinction between modernity and modernization. Given both the historical and structural specificity of colonial and postcolonial social formations, modernization cannot be readily substituted for modernity. Modernization suggests a project of top-down social transformation under the aegis of the state; modernity signals a process involving both state and civil society and, at its boldest, one that gives civil society the more prominent historical role in elaborating social change. In other words, distinctive to colonial and postcolonial social formations are the primacy of the state form and the subordination of the institution of civil society to the state. Neither Parsonian structural-functionalism nor any other variant of Weberian sociology permits a neat distinction between modernization and modernity. In development theory especially, their separate conceptual worlds collapse, given the idea of progress that is common to both. Yet, the historical form assumed by modernity in the colonial/postcolonial context is one of staged development, a process of social engineering, an external project. To that extent, modernization contradicts the basic structure of modernity that hinges upon a notion of internal development, not in a historical but rather in a logical sense. Hence, the basic conceptual divide between the two rests on whether the process is external or internal, with spatial and temporal implications. The proposed distinction between modernization and modernity drawn

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here could be dismissed as arbitrary and artificial. The plethora of writings on modernity and modernization tends to reinforce this objection, but this criticism can be addressed at two levels. First, a recognition of modernization as an external project provides an analytical basis from which to distinguish between social engineering and social development, between mimicry and creative reconstruction. Second, and more concrete, the distinction between modernization and modernity helps map out the nature of social and political change in actually existing postcolonial societies with regard to the subordination of civil society to the state. Given their external character, the pathologies of modernization become more recognizable. With modernity, civil society is likely to appear in its idealized form as an extension and consolidation of capitalism and the modern state while enjoying relative autonomy from both. Legality, property, and privacy become its most durable elements. With modernization, civil society languishes in the shadow of both capitalism and the state, unable to generate self-sustaining and autonomous projects sanctioned by the bourgeois plurality. The first form suggests that the institutional dimensions of modernity are widely dispersed within civil society as well as the state. In the second instance, modernity can only assume the character of a statist project— hence modernization. The relatively subordinate role assigned to civil society in realizing the aims of modernity in relation to the colonial/postcolonial state places into focus both the “derivative” character of modernity (Chatterjee 1986) and the growing divergence of civil society projects (including religious resurgence) from the state. However, with the postcolonial state under immense stress, civil society may be in a position to extend its own projects, reshape the state in its own image, and invert modernization. In this view, the project of redesigning the state and eventually using state capacity to restructure civil society (Pasha 2000) in both the case of Hindutva and of Islamic resurgence becomes explicable. Under globalizing conditions, these dual strategies mistakenly appear as cultural contradictions or tensions between modernity and tradition.

Between Modernity and Modernization Recent developments, including the rise in India of religious nationalism under the rubric of Hindutva, a movement seeking a redefinition of Indian identity, polity, and society (Aloysius 1994; Dalmia and von Stietencron 1995; and Mahmood 1994); the politicization and militarization of Buddhism in Sri Lanka (Tambiah 1992), reframing political and cultural identity; and the growing assertion of Islamists in Pakistan (Pasha 1992; Weaver 2002) and their attendant project of radically reshaping state and civil society—all underscore the inescapable and incontestable salience and

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centrality of religion in South Asian public life. In the wake of these phenomena, the promises of modernization theory are severely tested, as it confronts the historical and political specifics of the postcolonial world. The apparently countervailing process of religious resurgence betrays severe fractures in notions of linear progress and secular trajectories woven into its recognizable logic. Until recently, received wisdom has been quite secure in its assertions. Along with material progress and societal convergence would eventually come secular colonization of the life-world, the erasure of eternal time and utopias embedded in faith, and the evacuation of religion from politics, given modern institutional imperatives, sensibilities, and reason. The demarcation of public and private spheres under modernity’s watchful gaze, with each sphere housing particular actions within an institutionally complex and differentiated society, would simultaneously enfeeble and assign a new place to religion. In the face of a worldwide resurgence of religion, albeit in highly varied and variegated forms linked to locality and internal circumstances, what might be termed an uncompromising belief in secularism, with its propensity to sacralize secularism-qua-liberalism (Keane 2002: 29), appears shaken. Indeed, the ubiquitous talk of resurgence, revival, and fundamentalism underlines the persistence of desecularization (Berger 1999), imposing dramatic limits on the universalist claims of modernization. Perhaps it also weakens the notion that the quest for connectivity and personal meaning can be fully subordinated to the fulfillment of material desires within the ambit of an acquisitive society. Possessive individualism may have been an effective organizing principle of Western society during its transition to modernity, but it can neither satiate the urges of late modernity or postmodernity nor satisfy the embedded cultural needs of societies demanding more holistic conceptions and instrumentalities to structure social and political life. In its naked innocence, this seems to be the general lesson of worldwide religious resurgence. Absent in this context is the inherently modernist character of resurgence itself and its inseparability from the institutional apparatus of modernity, including the market economy, the modern state, civil society and the public sphere, and new means of social contact and communication (Mardin 1994). More significant, popular explanations of global religious resurgence conveniently bypass the perennial historical question concerning the possible religious foundations of modernity (Weber 1958; Tawney 1926; Turner, 1974; Huff and Schluchter 1999; Casanova 1994). Appeals to a binary logic make resurgence appear self-evident, a reenactment of the tradition/modernity conflict now fully globalized and universalized. At face value, the return of religion to the public arena signals a loud repudiation of modernization’s claims on the nature and directionality of

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social change. Paradoxically, though, popular scholarly narratives of religious resurgence and the common sense corresponding to these accounts surreptitiously smuggle modernization claims back into the domain of plausibility, lending respectability to the original story of progress. These narratives resuscitate the stubborn binary distinction between tradition and modernity as an appropriate basis for interpreting the persistence of religion or its return (Lewis 1976). Resurgence represents either a nagging reminder of the immutability of tradition or a powerful signal of an innate cultural reaction or resistance to modernity. Hence, under the stress of modernization, especially its globalized expressions, religion becomes the defensive core of traditional society, the protector of its cultural essence against contamination. Resistant to pliant absorption into modernity, religious attachment and passion slow down (or even reverse) the march of secular modernization. If, in appearance, popular narratives suggest a bold repudiation of the more expansive claims of modernization theory, more politely they inscribe the banishment of religion to the prison house of tradition with little or no possibility of parole or freedom. Resurgence thus assumes the character of atavistic rumblings of tradition, of a past that refuses to melt away into oblivion. Given its palpably rejectionist tone (Marty and Appleby 1991), religious resurgence increasingly takes on the character of a global antimodernist project, a “rejection of the ideology of modernity” (Juergensmeyer 1996: 130). In view of their unambiguous rhetoric of condemnation that singles out material civilization, protagonists of resurgence call for a return to the religious fountainhead of social morality and ethics; remonstrate for a reversal of the effects of the feminist revolution in favor of the patriarchal family and community; appeal for building an idealized City of God in the image of a glorious past; or offer spiritual solace and succor in times of uncertainty, risk, and dread, easily reinforcing the common belief that resurgence is reaction. The pervasive currency of dichotomous symbols and signs of religiously charged speech, publicity, and their representation only help accentuate the tradition/modernity divide. One suggested avenue toward overcoming the binary logic of modernization theory lies in recent conversations on “alternative” (Göle 2000) or “multiple” (Eisenstadt 2000) modernities, a genuflection to nonlinear trajectories of social change and transformation. Implicit in this alternative thinking is a recognition of non-European pathways to modernity, both escaping Eurocentrism and avoiding cultural relativism via appeals to universality in human experience and aspiration. The recognition of alternative or multiple paths to progress defies the normal equation between the West and modernity. However, despite an appreciation of multilinearity, these accounts fail to transcend teleological assumptions built into the idea of

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modernity. In the garb of celebrating plurality, they project the Western story of progress as the normative baseline against which rival cultural and material achievements are measured (Euben 1999). In the South Asian context, several keen observers of religious resurgence have pursued a different path of inquiry. The story obviously reflects more nuance in these alternative accounts, but the dominant presence of the state is unavoidable in this narrative. Religious resurgence is squarely placed at the door of an illegitimate nationalism (Nandy 1994) and the pathology of the postcolonial state (Chatterjee 1994). Repudiating modernization claims, these revisionist scholars identify colonial modernity as the principal source of postcolonial distress, especially in their depiction of the unholy marriage between religion and nationalism and the new identities this marriage has spawned (van der Veer and Lehmann 1999). In this view, religion has grown increasingly monotonic, parochial, and exclusivist as the nation-state has developed into the sole, hegemonic container of collective identity. The isomorphic association between the state and religion has politicized the dominant faith, whether in the case of Islamism in Pakistan, Buddhism in Sri Lanka, or Hinduism in India. Homogenized and simplified, the new politicized face of religion appears as the postcolonial instantiation of modernity (Nandy 1988; Chatterjee 1994; Pandey 1990). In the case of India, especially, communalism and secularism are intertwined, the latter legitimizing the former. In this context, secularism is a confining framework intended to absorb the multifocal, porous character of a diverse society and culture (Nandy 1988). The postcolonial state is clearly drawn as the main villain corrupting an otherwise tolerant society (Pandey 1990), promoting constrictive notions of secularism (Nandy 1988), and attempting to homogenize plurality. Lurking in the background is an idealized picture of a precolonial past of religious tolerance and intercommunal harmony, of inclusive spaces of social contact and cultural coexistence. Thus, one can portray the recovery of precolonial cultural roots as the unfinished business of decolonization (see Nandy 1983; Chatterjee 1994). Rather than recycling binary classifications of social forms (classifications that acquire discursive rigidity and an elaborate ideological support system under conditions of modernity), these alternative narratives characterize religious resurgence itself as distinctly modern. Resting on the predicates of modernity, including scientific/instrumental rationality, the secular idea of progress, and the institution of the modern state, religion becomes inseparable from nationalism; resurgence is best seen, as in one formulation, as “the nationalization of religion” (Chatterjee 1992). The imagined community of the nation replaces religious communities. And in the postcolonial context, the imagined community of the nation is built around the notion of homogenization infused by religion. Less prominent in these accounts is the institutional unfurling of post-

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colonial modernity, particularly as it is manifest in the character of civil societies in South Asia and the contradictions embedded in their consolidation. To be certain, the division of labor between state and civil society may help provide a fuller picture of the rise of religious resurgence in South Asia. Yet, while these alternative accounts go a long way toward displacing the hegemony of modernization theory by rejecting the tradition/modernity dichotomy and by recognizing the basically modernist character of religious resurgence in South Asia (especially in India), they appear to gloss over important distinctions between modernity and modernization, distinctions that may help situate the source and character of religious resurgence in South Asia and elsewhere in the postcolonial world. In the postcolonial context, the state at first assumed a preponderant role as author and architect of nationalist space and imagination, molding society into its own image. Modernity is thereby denied its multifocal character in favor of the state’s homogenizing administration. This is not to suggest the absence of civil society but rather is a recognition of its lumpen character. Under a new set of conditions, however, the balance of forces may be shifting, with civil society striking back (Varshney 2001; Joseph 2002).

Two Tales of Religious Resurgence: Hindutva and Islamism Three sets of arguments have been presented in recent critical scholarship to account for the rise of Hindutva in India: the crisis of the Nehruvian developmental state, the rise of new middle classes within the framework of economic liberalization, and the philosophical makeup of modern secularism. The crisis of the Nehruvian state refers to the breakdown of the hegemony of the Congress Party in addition to its economic failures, given statist controls over the accumulation process, bureaucratic excess, and protectionism. A response to low levels of accumulation, the crisis of the state opened the way for rival ideological projects, including neoliberalism. Infused with a different ethos of self-identity, the emergence of new middle classes in urban and rural sectors of the political economy further diminished the appeal of Nehruvian secularism. In the rediscovery of the Muslim problem, India’s largest minority acquired a new public stance. Muslims were now perceived not simply as economic competitors pandered to by a secular state but as outsiders to the dominant nationalist narrative. In this sense, Indian Muslims have provided an essential foil to the establishment of the boundaries of Hindutva, or “Hinduness.” The third set of arguments gives context to the growing crisis of Indian secularism. Once removed from its rich cultural milieu and hitched to modern nationalism and the state, secularism was bound to fail (Nandy 1998). Without the benefit of internal negotiation and resolution, modern secularism was no match for

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the erstwhile notion of religious tolerance, a guiding principle of Indian society and culture through the ages. The restrictive, mostly legalistic construction of secularism stood in sharp contrast to historically produced practices of cultural and religious coexistence. Once these were challenged, the state became susceptible to patrimonial and parochial sentiments in civil society. These arguments cover a broad spectrum of analyses describing the rise of religious nationalism in India, but they appear to suffer from a presentist bias. Yet, religious politics in South Asia is not a new phenomenon; rather, it is closely linked to the evolution of nationalism from its first appearance on the subcontinent (van der Veer and Lehman 1999: 202). Despite the apparently secularist tenor of the independence movement against colonial rule, itself an ideological trope in the project of postcolonial Nehruvian nation-building, religion remained a primary cultural resource and idiom for rewriting the national history: delineating sacred geography, recovering an essentialized spiritual past, appealing to a pure tradition embedded in the uncolonized spaces of home and hearth, and drawing from historical comparisons to articulate aspirations toward material development. The alienation of large sections of the Indian Muslim populace throughout much of the colonial period only confirms the real or perceived linkage between dominant religious ideas and the anticolonial struggle. The rise of a Muslim self-conception in colonial India cannot be divorced from the basically Hindu tenor of the anticolonial struggle. Needless to say, the idea of a separate Muslim homeland was mainly a product of the pervading nationalist imaginary, captivating colonial populations everywhere and not simply a reaction to dominance by the Hindu majority. For the most part, the Indian Muslim religious establishment was antagonistic toward the idea of Pakistan, preferring to see the Indian Muslim community as a part of a larger religious, not political, community (umma). The Pakistan movement was spearheaded by secular nationalists who were committed to the appeals of modern nationalism and statecraft, not to ideals of building a theocratic state (Jalal 1985). The image of premodern tolerance found in certain critiques of modern secularism tends to exaggerate the scope and intensity of precolonial social contact between and among religious communities. It also sidesteps the question of asymmetrical power, both economic and political, between members of different faiths. In the first instance, public arenas remained segregated, each allowing participation only to its own kind. In the second instance, social intercourse was segmented, limited, and functional, rarely extending beyond customary boundaries. Hence, there are not only discontinuities in the career of religious chauvinism but also continuities. The latter have been reworked and interpreted within the modern imaginary of religious nationalism.

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In both India and Pakistan, the beginning of the postcolonial period was marked by a zealous commitment to the modernization of state and society. Constrained by the idioms of secular nationalism and pluralism, the place of religion in India was strictly circumscribed in official discourse, if not in practice. In Pakistan, neither secular nationalism nor Islam was afforded hegemonic status (Jalal 1990). The official commitment to an Islamic ideology was contradicted by a secular modernization drive aimed at social transformation. Omitted from official representation in both India and Pakistan, though, were cultural divisions in civil society, of caste, language, and ethnicity. Extending the principal arguments in recent critical accounts of this period, there have been two major changes in the balance of forces between the state and civil society in both India and Pakistan: the rise of new classes, and the expansion of mass media. In the case of India, the social and political enfranchisement of new classes has meant not only a diminution in the power and authority of Westernizing elites linked to the secular nationalist state but also the emergence of a new imagined national project. Rapid social change, urbanization, and dislocation have equally conspired to produce new aspirations, as well as new anxieties (Nandy 2001). As Mary Ann Tétreault suggests (see Chapter 1, this volume), “The inability of secular institutions to protect societies and individuals from demands for adjustment arising from the widening and deepening of capitalism” must be recognized as an important determinant of religious resurgence. The weaknesses of Nehruvian secularism offer a part of the story; the remaining part is provided by an assertive civil society. Furthermore, under globalizing conditions, Hindutva has managed to transcend the spatial boundaries of the nation-state (Mukta 2000), drawing material and symbolic support from diverse sources. The relation between civil society and religious politics has been placed on a new footing, with the expansion of the market (Rajagopal 1999) and the mass media, especially television (Rajagopal 2001), transforming the public sphere and the mode of social connectivity. Several implications of these developments are noteworthy. First, the expansion of the market has given new meaning to national space. A distinctly native idiom of instantiation, collapsing culture and religion, can be detected in products. Notions regarding the sexual division of labor in society, the ideal family, and community can easily circulate and reflexively rearrange normative expectations. The realm of consumption is also the realm of identity formation. With the market has come the idea of a new person, possessive individualism, and a common cultural space. If the sphere of exchange has produced new equalizing effects in the Indian context, it has also strengthened social and class hierarchies. The lifestyle of the new middle classes, for example, depends heavily on an abundant supply of cheap labor located

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in close proximity to circuits of consumption. Rationalizing consumption within a palpably unequal social order, therefore, is not an insignificant societal need secured by horizontal religious identification. Yet, there is an additional dimension to this process: the individuation of desires within the emergent nuclear family, especially in urban centers, and the deprivatization of religion. The latter appears to be linked to the gendered and class character of Indian civil society. Alongside the market, the mass media have provided the basis for widespread horizontal communities. Whether one speaks of religious TV serials or national reporting of communal riots, the mass media help crystallize an imagined political community of the nation, eliding or erasing internal differentiations of class, caste, language, and ethnicity while simultaneously heightening religious differences. The creation of a national space, once little more than a modernist dream, becomes possible only under new social and technological conditions. Here one cannot discount the commercial nature of the media, including state-run television. The nexus between commercial gain and religion has been most pronounced in Bollywood (the Indian counterpart to Hollywood) movies, which have increasingly appealed to national and religious chauvinism. The implications of a symbiosis between profit and religious nationalism for Indian society cannot be overstated. As civil society has expanded, it has simultaneously widened its exchange and societal functions: the realization of private interests with growing interdependence among constituents. Finally, the expansion of the mass media and the arrival of a media sensibility have transformed the role of political parties. In their role as a bridge between civil society and the state, political parties have increasingly relied on marketing instead of traditional modes of mobilization. Political marketing is usually linked to a propensity to homogenize the message, which, perhaps paradoxically, encourages the incorporation of parochial interests and passions. In this instance, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the pervasive appeal of Hindutva cannot be divorced from the expansion of the mass media. These implications also extend to Pakistan, but the rise of Islamic resurgence requires closer attention not only to the local context but also to the regional context. Lying at the crossroad of a transnational religious phenomenon, it is difficult to seal off analysis of Islamic resurgence in Pakistan from elected and involuntary regional political processes. In strictly bounded terms, the expanding appeal of Islamic resurgence, especially among the lumpen sectors of the population, grows out of the failures of development as ideology and practice. Though the idea of a theocratic state never found resonance in the country except among a very small segment of the urban intelligentsia, religion has cast a permanent shadow on the political psyche of the state. As with India, the first signs of religion’s deep

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inroads into politics coincided with the collapse of developmentalism in the late 1960s. This was quickly followed by a bloody civil war and the secession of Pakistan’s noncontiguous eastern half, now Bangladesh. The creation of Bangladesh marks a major historic shift in Pakistan’s economic and political orientation. The migration of more than 2 million workers to the Middle East, mainly to the Gulf States, initiated profound social changes, including the virtual collapse of a vibrant labor movement, the rise of a new middle class, growing state authoritarianism, and the state’s abandonment of secular modernization in favor of Islamization (Addleton 1992). Although support for Islamization was largely confined to some sectors of the urban middle class, the most significant impact of this statesponsored ideology was how it shifted the terms of political discourse. The regional dimension of fundamentalism has worked at three levels. First is in the religious exchange of ideas and beliefs, especially between Pakistan and the Gulf States, notably Saudi Arabia. Second is in the fallout from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, beginning with the massive influx of refugees and the germination of religiously inspired resistance, cosponsored by United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia and continuing through the rise and demise of the Taliban. Third is in the independence movement in Kashmir, which is sustained by material and ideological support from Pakistan. The Saudi-supported growth of Wahhabism, an ultraconservative brand of Sunni Islam, and foreign remittances from nationals working abroad both helped to change the political landscape in Pakistan. With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the influx of more than 3 million Afghan refugees into Pakistan, the proliferation of madrassas (religious schools) in camps and urban centers aided new religious sensibilities. The development of a new generation of Islamists, autonomous from both the religious establishment and the state, may have been the most significant side-effect of regional developments. Though the scale of this change has been overdrawn in media representations, the infusion of new urban centers with religious zealotry coincided with a phenomenal rise in violent conflict between communities representing different Muslim sects. Puritanical versions of Islam now cohabit with political extremism. Against the backdrop of a faltering yet still commercializing economy (thanks in part to foreign remittances), questions of declining social morality and the alleged sexual license of an urbanizing social formation find Islamists providing easy solutions. Finally, the insurgency in Kashmir, a cause dear to many in Pakistan, has found robust agents among the new Islamists. The linkage drawn between the holy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir has given Islamists a regional cause. With the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the expanding U.S.-led war on terrorism, Pakistan may become even more susceptible than before to the appeals of Islamic resurgence, in light of the binary logic common to

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Islamists as well as to the prosecutors of that war. The dramatic success of religious parties in the 2002 national and provincial elections underscores this trend, although it is conceivable that exposure to the institutional realities of modern statecraft could scale back their ambition of radically transforming the nation and the state. Unlike in India, where religious nationalism rests mainly on tropes of Muslim otherness, in Pakistan Islamic resurgence is both internally divided and externally directed. The fragmented resurgence in Pakistan has assumed a sectarian character. Conflict between Sunni (the dominant sect) and Shiite segments of the population, for instance, competes with violent tensions between various branches of the Sunnis, notably Deobandis and Barelwis, over questions of interpretation, legitimacy, and purity. Who is a true Muslim? This question evokes many answers, including violent ones. Analysis of Islamic resurgence in Pakistan suggests a key shift in its trajectory since the early 1990s. Formerly clients of the state, Islamists have found enthusiastic supporters in civil society, where—notwithstanding the cynical uses of religion by state managers—the primary locus of resurgence lies today. Within the political economy, the corrosive effects of capitalism, on the one hand, and the expansion of the media, especially the vernacular press, on the other have been critical in intensifying the cultural divide between the privileged sectors of state and society and the economically disenfranchised. In this regard, the linguistic divide between Westernizing elites and the vernacular masses has widened. A fault line deepened by colonial educational policy (Naregal 2001), linguistic hierarchy has been a key determinant of South Asian societies in the postcolonial period. Typically, those with access to Western education, notably through the medium of English, have enjoyed privilege and power. Vernacular modes of communication, by contrast, have been historically linked to subordinate forms of social existence. Recently, though, the latter may be in a position to challenge the former’s hold over cultural capital (Bourdieu 1977). The cultural spaces of Islamists are primarily vernacular and populist. Another way of painting this picture is to distinguish between intellectuals operating in Western cultural space and those who elect to operate within the vernacular of Islamic space. Both types are modern, underlining the inadequacy of binary opposites like modernity/tradition to represent a complex picture. The crisis of the secular state enhances the role and importance of so-called vernacular intellectuals who play a pivotal role in the circulation of Islamic resurgence. To recapitulate, an overburdened state now unable to provide either welfare or development to large sectors of the population vacates important spaces now available to civil society. Islamists appear to be filling those

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spaces, dispensing welfare goods and services as well as salvation. As civil society gains in strength vis-à-vis the state, its social projects also expand. The question remains whether these projects can radically interfere with the functioning of the state.

Conclusion Both Hindu nationalism and Islamic resurgence mark the assertive character of civil society in South Asia. As noted, religious resurgence is tilting the balance of power in favor of civil society. As a result, the state is increasingly susceptible to pressures from civil society at a time when it is least capable of fending them off. The political implications of this trend are quite stark. To the degree civil society remains deeply fractured, it cannot effectively serve as a site for either development or democracy. Although both Hindutva and Islamic resurgence provide total alternatives in political terms, religious resurgence fits nicely into the neoliberal worldview. The presumed weakness or failure of the state legitimates resurgence and its call for inverting modernization. Hindu nationalists find few noticeable difficulties cuddling up to neoliberalism, although the lure of state power admittedly may have been an important enticement, given India’s changing relation to the global political economy. The attitude of Islamists toward neoliberalism in Pakistan remains untested, but the actual practice of reliance on a market-based civil society in the areas of self-help, welfare, education, and banking suggests few political contradictions between Islamism and neoliberalism there. For the most part, contestation lies in the cultural domain: in ideals and practices of the family, the regulation of sexual relations, and Westernization. Here, too, a changed attitude is conspicuous. The ideal family now is not the communalized institution of extended blood ties but is increasingly a nuclear arrangement liberated from larger societal curbs (see Chapter 1, this volume). This shift in the idealized nature of the family is more patriarchal than its historical predecessor in Muslim society. It is inherently bourgeois in a lumpen sense—privatized and vulnerable to masculine whim. Veiling and segregation become more explicable within (lumpen) bourgeois notions of family and private property than as cultural pathologies of a traditional society. The relation between religious resurgence and Westernization is more complicated. The former has no trouble embracing the technical and instrumental aspects of Western modernity. Their rejection of the West is confined mainly to its cultural expressions, a phenomenon not uncommon to relations of exchange under conditions of differential power. Furthermore, and especially in view of cultural hierarchies drawn by language and privi-

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lege, cultural resistance against the West often disguises protests against local injustices and the capriciousness of the national elites presiding over faltering states. In the Indian context, religious nationalists may have already succeeded in launching a passive revolution (Gramsci 1971), partially redesigning the nation and the state. One consequence of this process is a redefinition of Indian citizenship to include cultural and religious elements that threaten the status of minorities, especially Muslims, as recent pogroms following the riots in western India show. A corollary is the creation of a state of siege for Muslims, as well as the political and cultural projects that are likely to emanate from within that context. The long-term impact of a successful passive revolution could radically transform the Indian polity and, perhaps, the regional cultural and political climate. Yet, it is also important to recognize countervailing tendencies, including organized social, cultural, and political resistance to Hindutva. Whether that resistance can be effectively sustained remains a question. In the context of globalization, the state now faces key challenges (Pasha 1996). First, retrenchment in the areas of development and welfare is beginning to shift the locus of societal aspirations to civil society. The state continues to enjoy a monopoly of the means of coercion and symbolic power, inspiring hope and dreams of a better life, safety and security, and protection from an impersonal economy, but its capacity to meet rising expectations is diminishing. The virtual abandonment of development in favor of management and administration has narrowed the social base of the state. The increased scale and intensity of violence in South Asia is yet another important challenge. Rapid urbanization and social dislocation against the background of a faltering state contribute toward the incidence of violence and undermine the state’s hegemonic status. In all, the chief impact of globalization lies not in the state’s weakened capacity but in its legitimacy to monopolize the promises of development and the means of violence. The embrace of neoliberalism only rationalizes the new role of the state in South Asia. At the same time, deteriorating conditions for communal protection increase the attractiveness of self-help measures to ensure security and peace. To imagine a vibrant civil society without a stable state is to entertain a romantic view of the possibilities of civil society. Recent experience of growing religious intolerance and violence in India and sectarian conflict and bloody strife in Pakistan deflate expectations that civil society alone can realize the promise of social harmony. The decline of the state as an economic player or as a provider of security allows parochial and exclusivist interests to condition the social formation. To the extent that nationalism in both India and Pakistan rests on religious exclusivism, including explicit strategies for demonizing minorities and rival sects, civil society

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does not hold much promise. In this context, the role of the state remains pivotal in providing social protection and security to besieged, mostly minority communities. Yet only a democratizing state, restrained by legality and accountability, can offer such guarantees. To recognize the importance of the state is not to exonerate or to rationalize its excesses but rather to appreciate the problematic nexus between a politicized religion, a weak state, and an assertive civil society. Under the neoliberal regime of globalization in which the prospects of a tolerant civil society are likely to be quite feeble, such a recognition acquires greater urgency and salience.

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7

Globalization, Modernization, and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria

The Front Islamique du Salut (FIS, Islamic Salvation Front) emerged on Algeria’s political scene shortly after the country’s October 1988 riots, in which scores, if not hundreds, of youths were killed by the army. President Chadli Benjedid revised the constitution and legalized the party in 1989, allowing it to emerge as the main opposition to the ruling Front de Libération Nationale (FLN, National Liberation Front). In the June 1990 local elections, the FIS won 55 percent of the seats in communes and, in December 1991, won 188 of 231 seats in the first round of parliamentary elections. Following the January 1992 coup d’état, the FIS was banned by the military regime. Since then it has struggled to reestablish a dominant position within Algeria’s political opposition. An Islamist movement like the FIS can be interpreted as a product of global changes that have profoundly reshaped the country’s socioeconomic environment. This chapter examines the responses of the FIS to problems of economic deterioration, social disintegration, and interrupted democratization. What is striking is the discontinuity and plasticity in FIS responses to domestic ramifications of international processes. The variability of FIS policies suggests that pressures from the global political economy can produce a number of possible responses, contingent on the local constraints and opportunities facing political actors in a given country. The FIS is composed primarily of political entrepreneurs who seek to gain political power. These entrepreneurs are embedded in a social, political, and economic environment that shapes their responses to global imperatives and sets the parameters for what is politically rational and possible. Like the leaders of other fundamentalist movements in Muslim countries, these entrepreneurs have adopted a mobilizing discourse that makes frequent references to religious texts and religious imagery. Although Islamic history and principles provide a basis upon which many FIS elites articulate their goals, Islamist ideology is neither predetermined nor unchanging. Religiously inspired social movements do not operate in a vacuum. Subject to contradictory pressures from the government, rivals, and followers, FIS 153

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leaders have necessarily adapted their discourse and actions to the contingencies of the political moment. As Hugh Roberts (1994b) has stressed, political opportunism is a fundamental characteristic of the FIS, evident in the fact that its leaders repeatedly compromise their formal doctrine for the sake of political expediency. This chapter interprets the FIS as a political movement that has evolved in response to structural constraints at the global level and opportunities within its local environment. It is an articulation of pushes and pulls from both the international and domestic contexts. It is precisely the interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors that gives the FIS its specific political characteristics.

Conceptualizing the FIS in Its Global-Local Context In order to interpret the Islamic Salvation Front, one must first conceptualize the international and domestic context in which it is inscribed. The FIS did not emerge ex nihilo. Its discourse and actions are a reflection of constantly changing social, economic, and political conditions in Algeria. It is shaped by these conditions while it simultaneously seeks to modify them. Broadly speaking, there are three imperatives of modernization that provide a backdrop against which parties in Algeria operate: economic reform, social transformation, and democratization. These imperatives are a set of goals and modalities of change that the FIS has at times accepted and at other times challenged. Yet the context that the FIS responds to is not simply a product of external pressures. Rather, it is a domestic context as shaped by the international political economy. In other words, local institutions and policies interact with global norms and processes to produce a complex environment of constraints and opportunities.

The Imperatives of Modernization in Algeria Since the early 1980s, economic reform has been a key challenge facing Algeria. The hegemonic impulse of neoliberalism, consolidation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), pressure from the European Union (EU) for Mediterranean regional integration, and variable oil and gas prices are some of the many external constraints that compelled structural adjustment. Algeria’s attempt to deal with these pressures, as well as with mounting debt and contradictions in state-interventionist policies, has wreaked havoc on the economy. From 1990 to 1999, the average annual growth rate of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was –0.5 percent. Despite recent, modest economic growth due to higher international oil prices, production in the public industrial sector has dropped almost every year since 1985.

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Little privatization has occurred, and the inefficient public banks still control 95 percent of the country’s banking system assets. While debt rescheduling in 1994 and 1995 eased constraints on the government budget, hydrocarbons still account for 97 percent of all exports. What reform that has occurred has failed to transform the domestic economy structurally or improve Algeria’s position in the international economy. There is significant external pressure for social transformation based upon norms of secularism, equal opportunity, and gender equality. Although these norms have offered new ideational references to Algerians, they have also conflicted with social development policies. Class relations have deteriorated since the mid-1980s with the growth of income inequality, the collapse of the middle class, and severe unemployment. Far from gaining greater rights and freedoms, women have been relegated to secondclass status by the conservative Family Code of 1984 and have faced harassment, kidnapping, and rape due to relentless civil violence since 1992. Instead of identity convergence, Algeria has witnessed increasing conflict over language. Berbers have mobilized on a mass scale since April 2001 to demand recognition of Tamazight as a national language. Battles over the Arabization of education and the role of French in public affairs show no signs of abating. Social crisis, not social progress, is the local context that all political actors face in Algeria. In addition to socioeconomic pressures, waves of democratization in Latin America and the former Soviet bloc created a tremendous impetus for expansion of political participation and pluralism in a country that had experienced one-party rule since independence in 1962. The rapid democratization from 1988 to 1991 was halted by a coup, plunging the country back into violence and authoritarianism. Despite unfair elections, demands for accountability, political inclusion, and liberty remain strong from the many active political parties and groups in civil society.

Conceptualizing the FIS as a Political Movement The triple imperatives of modernization, interacting with changing forces in the global political economy, have created an environment of constraints and opportunities to which Islamists must respond. How one understands the FIS has been the subject of contentious and conflicting theoretical claims. This chapter offers four major conceptual arguments about the FIS, based on detailed analysis. First, the FIS is a nebulous, fractionalized party with views and policies that have evolved in response to political developments in Algeria. As Robert Mortimer (1996: 23) notes, “Many observers have likened the Islamist movement to a nebula because of its diffuse and indistinct nature,

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the vagueness of its programs, and the diversity of its attitudes.” Some analysts prefer to define the FIS in essentialist terms; that is, they impute to the FIS a set of religious, ideological, and political views that are relatively unchanging. They assume that the FIS, as an Islamist movement, has a particular set of motivating principles that guides its actions and policy pronouncements. Dispensing with nuance, analysts all too often selectively cite pronouncements of FIS officials as definitive proof of their essential beliefs. To the extent that one can define the party’s worldview, one presumably can straightforwardly predict its behavior and interpret its responses to global change. However, defining the FIS in essentialist or quintessential terms ignores its multiple motivating principles and conflicting stances on key domestic issues. Not only is it difficult to specify the holistic outlook of the party; it is also difficult to establish the continuity of such an outlook. To underestimate the divergence among FIS members and discontinuity in the positions of its elites is to risk misinterpreting the significance of the party. What has characterized the party is factionalism among its elites and divisions in its social base. In effect, the FIS is a continuation of historic tendencies in Algerian politics rather than a completely new, essentialist, and fundamentalist movement. Algeria’s political and military elites since the war of liberation (1954–1962) have been divided by clan, region, and ideology (see Quandt 1969). Politics in the country has often been described as a lutte des clans (battle of clans). One of the many factional divides in the FIS is between djaza’aristes, who espouse nationalist Islam, and salafistes, who advocate international Muslim solidarity. The party’s theocrats and technocrats also are divided by social origins and conflicting opinions on modernization and puritanical revolution (Labat 1995). In addition, there is a great deal of ambiguity in how FIS members conceptualize ideas like consensus and democracy. These differences alone have profound implications for how the factions respond to domestic ramifications of globalization. Second, one cannot necessarily assert that Islam is the primary prism through which one must interpret the actions and policies of the party. It is less Islam that caused the FIS to emerge than “specific social dislocations, class frustrations and class strategies, cultural anxieties, ideological pulls, and global power relations” (Malley 1996: 233). As Fawaz Gerges (1999: 114–115) argues, “It is misleading to take Islamist rhetoric literally and interpret it in purely religious and ideological terms. Islamists are political realists who are as interested in exercising power as they are inspired by spiritual orthodoxy.” Like the leaders of many other contemporary Islamist parties, FIS leaders have produced remarkably few religious treatises, and few have a pedigree in religious scholarship. In fact, many leading mem-

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bers of the movement’s original majlis al-shura (consultative council) have secular training (see Entelis 2001). Abassi Madani, a nationalist jailed by the French from 1954 to 1962, earned a Ph.D. and taught educational psychology.1 The late Abdelkader Hachani was trained as a petrochemical engineer.2 Rabah Kébir was trained as a lawyer.3 Anwar Haddam has an M.A. in nuclear physics.4 Ali Djeddi has a Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT.5 Ali Belhadj had a religious education, becoming a schoolteacher and imam.6 Most of these men can be seen as religious autodidacts who recognize Islam’s “efficacy as a language of radical insurgency” (Malley 1996: 234–235). Third, in asserting that the FIS is best viewed as a political, not a religious, movement, an important task is to determine what kind of political movement it is. The FIS is often labeled as fundamentalist or intégriste because it appeals to Quranic principles, encourages the mixing of religion and governance, and instrumentalizes religion for political gain. In its early years, the party relied upon a network of mosques to mobilize militants. Despite the apparent importance of faith or religiosity for many FIS leaders and members, the concept of fundamentalist does not adequately describe the political characteristics of the FIS or differentiate it from other parties that appeal to religion. The FIS is merely one among multiple representations of politicized Islam in Algeria. To the extent that FIS members do rely on religious references, they often vary from one another in what their references are and the significance accorded to them (Labat 1994). One can attribute much of the FIS’s moralism, exclusionary identity politics, and Manichean worldview to its adoption of the third worldist perspective of the FLN (the former ruling party) rather than to the FIS’s references to religious doctrine (Malley 1996). In other words, like the FLN, the FIS is largely a populist party appealing to traditional conceptions of Algerian nationalism, like Arab and Muslim identity, anticolonialism, and the struggle against oppression. By grafting religious discourse onto these traditional conceptions, the FIS appealed to disaffected individuals and relegitimized for younger Algerians popular values associated with the struggle for independence. The Islamist message, rooted in nationalism and the continual quest for identity, pandered to a large audience by using an ideology of protest mixed with religious conservatism. In this sense, the FIS can be seen as an amalgamation of Islamism, populism, nationalism, and traditionalism. Unlike terrorist movements such as Al-Qaida and Algeria’s Groupes Islamiques Armés (GIA, Armed Islamic Groups),7 the FIS is more akin to what Olivier Roy (2001) calls an “Islamo-nationalist” party. This type of party is a mainstream Islamist party concerned primarily with legal integration into political life and the promotion of conservative social behavior. Like its counterparts in Egypt, Lebanon, and Turkey, the

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FIS has become more pragmatic and conservative in the face of government pressure. According to Roy (2001), as these Islamist movements have been subdued and nationalized, they have shifted to an emphasis on nonviolence, political opening, electoral alliances, and, in the case of the FIS, pluralism. In this understanding, the nationalist Islam and populism of the FIS is now a far cry from the chauvinistic religious fundamentalism of the 1970s and 1980s and the violent neofundamentalism of today’s Osama bin Ladens. Finally, in light of the major arguments made above, it is important to interpret the Islamic Salvation Front as a party that responds to global pressures, though it is a party that is not necessarily antiglobal. All too frequently, the FIS is portrayed in Manichean terms as the opposite of the globalizing impulse: barbaric, antidemocratic, intolerant, violent, and antisystemic (see Mimouni 1995). It is the jihadist reaction to McWorld, inspired by the Iranian revolution, the collapse of the Soviet bloc, and the spread of Muslim Brotherhood ideology. It is also seen as a product of the collapse of the Afghan state, funding from conservatives in the Gulf States, and popular reaction to the 1991 Gulf War. From this viewpoint, the FIS is the internalization of global trends and transnational Islamist developments. However, the FIS has questioned and challenged some processes of globalization while it has simultaneously accepted and promoted many international norms. For example, while condemning the mismanagement of hydrocarbon-based development, the FIS has promoted a set of domestic economic reforms consistent with the neoliberal agenda of Western governments and international financial institutions. While attacking cultural Westernization and the individual rights of women, the FIS has also emphasized values such as entrepreneurship, social justice, and a rule of law that are widely deemed important by the international community. And while despising the secular norm of strict separation of religion and state, the FIS has often stressed the importance of fair elections, civilian rule, and protection of human rights. Thus, the party is primarily concerned with reshaping the domestic scene, not confronting the international system. Its acceptance of openness to the global economy and international sociopolitical values is selective, shaped by the conflicting pressures of its conservative social policies, a desire for popular legitimacy, and disgust at what it perceives to be the hypocrisy of the West. Based upon the above conceptualization of the FIS, I next will examine how the party has responded to socioeconomic and political crises in the context of external pressures. On balance, the FIS’s contingent and constrained reaction to the tragic consequences of Algeria’s experience with the global political economy has been rooted in Islamonationalism and political opportunism.

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Responding to Economic Deterioration and the Challenge of Restructuring From 1985 to 2001, economic globalization played havoc with Algeria. In the 1970s, the country seemed to have a promising future ahead of it, following President Houari Boumediene’s development strategy based on industrializing industries and capital-intensive investments in hydrocarbons. In the early 1980s, President Chadli Benjedid broke up large state enterprises and reduced capital spending as a means of accelerating growth and raising household incomes. Yet his approach, like that of his predecessor, ultimately relied upon rents from the export of oil and gas. Beginning in 1985, the rentier state and the patronage networks it had developed entered a prolonged crisis as world hydrocarbon prices plummeted. Not until 1999 would these prices recover and breathe new life into a top-down development model. Deprived of expected revenues, the country was forced into costly borrowing, debt rescheduling, and structural adjustment under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although by 1996 economic stabilization policies had significantly reduced inflation and lowered the budget deficit and debt-service ratio, the cost was deindustrialization, high unemployment, and large-scale impoverishment. Although it is clear that the FIS emerged at a time when Algeria’s economic strategy had entered a crisis mode, it would be incorrect to suggest that the party promoted an antiglobalization agenda or that it could easily benefit from economic difficulties. In fact, it supported many neoliberal economic reforms. Moreover, the chaotic transition to a market-oriented economy left the FIS a relative loser vis-à-vis the regime. The way in which the FIS responded to the economic crisis has much to do with the structural characteristics of Algeria’s economy. The contradictory effects of economic adjustment on the fortunes of the party can be attributed to the strategic choices of government policymakers and international actors. Economic change provided an opportunity to the party to mobilize losers, but the process also foiled the party’s efforts to bring down the regime or, at a minimum, foiled its efforts to gain reintegration into political life after 1992.

Algeria’s Insertion into the Global Economy The way in which Algeria is integrated into the international economy created many of the economic problems on the basis of which the FIS was able to mobilize supporters. Exports of oil and gas constitute the quasitotality of exports and contribute to well more than half of government rev-

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enues. Algeria is similar to other petro-states in that its reliance on the export of a single commodity limits state capacity and hinders institutional development (Karl 1997). Petro-states face unstable prices, extreme capital intensity, and low employment. Their insertion into the global economy shapes development trajectories that are very difficult to change. Oil exporting, or petrolization, creates a set of distinct organized interests within the state, business, labor, and the middle class that are rent-seeking. As Terry Lynn Karl (1997: 57–58) observes, The exploitation of oil eventually can encourage a type of oil-based social contract among organized interests, but it does so at high cost. . . . Regime stability is based on a predatory relationship with the state and the perpetuation of oil dependence, which pressures from civil society are unlikely to change as long as oil revenues are continuous and relatively incremental. Restructuring of the development mode, if and when it occurs, must be linked to a disruption in those revenues or to some special capacity of the state.

Oil booms characterized by a high average rate of growth of government expenditures create a set of problems known as Dutch disease: waste, inequities, debt, budget deficits, low investment absorption, and a tendency toward import substitution industrialization (Karl 1997). Absent a strong base of domestic taxation, civil society finds its autonomy weakened, and rent-seeking becomes the economic norm. The transition to a competitive economy by sowing the seed of petroleum (i.e., adapting to globalization) is less likely than economic deterioration and political decay. In Algeria, the boom effect produced a policy stalemate and an inability to manage the public sector coherently, while the petroleum bust after 1985 led to rioting, further bureaucratic incoherence, and severe struggles over patronage. Algeria’s structural economic problems are not solely due to petrolization but also to a disconnection between its bunker regime and the private sector. As Clement Henry and Robert Springborg (2001) argue, colonialism established a set of state-society relations and financial characteristics that have been reinforced by postindependence elites. Algeria lacks a strong private sector and autonomous civil society that can temper the aspirations of power holders or support reformers seeking to adapt to the dialectics of globalization. As is the case in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, “Having castrated their private sectors and civil societies, the bunkers lack the cover of nongovernmental intermediaries serving to cushion processes of economic integration and develop mutual interests” (Henry and Springborg 2001: 133). The effect is massive capital flight, with military-backed regimes like Algeria’s turning into gunships for the IMF, intent on crushing emergent social movements rather than adapting successfully to the imperatives of

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the Washington Consensus on economic reform (Henry and Springborg 2001: 132). Algeria has suffered from these structural characteristics, which has made the process of economic readjustment problematic. Successive prime ministers since 1988 have been unable to reverse long-term economic decline. Mouloud Hamrouche (1989–1991) and Sid Ahmed Ghozali (1991–1992) instituted a series of market reforms that met resistance from the FLN, state enterprises, and the main trade union. Belaid Abdesselam’s war economy interlude from 1992 to 1993 reversed many of these reforms at a time when the debt-service ratio reached well over 70 percent. The subsequent governments of Redha Malek (1993–1994), Mokdad Sifi (1994–1995), Ahmed Ouyahia (1995–1998), and Smail Hamdani (1998–2000) adopted a series of orthodox structural adjustment policies that pulverized the poor and middle classes, lending credence to FIS claims that the government was fostering inequality, impoverishing the nation, and wasting precious resources. Unemployment reached an official high of 30 percent, swelling the ranks of those whose grievances might be channeled into support for Islamists.

The FIS Perspective on the Economy The bust cycle that began in the late 1980s, compounded by civil war and poorly implemented economic reforms in the 1990s, created fertile ground for the FIS among large segments of the population. However, it would be a mistake to rely solely on an economic-deterministic explanation of the FIS or of Algeria’s political developments since the late 1980s. If a bad economy in the 1980s gave rise to the FIS, then an even worse economy in the late 1990s should have expanded the FIS’s support, which it did not. While the FIS clearly capitalized on an array of economic grievances, it more importantly capitalized on what Roberts (1992: 436) has defined as “public exasperation with arbitrary government, and the concomitant demand for a form of government based on the rule of law.” By focusing on state mismanagement rather than attacking the global economy, the FIS crafted a political explanation for economic decline that resonated with many segments of the population. In related fashion, the FIS capitalized on economic deterioration less by critiquing neoliberal economic norms than by condemning Algerian leaders for failing to generate prosperity within the recognized constraints of Algeria’s reliance upon hydrocarbons. These Islamists were not unlike most Algerian political elites in taking for granted that the key to long-term development was the appropriate valorization of oil and gas. In this sense, the FIS was not challenging Algeria’s position

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within the global economy; rather, it was advocating a better and more equitable adaptation to international market forces through appropriate government policies. The 1989 FIS program, the only unified, comprehensive statement of the movement’s political and socioeconomic policies, contains seeds of a defensive and protectionist approach to foreign economic policy. The party criticized excessive dependence on foreign experts and advocated less reliance on the outside world. This economic nationalism/populism has a long history in Algerian political discourse, deriving more from a postcolonial reaction to French dominance of economic exchange than from a desire for autarchy or for decoupling from the world. During the 1989–1991 reformist period, a number of former government officials had publicly detailed how foreign experts had been involved in huge state investment failures and how government officials had conspired with foreign companies offering kickbacks to drain resources from the economy (e.g., Brahimi 1991). The contempt was focused on state officials and only secondarily on foreign companies. Driving a better bargain with external actors was a popular position for the FIS as well as for the FLN and secular opposition parties. The often vague 1989 FIS program and the party’s reaction to the 1989–1991 reforms of Prime Minister Mouloud Hamrouche are evidence of a general acceptance of some neoliberal ideals. By default if not by design, the FIS supported the economic reform program of Hamrouche. There was a similarity of interests with the reformists under President Chadli in altering existing patronage networks and responding to the crisis of Algeria’s development model. Although the FIS position could be seen as based on Islamic principles of support for property rights, it was predicated on attacking power holders and rewarding constituents of the party within the private sector and the informal sector. For example, de facto privatization and import liberalization benefited a significant number of FIS sympathizers in the private sector. The party’s 1989 program stressed the need for entrepreneurship, productivity, and rapid development of the private sector. To promote smalland medium-sized enterprises, the party advocated lower taxes, deregulation, and financial incentives for investment. It also proposed reductions in military spending, demanded an end to state monopolies on trade, and advocated a new system of industrial relations giving enterprises more responsibility over their own affairs. This domestic neoliberalism was accompanied by a call for an intermediate opening to the global economy through elimination of customs barriers within the Maghreb and establishment of a free trade zone among Arab and Islamic countries (Zoubir 1995). International financial institutions like the IMF were hardly the focal point of criticism. Regarding the early FIS attitude, John Entelis (1995: 68)

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argues, “Its program is largely driven by domestic interests and is not part of an international Islamist movement. In fact, the party platform . . . called for international cooperation with the West to explore and expand Algeria’s natural resources and export potential.” Although the FIS did not advocate wholesale elimination of tariffs and protectionist barriers, it sought increased interaction with international actors predicated on the removal of state-fostered corruption and unfair restrictions on domestic actors. This perspective on economic relations persisted even after the 1992 coup. The technocratic wing of the FIS vigorously opposed attacks by the radical GIA on France and against foreigners in Algeria in 1994 and 1995. Anticipating that it had a good possibility of coming to power, the FIS hoped to preserve good commercial relations with France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Rabah Kébir, head of the German-based FIS Executive Committee Abroad (L’instance executive du FIS à l’étranger), went so far as to cultivate relations with European industrialists who had an interest in investing in Algeria (Labat 1995). At least until 1996, the FIS wanted political support from Europe and the United States and stressed that when the party came to power its foreign economic policy would reward those who had helped the FIS. Moreover, the movement’s pragmatism in commercial relations with the West stemmed from a recognition that, once in power, the party would have trouble implementing its economic ideal of redistribution without substantial aid and financial relief. This pragmatism, grounded in political rationality and calculations of global ramifications, is also evident in the fact that the FIS never sought to internationalize its conflict by engaging in terrorism outside Algeria.

The Impact of Economic Liberalization on the FIS However, the way in which Algerian policymakers adapted to domestic and international economic constraints in the 1990s had contradictory effects on the FIS. The transition toward a market economy (assuming that is what happened in Algeria in the 1990s), although favored by the party, did not necessarily help it. The 1994 structural adjustment policies supported by the IMF and subsequent debt rescheduling through the Paris and London Clubs amounted to a windfall for the military regime, which the United States and the European Union feared was on the verge of collapsing. A dramatically reduced debt-service ratio in 1995 and 1996 freed up resources to finance the war against Islamists and to bolster patronage to strategic segments of society. In the war economy after 1992, privatization, liberalization, and protection rackets created lucrative opportunities for military elites, government officials, entrepreneurs, and “emirs” of radical Islamist groups (Dillman 2000a; Martinez 2000; Tlemçani 1999). In this

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reconfiguration of patronage networks, the FIS was a relative loser vis-àvis a newly consolidated “mafia politico-financière” made up of army officers, government officials, and businessmen (Hadjadj 1999). With many of its elites in jail or in exile, the FIS simply had a harder time getting a piece of the pie, and its political power declined. Moreover, the austerity-liberalization policies of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, by “conferring ownership rights over privatized enterprises,” addressed the demands of petit bourgeois backers of the outlawed FIS and by so doing detached some leading entrepreneurs from loyalty to the party (Martinez 2000: 147). The chaotic market transition encouraged some previous FIS business sympathizers to defect from the party, enriched radical emirs in the GIA and other groups that outbid the FIS’s armed wing, the Armée Islamique du Salut (AIS), 8 in violence and territorial implantation, and saved the military regime. The economic carpet was pulled from under the FIS, and it had no ideological or material alternative to offer to the bulk of the population hurt by price liberalization, devaluation, layoffs, and privatization. The FIS also suffered from the way in which the Algerian economy was internationalized after 1992. The civil war and the actions of the FIS did not fundamentally change the strategies of international oil companies, which continued to invest, or international financial institutions, which reduced the debt-service burden. International oil companies and the IMF helped restore state control by providing resources that staved off near collapse of the rentier state system. By 2000, Algeria had dramatically increased foreign investment by oil companies and, having completed a major pipeline to Spain through Morocco, became a major gas supplier to Europe (see Aïssaoui 2001). A significant rise in international oil prices since 1999 has bolstered Algeria’s foreign exchange reserves and allowed Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was elected president in April 1999, to implement a program of massive government spending and investment. Although the government still faces the challenges of price instability, deregulation of European gas markets, and resistance to privatization of Sonatrach (the state hydrocarbons company), the continued interest of international oil companies will likely ensure that Algeria remains a rentier economy, able to service its external debt and distribute patronage to regime leaders and their cronies in the public and private sectors. In a broader sense, the FIS lost because it never managed to get the European Union or the United States to recognize the legitimacy of its campaign against the government. EU governments and investors have “globalized” Algeria since 1995 within the framework of the Barcelona Process, also known as the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). Launched in 1995, the Barcelona Process promised substantial development aid to southern Mediterranean countries, security cooperation, and cultural dialogue.9 Although the Barcelona framework included EU pledges to pro-

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mote democratization and human rights protection, the EU and its southern partners have essentially defined security as “preserving existing regimes and weakening the appeal of political Islam.” Predominant in the EMP are the goals of creating a Euro-Mediterranean free trade zone by 2010, expanding EU aid for structural adjustment, and encouraging European private investment. In early 2002, Algeria signed an association agreement with the European Union that will progressively lower Algerian tariffs against European goods and accelerate the flow of EU grants and low-cost loans from the European Investment Bank. To date, the EMP has bolstered existing political and economic elites in the southern Mediterranean and produced only partial and inequitable economic reforms (see Dillman 2002; Hibou and Martinez 1998). Similarly, since 1998 the United States has promoted a U.S.–North African Economic Initiative, focused on privatization, free trade, and Maghrebi trade integration. By 2002, the Export-Import Bank of the United States had an exposure in Algeria of more than $2 billion in export-guarantee credits, one of its highest exposures in the world. Along with U.S. corporate investments in hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, and power generation (all in partnership with public enterprises), the initiative seems destined to favor the existing mafia politico-financière and marginalize Islamist-leaning businessmen, while doing little to encourage political reform or enhance the welfare of the population (Dillman 2001a, 2001b). In effect, the European Union and the United States have championed neoliberal reforms that have been marginally implemented by incumbents while excluding Islamists from any involvement in their initiatives. This is ironic, considering the argument (see Henry and Springborg 2001: 225) that in the Middle East and North African region “the political movement of moralizers culturally most distant from the West, that of Islamism, is the one that is also among the most committed to implementing the Washington Consensus” on economic reform.

Capitalizing on Social Crisis and Succumbing to It While the economic imperatives of modernization have evoked a variety of responses from the FIS, so, too, have the challenges stemming from rapid social change. As elsewhere in the Middle East, social disintegration and cultural adaptation have provided fertile ground for the rise of Islamist social movements like the FIS (see Dekmejian 1995). Although the domestic social environment shaped by global change can be measured relatively easily with demographic, housing, and employment figures, it is much harder to identify a one-dimensional reaction by the FIS to social issues. The social vision of the party elites has been ambiguous and flexible, if not

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opportunistic. Many detractors define the FIS as reactionary and obscurantist, citing its social-puritanist vision, restrictions on women, authoritarian religiosity, and antipluralism (see Mimouni 1992). It is also portrayed as affirming a Wahhabist social vision alien to traditional Algerian beliefs and anathema to global liberalism. Along with other Islamist groups, it has supposedly “reterritorialized” Algerian culture, created a “new counterculture that thrives on nihilism,” and pursued the establishment of a mythic society (Lazreg 2000: 149, 162). This essentialist portrayal of the FIS reaction to social issues fails to acknowledge the complex pushes and pulls shaping the Islamists’ social project.

The Depths of Algeria’s Social Crisis It is clear that deterioration in social conditions, tied closely to the failure of Algerian economic development strategy, has profoundly shaped the opinions of FIS supporters and FIS policy strategists. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, President Houari Boumediene had fostered considerable social progress as measured by low unemployment, expanded educational opportunities, and more comprehensive social services. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, social inequality began to rise. The fall of oil prices in 1985 accelerated this trend. The 1990s witnessed enrichment of the few, the collapse of the middle class, and a rapid increase in the number of people living in poverty. By the end of the 1990s, 23 percent of Algerians lived below the official poverty line, and an estimated 40 percent of Algerians lived on less than $2 per day. Declining per capita income for the decade of 1986–1995, inflation, and frequently negative growth of GDP have taken a heavy toll on the majority of Algerians. One significant measure of dire social conditions is the condition of housing. In 1992, the Ministry of Health and Population estimated that there were an average of 3.2 people per bedroom in the country. Figures from the 1998 census released by the National Office of Statistics reveal that the average household has 6.5 people and the average number of people in an apartment is 7.15. With one of the worst housing crises in the world, Algerians have faced terrible overcrowding, disruption in family relations, and forced postponement of marriages. Women have also suffered setbacks since the 1980s. To placate religious conservatives, President Chadli had passed the Family Status Code of 1984 that imposed enormous restrictions on women’s rights within the family. Few women have reached positions of influence within political institutions and businesses. Although the percentage of Algerian women working outside the home had increased to some 13 percent by 1996, this rate was one of the lowest in the world (FIDH 2001). Since 1992, women have faced signifi-

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cantly higher threats to their personal security in the form of assaults, kidnappings, and rapes. Trends in education and health care also provided a window on the dire social conditions in Algeria. While from 1985 to 1987 spending on public education was equal to about 10 percent of gross national product (GNP), from 1995 to 1997 it had fallen to only 5 percent of GNP. The failure of public education can be seen in the fact that only 3 percent of Algerians have a bachelor’s degree, and, on average, 95 percent of students who start elementary school will not go on to complete a bachelor’s degree (FIDH 2001). Equally alarming, Algeria’s gains in public health during the 1970s and early 1980s were lost during the 1990s due to declining per capita health expenditures and skyrocketing prices for medicine (FIDH 2001).

Asserting a Social Vision and Building a Coalition of Social Groups, 1988–1992 How did the FIS respond to these social conditions? What kind of explanations did it provide to constituents for their problems? What alternative sense of social identity and practices did it offer? How did it try to meet the social needs of distinct social segments? Ideologically and materially, the FIS had something to offer to a wide variety of social forces in the first several years of its existence. After 1992, however, the popular appeal of its social vision unraveled in the face of massive violence and the radicalization of society. From 1988 to 1992, the FIS strove to be a successful, mass-based party. This strategy was rooted as much in political necessity as it was in a devotion to some grand, Islam-inspired social vision. In other words, the manner in which it pursued social policy was significantly influenced by political imperatives to garner electoral support and to satisfy competing constituencies. As regime policies changed those political constraints, a more competitive market for social visions emerged, so to speak, and the FIS had to fine-tune its social policies. In order to keep its diverse factions together and stave off the wrath of the state during early democratization, the FIS was deliberately vague in its social agenda. As Yahia Zoubir (1995) contends, the FIS lacked a clear “societal project” in its 1989 program. The assertion of a radical vision of Islamization would have quickly split the Islamist movement, alienated a number of key social forces, and scared the army. Even a cursory look at the different and often changing opinions of Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj shows that the FIS had a contradictory social vision. This is not to assert that the movement was without clear opinions on issues such as the proper role of women in a Muslim society, but rather simply that it was not a unitary religious movement, unrespon-

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sive to constraints and opportunities in the sociopolitical context in which it operated. The broad social appeal of the FIS is clearly correlated with the fact that so many segments of society have faced downward mobility since the 1980s. As an enterprising political movement seeking mass electoral appeal, the FIS offered an explanation for downward mobility, some policies to alleviate social conditions, and a general sense of hope for change. Collectively, the metaphorical hizb Fransa (party of France) served as a convenient scapegoat for Islamists who placed in this category anyone deemed to be an agent of social inequality, the personification of cultural Westernization, or a link between a colonial and a globalizing dialectic. The Francophile middle class and communists were portrayed as having usurped power in 1962 to prevent the true ideals of the revolution, such as construction of an Arab-Islamic umma (community of believers), from being achieved. These groups in power presumably caused social immobility, and the fruits of their machinations were the so-called tchi-tchi (youth with a penchant for ostentatious displays of wealth), who were despised as representatives of inequality and unfairness in society. In addition, lack of social advancement was blamed on le pouvoir (the state), which was painted as an embezzler, thief, predator, and taghout (tyrant). The diverse components of the FIS offered a resolution of personal identity problems and government incompetence in social policy through a new sense of purpose, a pseudoauthentic turn, and an emphasis on justice rooted in Islamic principles. The ideological appeal of the FIS was also enhanced by its expropriation of traditional themes of the FLN, prompting many to dub it the fils (son) of the FLN.10 It grafted an Islamist discourse onto the nationalism, populism, and third-worldism of the decaying FLN. In other words, it was the familiarity of its social vision, rooted in postindependence Algerian political culture, that appealed to the population, as much as its novelty.11 That the FIS was able to fill a large swath of the ideological space was largely due to the fact that President Benjedid had pitched to society a new set of values, images, and “organizational principles,” centered around crisis, deregulation, consumerism, and antiwelfarism that were unpopular with the masses as well as with the FLN rank and file (Malley 1996). Although these values and images were validated by international economic actors and Algeria’s main trading partners, they amounted to an abandonment of the compelling mix of third-worldism, nationalism, and Islamism that had grown out of the anticolonial struggle. By equating Islamism with third-worldism and inequality with cultural Westernization, the FIS produced a potent ideology to explain destructive social phenomena such as trabendo (the black market) and marginalization of urban dwellers (Malley 1996). To capitalize on this overarching sociopolitical message, the FIS tai-

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lored its discourse to the specific ideological and material concerns of diverse social strata. The party had a sociopolitical vision in which each group could find what it wanted to hear. For example, urban poor could find comfort in Ali Belhadj’s radical discourse, whereas retailers and military entrepreneurs could find reassurance in Abassi Madani’s piety and moderation (Kepel 2000). With its bifurcated leadership, the FIS created a potent coalition of urban youth and the pious bourgeoisie, through the intermediary of an Islamist intelligentsia with a mobilizing ideology (Kepel 2000). Specific groups that constituted the FIS’s primary base of support included hittistes (young, urban, unemployed males), Arabic teachers and diploma holders, engineers, some former FLN militants, and merchants and shopkeepers. Many of these groups faced downward social mobility or were frustrated in their attempts to reach the social status they thought they deserved (Amirouche 1998).12 However, it is important to note that many of these groups did not necessarily want full Islamization of politics, nor could they be characterized as antiglobal or antimodernist. Many in the intelligentsia, the petite bourgeoisie, and the middle strata who gravitated to Islamism were primarily reacting to the manner in which state officials had internationalized the domestic economy. They wanted more opportunity and easier entrée into a restricted political and economic class. One of the main strata to which the FIS appealed was the urban lumpenproletariat, which collectively included the poor, the young, and the traditionally pious. Mobilization through a convincing sociopolitical message was reinforced and validated by the social activism of the FIS from 1988 to 1992. The party gained support among this stratum by dispensing free medicine, providing educational services, organizing festivals, setting up cooperatives, and subsidizing food during Ramadan (Burgat 1997). The provision of private social services and, briefly, the provision of public social services when the party ran many communal governments created a new political legitimacy, or a Gramscian “counterhegemonic organization” that challenged the state’s monopoly on associational and mobilizational activities (Entelis 1995). Some of the communal-level policies the FIS partially implemented that were relatively popular with the urban poor included shutting down establishments that sold alcohol or rented videos, removing garbage regularly, and encouraging women to wear the hijab (head covering). Through these types of policies, the FIS met some of the symbolic and material needs of distinct social strata. Another important stratum to which the FIS appealed was petty traders like butchers, bakers, jewelers, and grocers who were fed up with price controls and the constant need to beg for goods from state manufacturers and distributors. They desired to “restore a code of honor in social relationships” by eliminating economic subordination and restrictions on domestic trade (Martinez 2000: 30–31). Their critique was of an unfair state headed

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by officials who were predatory and monopolistic. Many wanted a leaner state under which their economic potential and capacity to produce would be unleashed, enhancing their social and material status (Martinez 2000). Among the common demands on FIS communal officials made by the petty bourgeoisie was easier, predictable access to land and utility hookups. To the extent that the FIS promised a fairer, more minimalist state, merchants and traders had an interest in supporting the movement. While hardly unbridled supporters of external liberalization and lower tariffs, small retailers and traders and their supporters in the FIS had a common interest in promoting freer domestic markets through liberalization. Even “military entrepreneurs” (former officers of the Armée de Libération Nationale who owned small businesses) flirted with the FIS as a way of hedging their bets should the FIS win national power and patronage prerogatives (Martinez 2000). Although some social strata were attracted to the FIS primarily out of material interest or in response to economic deterioration, it is clear that the FIS’s vision appealed to a large number of devout activists who genuinely wanted an Islamic state, introduction of sharia (Islamic law), and social relations based on Islamic principles. These devotees were part of a broad stratum of society made up of the young, educated, and Arabized. The formation of this class of young religious believers and ideologues owes much to government policies in the 1980s that pandered to traditional religious conservatism. For example, in 1982, President Chadli persuaded an eminent Egyptian theologian, Sheikh Mohammed al-Ghozali, to head a new Islamic university in Constantine. He stayed until 1989; although courted politically by the government, al-Ghozali preached a very conservative social vision of Islam that was influential among religiously inclined Algerians (see Tehami n.d.). Moreover, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Algerian government had funded the construction of mosques and expanded religious instruction. Many of these pious followers were also deeply influenced by the spread of transnational Muslim Brotherhood ideology via radical imams in the hundreds of unofficial mosques that sprouted up during the 1970s and 1980s. They found a voice among radical FIS leaders like Ali Belhadj, who railed against the “globalization of cultural exchange” manifest in Western dress and the ubiquitous, rooftop satellite dishes beaming in European TV programs (Martinez 2000: 38). Islam was a compelling ideology, a totalizing vision of society more appealing than the discredited secular ideologies of Marxism, Arab socialism, and liberalism. The dense network of unofficial mosques in garages, vacant buildings, and workplaces mainstreamed conservative Islamic ideas and dress. Moreover, the mosques became a locus of daily activity and social intercourse, making religiosity itself fashionable. In the absence of a free realm for social or cultural activity, the

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protected areas of mosques became an alternative center of civil society that the FIS utilized to spread its sociopolitical program and to mobilize supporters. By capitalizing on the network of unofficial mosques, the FIS had important political tools that were less accessible to its political competitors: a financial base, an egalitarian ideology, a large group of educated recruits, and a space protected from government repression. The last major social stratum targeted by the FIS is youth whose education was in Arabic. Presidents Boumediene and Chadli had pursued an Arabization program in schools since the 1970s. By 1989, education from kindergarten through high school was entirely in Arabic.13 Thousands of schoolteachers had been recruited from Egypt and other Arab countries, often bringing with them a Muslim Brotherhood ideology that profoundly shaped the ideas of a generation of young Algerians. Based on dozens of interviews and a written questionnaire distributed to more than 2,000 students on two Algerian university campuses in 1989 and 1990, James Kaufman found that students who had received most of their education in Arabic were much more likely than French-educated students or lessArabized students to hold Islamist beliefs. Having an attachment to “Islamic precepts, values, attitudes, and behaviors” was more highly correlated with having studied in Arabic than with a student’s gender, socioeconomic background, ethnicity, geographic origin, or field of study. Kaufman (1995) concludes, The Arabization of education has direct effects on individuals’ cultural orientation. Arabic’s Islamic references imbue it with powerful religious symbolism that has important political connotations. When Arabization leads to a weakening of French, a dramatic shift in civilizational orientation results.

The FIS capitalized on the fact that young Arabized Algerians found the “symbols, linguistic style, and cultural referents” of the FIS “more familiar and persuasive” than those of other sociopolitical groups (Kaufman 1995). It should be noted, however, that the attraction to the FIS and other Islamist groups was not solely based on identity issues or a desire for Islamization. The FIS also capitalized on the specific social aspirations of Arabized students (Labat 1995). Those schooled in Arabic found that the job market was dominated by French-schooled students. The ticket to a prestigious job was facility in French, and Arabized students (whose quality of instruction was often poor) faced great job insecurity and second-class social status. A well-mobilized, Arabized, young population was a stratum that the FIS could easily cater to. These youths had a social and material interest in the establishment of more rewarding job prospects for Arabictrained students and in basing employment on legally defined, merit-based criteria.

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Loss of Social Vision in a Culture of Violence The distinctive social vision discussed above, which was tailored to a broad set of social classes and reinforced by social activism, unraveled after the coup of 1992. FIS ideology and policies in the social domain underwent a significant transformation as leaders divided, the government repressed, and supporters abandoned the party. The contradictions in the party’s social base came to a head in the changed social and political environments. In a sense, the FIS succumbed to the social crisis that had given birth to the party and that it had unsuccessfully sought to resolve through inspiration in Islam, conservatism, and populism. The seeds of failure for the FIS’s social coalition had already been planted in the period from June 1990 to April 1992 when the FIS ran municipal councils. A number of Algerians were dismayed at the heavyhandedness with which the FIS closed shops, discouraged rai music, and tried to ban “indecent” clothes. Increasing verbal attacks on French-speakers worried many in the urban middle class. And there was a fear among secularists, the middle class, and property owners of the potential unleashing of the rage of hittistes (Kepel 2000). More concretely, the dissolution of municipal councils in April 1992 brought an end to the FIS’s eighteenmonth experience in local government, depriving the party of patronage resources and infrastructure through which to implement social policies. The decapitation of the party and imprisonment of a large number of leaders and cadres fragmented the movement, making it impossible to present a coherent social project. A radicalization of ideology occurred, with many former FIS activists setting up or joining armed gangs bent on violence and destruction of the social fabric. Local emirs within the GIA replaced former FIS leaders, and social groups began to defect, as was the case for members of the petite bourgeoisie who gravitated to two legal, moderate, Islamist parties, Sheikh Mahfoud Nahnah’s Hamas and Abdallah Djaballah’s anNahda (Islamic Renaissance Movement). 14 The FIS rapidly faced the breakup of its “monopoly of symbolic management of the Islamist resistance” (Martinez 2000: 234). Moreover, secular political rivals fine-tuned their social policies in line with changing preoccupations of the population and gained greater attention from the government. The most significant example of this is seen in the Berber community, which in early 2001 mobilized on a large scale following demonstrations and riots in which the police and security forces committed numerous abuses. The two main Berber parties, the Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS) and the Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD),15 have sought to capitalize on a rapidly growing, grassroots movement in Berber areas focused on participation, civic rights, linguistic rights, and creation of a rule of law. This non-Islamic social move-

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ment, spearheaded by village committees, has already succeeded in placing its demands at the top of the country’s sociopolitical agenda.16 Moreover, organized labor and war veterans (anciens combatants) strengthened their organizations and mobilizational appeal, placing greater resource demands on the military-backed government in exchange for loyalty against Islamists. The civil war after 1992 privatized violence, leading to private accumulation of economic goods and social status. What emerged, according to Luis Martinez (2000), was a “war-oriented imaginaire,” a belief that violence was an effective instrument of social advancement. Islamists used violence instrumentally as a response to military repression in order to achieve wealth, prestige, and power.17 The struggle by Islamists, including many in the FIS and defectors from it, was reduced to a socioeconomic operation instead of a religious conflict grounded in a historically recurring Islamic imaginaire in which protagonists sought to recreate a pure Islamic state governed by sharia (Martinez 2000). The result is that terrorism and violence have become deeply entrenched in Algeria. More than 150,000 people have died since 1992, some 20,000 have disappeared, and tens of thousands bear physical and psychological wounds. Rape, kidnapping, torture, and massacre have become routine, although somewhat diminished since 1999.18 According to an Algerian government study, from 1995 to 2001, there were more than 9,000 bombings across the country. Terrorism and violence are not perceived by Algerians as solely associated with religiously inspired groups or the security forces. As Michael Humphrey (2000) notes, “Violence does not fall along some imaginary front-line between the state and Islamists but is found everywhere. All the spaces of normal life— street, office, bazaar, home—have been invaded and overturned by violence.” Through its own mistakes of elite fragmentation and support (or justification) of violence, the FIS squandered much of its social capital. Its social vision, if not its religious vision, became associated in the minds of many Algerians with a culture of violence. Its participation via its armed wing, the AIS, in murders, extortion, lawlessness, destruction of infrastructure, and arbitrary cruelty undermined its earlier claim to be a promoter of equality, social equity, and a rule-based society. So, too, did its guilt by association with the most violent Islamist groups.19 Although it still has appeal for the poor, youths, retailers, and devout students, thanks to a vision of social relations based on Islamic law, it seems unlikely that it can mobilize a wide social coalition through its newfound emphasis on democracy and social pluralism. Although the FIS has done much to discredit itself, it is equally the ubiquitousness of terror, whether committed by the GIA, local communal guards, or the military, that has undermined the FIS.

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Democratization, Interrupted Democratization, and the Challenge of Reintegration into Political Life Democratization is the third main imperative of modernization that Algeria faces. In other words, the country is struggling to resolve a participation dilemma inherent in the process of nation-building. Waves of democratization in the third world, along with the collapse of mobilizational regimes in the former Soviet bloc, have brought to center stage in Algeria the issue of political change through free and fair elections. FIS perspectives regarding popular political participation have been pliant and contradictory, and the constraints and opportunities the movement has faced since 1988 have fluctuated significantly. Over time, the FIS has pursued a variety of political strategies, including democratization, general strike, insurrection, civic pacts, terrorism, and, most recently, negotiated reintegration into political life. As such, it is hazardous to state definitively that a fragmented and heterogeneous movement like the FIS either believes or does not believe in democracy. What is more productive is to trace its basic political calculations since 1988. In so doing, one can see plasticity, reactiveness, and strategic constraints as much as its presumed Islamic essentialism on political matters. The constraints imposed on the Islamist movement by the Algerian government and the Western powers have had a profound effect on its political calculations and actions.

Constraints and Opportunities During Democratization In the aftermath of the October 1988 riots, the Chadli government decided to legalize the FIS in September 1989, after which the party rapidly became the only major oppositional rival to the FLN. Until 1992, Algeria experienced a period of rapid democratization that shaped the ideology and practices of the FIS. Islamists drew upon traditional Algerian populism and nationalism and filled an ideological vacuum created by authoritarianism’s undermining of the secular opposition (Layachi 2000). Like many observers, Azzedine Layachi (2000: 27) interprets the movement as pseudo-nationalist, in that it seemed to be anchored in a “transnational feeling that asserts uniqueness on the basis of religion” and shared with Islamists elsewhere a rejection of Western values and influence. In this conceptualization, the FIS, to the extent that it called for democratization, was simply paying lip service to the West, when in reality it had little interest in democracy. John Entelis rejects this characterization of the FIS as fundamentally antidemocratic or antimodernist. Many leaders of the party were well-educated administrators and mobilizers who could be seen as representing a new middle-class reaction to political exclusion. After all, they

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did play the democracy game through 1991. Entelis (1995: 71) also argues that had the FIS taken power in 1992, it “would have been prepared to form coalitions and other political alliances, along with moderating some of its rigid theocratic beliefs and taking into consideration the interests of other groups—such as the military, business community, and foreign investors— in order to satisfy desired public policy objectives.” In other words, the continued presence of political competitors and the imperatives of engaging in normal politics might well have compelled the party to behave democratically. As it turned out, the way the FIS developed had less to do with any inherent incompatibility between Islam and democracy than with how the Algerian junta treated (or mistreated) the party (Entelis 1995). As Hugh Roberts (1994a) and Pierre Dévoluy and Mireille Duteil (1994) stress, the FIS was manipulated in a variety of ways by Chadli’s cohorts, Chadli’s opponents, and high-ranking military officers. The contradictions in FIS pronouncements on political strategy stemmed in part from efforts to sustain a broad coalition of Islamists. There was a division of labor between Madani and Belhadj—a sort of yin-andyang relationship—with Madani emphasizing legalism and Belhadj emphasizing radicalism. This division between djaza’aristes (who had a relatively moderate, nationalist perspective) and salafistes (who had a violent, transnational vision) remained throughout the 1990s; the mirror image on the government side is the division between réconciliators (who recognize the need to negotiate) and éradicateurs (who want to physically wipe out radical Islamists). In other countries undergoing democratization, one finds a similar pattern of regime hardliners versus regime liberalizers and opposition moderates versus opposition radicals. In Algeria, as in other transition countries, it is often not clear whether any of the four basic factions have electoral democracy as their first political preference. In the June 1990 local and regional elections, the FIS won 54 percent of all votes cast, giving it control of 55 percent of communal government seats and 32 of 48 wilaya (provincial) seats. These stunning elections set the stage for a major struggle over the 1991 parliamentary elections. In May 1991, Madani protested the gerrymandering of electoral constituencies and called for a general strike. The government declared a state of siege and arrested Madani and Belhadj in June 1991, allegedly for conspiring against the security of the state. Abdelkader Hachani took over as head of the party’s Political Affairs Commission and managed to commit a deeply divided party to an electoralist strategy. In December’s first round of parliamentary elections, the FIS garnered 47 percent of the popular vote and won 188 of 231 seats decided in the first round. Had a second round taken place, the FIS would likely have won more than two-thirds of the seats in the National Popular Assembly—enough to rewrite the constitution. FIS strategy in 1991 emerged from a series of calculations about the

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intentions of the military and estimations of electoral success. The quasiinsurrection in May and June 1991 was a strategic mistake, in that the FIS underestimated the commitment of the military to legalism and maintaining public order (Zoubir 1995). Still, the party did succeed in bringing down the government of Prime Minister Mouloud Hamrouche in June 1991 and then forced the new prime minister, Sid Ahmed Ghozali, to revise the electoral code in a way that allowed Hachani to drag the FIS into participating in the elections. Martinez (2000) contends that the FIS did not call for violence until some months following the 1992 coup in the expectation that, should the party come to power democratically, the military could be a potential partner. In contrast, Yahia Zoubir (1995: 125) contends that the FIS engaged in “deliberately provocative” behavior toward the army. Whichever the case, it is clear that the military, the FLN, and other opposition parties profoundly underestimated the voting strength of the FIS in 1991. Based on shoddy polling and wishful thinking, they expected that the FIS would get one-third of the popular vote and end up as a minority in the new assembly (Mortimer 1996). Then a second stunning election occurred. The military and secular opposition would later downplay the FIS’s claim to majority representation by noting that the FIS’s share of the popular vote fell from 54 percent in 1990 to 47 percent in 1991 and that, considering low turnout and spoiled ballots, only 24 percent of registered voters actually voted for the FIS in 1991 (Mortimer 1996). These unexpected results led the military to believe that its dominant role in politics and its position as an autonomous, secular institution were threatened (Mortimer 1996). Hard-line officers suspected that the FIS and President Chadli had reached a secret deal on cohabitation in late 1991 that included discussions on removing a number of high-ranking military officers (Zoubir 1995). The military had failed to get its ideal: “a tame, compliant FIS, capable of acting as a safety valve for popular anti-regime pressures but unable to mount any serious challenge to the ruling order” (Willis 2000: 75). This led to the triumph of a security logic by éradicateurs in the military hierarchy (International Crisis Group 2001).

Repression and the Fragmentation of the FIS, 1992–1995 By turning on the FIS, the military completely changed the political environment in Algeria and, thereby, the approach of the FIS to the pursuit of power. From 1991 onward, the army radicalized the Islamist movement and closed off further electoral opportunities for the party. Mass arrests in 1992 and 1993 decapitated the movement with devastating effects. The fractionalization of the party was aggravated by the fact that its governing institution, the majlis al-shura, could no longer meet. Replacing the FIS officials

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who served as political intermediaries and orchestrators of social control and crime prevention were young radicals and local mujahideen (freedom fighters) bent on violence and criminality (Martinez 2000). The salafist leaders and activists in the party who had been contained before June 1991 came to the forefront with their advocacy of violence in the face of “proof” that the electoral strategy had always been a doomed enterprise (Hafez 2000). On top of constraints created by the state, the FIS was outbid by the violence of other Islamist groups. The FIS initially had condemned the coup and focused its efforts on reaching a political solution. Then in early 1993 it launched military operations. By 1994, when the FIS formed its armed wing, the AIS, rival violent Islamist groups such as the GIA had already established a strong presence in the interior of the country. As Martinez (2000: 204–205) states, Having held hegemony between 1989 and 1991, the ex-FIS became just one actor among others after the halt of the elections. While the Greater Algiers communes under the influence of that party were ravaged by the formation of Islamist armed bands and groups of criminals acting with complete impunity, the idea of an Islamic state ceased to mobilize support, and the population took refuge in survival strategies.

The FIS thus found itself a prisoner of the generalization of violence and trapped by the extreme polarization between radical armed groups and dominant éradicateurs in the regime, such as Major-General Khalid Nezzar (minister of defense), General Larbi Belkheir (minister of the interior), and Major-General Muhammad Lamari (chief of staff). The task of finding a viable political strategy was complicated by the fractionalization of the FIS. Rabah Kébir, head of the German-based FIS Executive Committee Abroad, had rejected the tactics of the GIA in 1993. In 1994, unauthorized representatives of a rival FIS grouping, the FIS Provisional National Executive, met with the GIA and declared a unification of armed groups under the GIA banner. Madani Mezrag, who by this time had organized the AIS in several parts of the country, pledged his fidelity to Madani and Belhadj, although it has always been unclear as to what extent he was accountable to the FIS national leadership. The AIS sought to distinguish itself from terrorist groups, such as the GIA and the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC, Salafist Group for Preaching/Call and Combat), by emphasizing political rather than ideological goals. It rejected killing foreigners and civilians, attacking women, and sabotaging schools, preferring a strategy of jihad that could be clearly perceived as legitimate (Hafez 2000). Beginning in 1995, the AIS became a target of the GIA, whose violence served to discredit all Islamists.

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In 1994 and 1995, the FIS pursued a strategy of military struggle and coordination with legal opposition parties and engaged in a series of intermittent negotiations with the regime. In the summer of 1994, the newly appointed president, retired General Liamine Zéroual,20 started negotiations with imprisoned FIS leaders who reputedly pledged in writing to respect political pluralism and alternation in power through elections. In November 1994 and January 1995, the FIS took major steps to modify its militant rhetoric and to reestablish its claim to support democratization. With the blessing of Madani and Belhadj, FIS representatives Rabah Kébir and Anwar Haddam, leader of the U.S.-based FIS Parliamentary Delegation Abroad, negotiated a pact with all the other major opposition parties in Algeria, including the FLN and Hocine Ait Ahmed’s Berber-based Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS). 21 Under the auspices of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic organization in Rome, they signed the Platform of Rome, committing all parties to respect multipartyism and alternation of government through free elections. Moreover, they pledged to reject violence, guarantee individual and collective liberties, and recognize Berber identity. This was a significant reformulation of the party’s political vision and an explicit recognition of pluralist values. Although the Platform of Rome was viewed favorably by policymakers in Europe and the United States, the Algerian regime immediately rejected it. President Zéroual countered Sant’Egidio in May and June 1995 by holding secret direct negotiations with Madani. Resistance by army hardliners and brinkmanship by the FIS brought negotiations to a stalemate. Hoping to splinter Islamists and garner support from the international community, Zéroual proposed a presidential election for November 1995. Four candidates were permitted to run, including Mahfoud Nahnah, head of Hamas, a legal Islamist-oriented party that had become a rival of the FIS. Despite FIS calls for a boycott, the high turnout (76 percent) showed that the FIS could not easily sway public opinion. Zéroual received 61 percent of the votes to Nahnah’s 26 percent.

Accounting for the Marginalization of the FIS in 1994 and 1995 Thus, by the beginning of 1996, the regime had politically undercut the FIS and turned the tide militarily against armed Islamists. To account for this dramatic change—which brought about nothing less than a shift in FIS perspectives and strategies—it is important to examine a number of processes that occurred in 1994 and 1995. The balance of forces between the regime and the FIS was shaped by the complex interaction of domestic and international variables.

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First, the FIS national leadership made a fundamental miscalculation of the balance of forces in 1994 and 1995. Madani and his associates expected many disgruntled conscripts to desert and the corrupt military to fail in its modernization effort (International Crisis Group 2001). Instead, total war and massive repression by the National Popular Army and secret services, backed up by material assistance from the West, allowed the regime to hold out against Islamist terrorism and popular revulsion. Although officers and their civilian allies in government were forced into the bunkers, so to speak, they managed to hold on to most of the territory and secure oil and gas production. The rescheduling of debt in 1994 and 1995 and the associated drop in the debt-service ratio released resources for matériel and patronage, some of which financed the proliferation of armed village guards loyal to the state. At the same time, the infrastructure of the FIS was shredded. Whether from exile or jail, some of the best political leaders of the FIS had great difficulty communicating with activists and armed groups in the maquis (countryside). Unable to organize and to propagate a coherent message, the FIS was quickly outpaced by violent armed groups, many of whom welcomed the more radical former FIS members. The regime also initiated a concerted effort to co-opt moderate Islamists from within the FIS. By one account, sixteen of the original thirty-four members of the 1989 FIS majlis al-shura had in one way or another by 1998 switched to the side of le pouvoir (power) (Charef 1998). Second, the regime also sought to bolster the legitimacy of legal, Islamist-oriented parties that had been rivals of the FIS since 1989. The two main parties instrumentalized by the regime were Mahfoud Nahnah’s renamed Mouvement pour la Société de Paix (MSP, Movement for a Peaceful Society) and Abdallah Djaballah’s an-Nahda. Nahnah contested the FIS’s claim to a monopoly over Islamist discourse and, like his Muslim Brotherhood counterparts elsewhere in the Middle East, emphasized a steady Islamization of society from the bottom up instead of through the seizure of political power. In conjunction with its effort to co-opt moderate Islamists, the government adopted some social policies that the FIS had emphasized, such as job creation and private housing. After 1994, the regime quickly built a new alliance among the army, private sector, and the MSP (Martinez 2000). Trade liberalization, an end to price controls, and better access to foreign exchange satisfied the petite bourgeoisie with Islamist tendencies (Martinez 2000). By meeting some of the demands of the Islamist bourgeoisie, economic adjustment accompanied by international assistance worked fairly well to integrate some Islamists into the political system and consolidate the regime (Martinez 2000). The third factor that constrained the FIS was the reaction of the United States and the European Union to the Algerian drama. The United States

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had begun a flirtatious, low-level dialogue with the FIS in late 1993, when it seemed that an Iranian scenario was in the making (see Dillman 2001b). The U.S. administration of President Bill Clinton urged military leaders to reintegrate nonviolent Islamists into politics and hold new elections. The U.S. strategy seemed to be paying off when Anwar Haddam, one of the administration’s U.S.-based interlocutors, participated in Sant’Egidio. Nevertheless, by the end of 1995, the United States abandoned its dialogue with the FIS. This shift seemed to be a reaction to several factors, including a spate of bombings by Islamists in the Paris metro; complaints by Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco; the Algerian regime’s success on the ground; and Zéroual’s 1995 election. In late 1996, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (since renamed) arrested Haddam and threatened him with deportation. No longer could the FIS expect any sympathy from the United States. The European Union had a significantly more important impact than the United States. It had failed to voice much concern with the coup of 1992 or the banning of the FIS. While calling on the regime to open a political dialogue with the opposition, European governments gave qualified support to Algeria’s rulers while stressing the importance of economic reform. France, the driving force in Europe’s policy toward Algeria, had a complicated foreign policy. “Realists” saw the Algerian military as a necessary evil, given the Islamist threat, whereas “moralists” felt the coup had undermined principles of democracy and human rights (see Daguzan 2002). The schizophrenic French policy focused on support for Algiers but included pressure on Zéroual to speed up democratic reforms and economic readjustment. In 1994 and 1995, when France was struck with several terrorist attacks by the GIA, the French government cracked down on Islamists in France and swung strong support to the Algerian government, especially through lobbying for international debt rescheduling. Although the European Parliament was frequently critical of Algeria’s military leaders, democracy promotion and human rights protection never ranked as significant policies of most EU institutions. By 1995, EU efforts were centered on the Barcelona Process, which was designed to create the EMP, bolster security cooperation with southern regimes, expand European aid for economic development, and increase cultural exchange. In effect, the Barcelona Process left no place for Islamists like the FIS. Afraid of political breakdown and an influx of migrants from the global south, the EU in 1995 essentially chose to support authoritarianism. The attacks by the GIA in France and the horrific attacks by radical Islamists from 1993 to 1995 on foreigners, women, and intellectuals in Algeria deeply tarnished the image of the FIS. By the end of 1995, as the European Union and the United States began to believe that the regime would survive, the FIS had few places to

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turn for international support. One exception was international civil society. At Sant’Egidio, the FIS attempted to ally with Algerian political parties and nonstate actors in Europe to influence transnational political processes. Yet, in 1995 and later, the FIS was unable to capitalize on European civil society networks of NGOs and human rights groups that mobilized after the launching of the Barcelona Process, partly because these networks were much more likely to cooperate with southern partners who had secular (i.e., Western-influenced) “education and socialization” (Jünemann 2002: 93). The concern of European civic groups to condemn authoritarianism in the global south and to promote democratization did not necessarily translate into direct support for Islamists.22 It did not help matters when European policymakers undermined transnational political cooperation by turning their backs on Algeria’s civil society and opposition political parties and shifting to a state-to-state dialogue within the Barcelona framework. The FIS itself bears much of the blame for its failure to cultivate political support in European civil society because of its virulent denunciations of France, religious chauvinism, and weak commitment to democracy and women’s rights.

The Search for Reintegration into Political Life After 1995 In 1996, President Zéroual amended the constitution to strengthen executive power and carried out a dialogue with legal opposition parties. In June 1997, he held parliamentary elections in which his newly created party, the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND, Democratic National Rally), gained 156 of the 380 seats in the National People’s Assembly. The MSP and an-Nahda together won 103 seats, and the FFS won only 20. The FLN, which won 62 seats, formed a coalition cabinet with the RND; several MSP and an-Nahda members also joined the government. Thus, by mid-1997, the FIS was more marginalized than ever and without a coherent political vision. Abassi Madani represented a moderate, nationalist face of the party, whereas Ali Belhadj appealed to the more radical, salafist elements. Also still in Algeria was the number-three man in the party, Abdelkader Hachani, who appealed to multiple factions. The FIS’s armed wing, the AIS, was headed by Madani Mezrag, who ran a relatively autonomous military group that professed allegiance to Madani and Belhadj, both of whom remained incarcerated. In exile were three rival FIS structures. The German-based Rabah Kébir, who headed the FIS Executive Committee Abroad, seemed close to Madani, expressing a comparatively moderate position, mindful that the conflation of Islamism with terrorism served regime interests. Anwar Haddam, who was jailed in the United States, ran the Parliamentary Delegation Abroad. He had flirted with radi-

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cals in the GIA in 1994, supported Sant’Egidio in 1995, and then began to emphasize the democratic side of the FIS while falling out with Kébir. In addition, Ahmed Zaoui headed a Belgian-based, radical, breakaway faction of the FIS called the Coordination Council of the FIS Abroad (ccFIS) that professed loyalty to Madani and Belhadj while adopting a hard line toward the Algerian regime.23 With cross-cutting allegiances and rivalries, these factions of the FIS pursued different agendas. Meanwhile, the FIS as a whole was rivaled by two sadistic Islamist terrorist groups, the GIA and GSPC, which directed most of the savage attacks on civilians and military recruits in the countryside. In the face of these internal and international constraints, the FIS began to grope for a new political strategy. Moving beyond the Platform of Rome, some in the FIS sought a means to reintegrate into the political system by displaying moderation and emphasizing democratic credentials. After the 1995 elections, Kébir sent a conciliatory letter to Zeroual calling for national dialogue. By 1997, Kébir’s Executive Committee claimed that the FIS wanted a civil state instead of a religious state. Yet, rivalries among FIS camps abroad escalated. In the United States, Haddam condemned Kébir as a traitor, yet another sign that FIS exiled leaders could not agree on strategy regarding negotiations and the purpose of violence (Willis 2000). In the summer of 1997, the army chief of staff, General Ismail Lamari, started negotiations with AIS chief Mezrag that excluded the FIS political leadership. The AIS agreed to a unilateral, unconditional truce and then began to help the army against the GIA. From 1997 until at least 1999, the military seemed to be trying to strengthen the Mezrag-Kébir axis within the FIS; this ploy provoked the condemnation of Hachani and the Zaoui’s breakaway group, the ccFIS. An upswing in massacres in 1997 and 1998 brought the international spotlight to Algeria, with grumblings for international peacekeepers and international investigations. But in the end, the United Nations and the European Union could do no more than send innocuous fact-finding missions. The European Union by 1998 had moved to a policy of calculated patronizing of Algiers, backed up with EU financial support and negotiations for an association agreement (Roberts 2002: 126). Algeria’s military leaders had by 1998 achieved many of their key goals: getting the AIS to lay down its weapons, splitting the FIS, co-opting the MSP and an-Nahda, turning public opinion against Islamists, and deflecting international condemnation. Massive human rights violations by the regime and Islamists forced the population to choose sides, and the FIS was the relative loser. It is in this context that Zéroual announced that he would schedule new presidential elections in April 1999. The ccFIS argued against FIS participation, proposing instead an end to the state of emergency, release of Madani and Belhadj, and a fair election under international supervision.

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However, Madani, Kébir, and Mezrag viewed the elections as an opportunity for reconciliation and a comprehensive political settlement. They more or less accepted the political rules offered by Zéroual, cognizant that establishment of an Islamic republic was no longer a viable goal. Another important reason was that Zéroual allowed Taleb Ahmed Ibrahimi to run as an independent candidate in the election. Kébir encouraged the former FIS constituency to vote for Ibrahimi, whose father had been a leading religious figure in the Algerian nationalist movement, in the hope that a strong showing would allow this independent to set up a new legal Islamist party reincarnating the FIS. Moreover, the 1999 election represented an opportunity to reanimate the spirit of the Platform of Rome. Candidates from the MSP, FFS, Parti du Travail, and Islah, along with Ibrahimi and former prime minister Mouloud Hamrouche, signed an electoral charter calling for free elections, international election monitors, and dialogue with the FIS. The FIS had more to gain than lose by encouraging its supporters to vote for Ibrahimi. With the AIS dissolved, the FIS was left with only a political strategy. A pact-based transition predicated on a governmentgranted amnesty made political sense in these conditions. The RND, FLN, an-Nahda, and MSP eventually called on their supporters to vote for the military-backed candidate, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and six opposition candidates withdrew on the eve of the election. Official figures registered a turnout of 61 percent and gave Ibrahimi only 12.5 percent of the vote to Bouteflika’s 74 percent.24 Although the United States and France expressed disappointment over the elections, the FIS did not dispense with Bouteflika. In June 1999, Madani and Mezrag sent supportive letters to Bouteflika. Madani explicitly called for an end to the fighting against the regime. Kébir’s group also issued a communiqué calling for support of Bouteflika’s policies of national reconciliation. The FIS seemed to view Bouteflika as a relative moderate compared to the military’s éradicateurs. Bouteflika promulgated the Law of Civil Concord in July 1999, offering amnesty to members of the AIS. The new president put the law to a referendum in September 1999. Madani supported the referendum that received (officially) 98.5 percent approval. In January 2000, Bouteflika signed an official amnesty decree for the AIS, and Mezrag announced its dissolution. At the same time, Kébir praised Bouteflika for pardoning AIS members and called for dialogue with the government. However, the honeymoon was short-lived, and the FIS moved from support of Bouteflika to complete rejection of his policies. What explains the shift? The FIS never really trusted Bouteflika, given that he lacked a party or any organized support for policies subjected to enormous resistance from the army (International Crisis Group 2001). In November 1999, Bouteflika ruled out any form of rebirth of the FIS, while indicating he might pardon its leaders if they atoned for their past and abandoned their

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pursuit of an Islamic state. The Law of Civil Concord was issued without any negotiation with the FIS, whose national leaders viewed it as a mechanism for surrender rather than a framework to start the rehabilitation of their party. Following the November 1999 assassination of Hachani (who had been released from prison in 1998), Madani issued a letter withdrawing support from the government. Even Ibrahimi’s request for legalization of a new Islamist-nationalist party, called the Movement for Fidelity and Justice (Wafa), was rejected. By 2000, the FIS strategy of gaining rehabilitation in exchange for abandonment of armed struggle had clearly failed. It was left seeking a political role and free elections but without any political capacity to achieve those aims. Bouteflika’s scheduling of May 2002 parliamentary elections in which the FIS could not participate did little to bolster the fortunes of FIS leaders like Madani and Kébir, who sought genuine dialogue. Radical splinter groups of the FIS, such as the ccFIS, bitterly opposed Kébir’s efforts to reconcile with the regime. In early 2002, the ccFIS and Anwar Haddam’s group allegedly held a minicongress in Saudi Arabia with Algerian-based FIS activists who opposed any conciliation toward the regime. At the same time, Mezrag’s AIS group pressed Bouteflika for better rehabilitation of amnestied AIS fighters. In August 2002, some leading FIS exiles held a major party conference in Belgium, where a letter from Madani was read. Conference members formally dissolved Haddam’s Parliamentary Delegation Abroad, Kébir’s Executive Committee Abroad, and Ahmed Zaoui’s ccFIS. They created the new National Executive Bureau as the only legitimate body to represent the party; Mourad Dhina—a nuclear physicist—was later appointed head of this Geneva-based group. Although Haddam and Zaoui supported the conference, Kébir, along with three FIS leaders in Algeria—Ali Djeddi, Kamel Guemazi, and Abdelkader Boukhamkha—condemned the Belgian conference as not representing the FIS as a whole. Dhina’s effort to overcome fractionalization reached its limits when Madani and Belhadj, having completed their twelve-year sentences, were released from prison in July 2003. Although barred by the government from engaging in political activities, both tried to reconstitute the party’s constituency as Algeria approached presidential elections in April 2004. Their apparently independent efforts revealed further divisions in the FIS and left the party scrambling to present a coherent challenge to President Bouteflika, who ran for reelection despite a bitter fight with a faction of the FLN led by former prime minister Ali Benflis. Madani went to Malaysia for medical treatment, ending up in Doha, Qatar, where he announced in January 2004 a “nonpartisan” plan to restore peace in Algeria. He called for a postponement of the presidential elections and the formation of a sovereign constituent assembly to draft a new con-

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stitution that would be put to a national referendum. He also called for a general amnesty and a state based on Islamic principles that would protect human rights, the separation of powers, and party pluralism. Madani’s resurrection of the Sant’ Egidio agenda was apparently an individual effort not coordinated with other leaders of the party. Anwar Haddam called the plan “courageous” but denied that it had been blessed by Mourad Dhina’s National Executive Bureau. On the heels of Madani’s peace initiative, five other FIS leaders— Djeddi, Guemazi, Boukhamkham, Kébir, and Omar Abdelkader—issued a communiqué outlining policies for bringing peace to Algeria and calling for the lifting of all restrictions on Belhadj. The five stressed that they would not support any official candidates for president and emphasized the need for national reconciliation. Dhina immediately condemned the five for not consulting his National Executive Bureau, which he claimed was the only official structure with the right to speak for the whole party. Separately, Madani Mezrag, former leader of the AIS, argued that the FIS should not show a preference for any political parties participating in the elections. For his part, Belhadj sought to bring FIS leaders under his wing, but faced constant surveillance by the government. In February 2004, he notified the Interior Ministry that he intended to present himself as a presidential candidate, but his request for authorization was promptly rejected. As Algeria prepared for presidential elections in April 2004, the FIS was as divided and marginalized as it had been during the 1999 presidential elections. Its leaders could not agree on a coherent election strategy or a peace initiative that would curry some favor with government elites. Without legal status, a clear policy agenda, or unified leadership in Algeria, it had little ability to mobilize urban youth in a way that would significantly affect the election outcome. By March 2004, Bouteflika was well-positioned to win reelection, having secured backing from the RND, part of the FLN, and the late Sheikh Nahnah’s Islamist-leaning MSP. Abdallah Djaballah, leader of the Islamist-leaning National Reform Movement, was poised to mount the biggest challenge to Bouteflika by garnering many votes from FIS supporters. Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, leader of the unauthorized Wafa party, also announced his intention to compete again, a move that would draw support from some Islamist voters. The political relevancy of the FIS was increasingly in doubt as it struggled to reconstitute the broad base of support that had propelled it to national prominence in 1990.

Conclusion The domestic challenges from globalization and modernization have left the FIS between a rock and a hard place. The Islamist movement now has a

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vaguely liberal and outdated economic strategy, a confused social vision, and little hope of participating in normal politics. Having moved from a strategy of creating an Islamic state by strike (May 1991), by the ballot box (December 1991), by insurrection (1992), and by terror (Touati 1995), the party’s plasticity has been as much its Achilles’ heel as its key to survival. Although some leaders have now apparently abandoned the pursuit of an Islamic state by shifting to dialogue and reconciliation, the party is bereft of policy and purpose. Neither an electoralist strategy nor the maquis are alternatives for advancement of the movement’s political interests. As Oliver Roy (1999) observes, Islamism has become banalized. Large Islamist parties throughout the Middle East have become more like ordinary parties, interiorizing the rules of the political game and expressing a sort of Islamo-nationalism rather than a realizable vision of a transnational umma. They are reduced to calling for the sharia, while many of their arguments for anti-imperialism, armed revolution, and social transformation have become increasingly hackneyed. Yet their sociocultural offerings based on conservative interdictions and limits on society seem to be incompatible with the demands of modern, urban, and global social interaction. At the political level they are blocked, unable to achieve their route to an Islamic state because of the triple pressures of state repression, Western intransigence, and the violent activities of radical Islamists. In Algeria, the coalition of hittistes—the pious bourgeoisie—and Islamist intelligentsia uniting around a populist, Islamo-nationalist ideology has fallen apart. As Luis Martinez (2000) notes, “The Islamist passion . . . seemed to fade as the war became routine.” Perhaps there is some way out for Islamist social movements like the FIS if it is possible to have a pact-based transition to democracy that results from a period of confrontation and bargaining (see Waterbury 1994). Before 1992, the FIS was not habituated to “apprenticeship as a minority participant” for a variety of reasons, not least of which was the manner in which elections were conducted (Waterbury 1994: 36). The restoration of state authority may create the context for a domesticated Islamist movement to participate in a controlled process of political liberalization and social reconstruction. The challenge for Islamist oppositional movements like the FIS is to resolve their moral crisis and overcome the legacy of violence in the 1990s by seeking recognition as Muslim democrats respecting human rights and free expression in a way that appeals to the secular middle class and other social forces (Kepel 2000). For this to occur, Islamists have to accept certain rules, most important being the primacy of a constitutional, secular order. The possibility for a pacted transition may be better now, after years of conflict, to the extent that the FIS has relativized Islamic doctrine out of political expediency, moderated its winner-take-all mentali-

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ty due to regime-imposed marginalization, and fragmented in a way that regime moderates can capitalize upon. However, global economic change and geopolitical developments may ultimately make the transformative task of the FIS very difficult. Throughout its struggle, the FIS has failed to gain recognition from Europe, the United States, and Arab governments of the legitimacy of its political role and of its conception of social relations. Since the events of September 11, the international community has even less interest in a political reconciliation in which Islamists like the FIS participate, given the globalization of the battle against terrorism. The United States has bolstered political support for Bouteflika’s war on terrorism, beefed up cooperation with military leaders, and encouraged U.S. investment and sales in Algeria. The European Union signed an association agreement with Algerian authorities in early 2002 and cracked down on Islamists throughout Europe. Thus, the FIS can expect nothing from the European Union and the United States, even if it does succeed in reshaping itself into a more unified, democratic, and mainstream party. Algeria’s experience with the global political economy, in conjunction with the repression by its military leaders, has ravaged the Islamists as much as it has the country’s citizens. To recover from its nightmare, Algeria will need not only a less Islamist FIS but also less hypocritical secular democrats, more civic-minded Berber parties, and a military willing to retreat to the barracks for the first time since independence.

Notes 1. Madani is generally considered to be the main leader of the moderate, nationalist wing of the party. He was in jail or under house arrest from June 1991 until the completion of his sentence in June 2003. 2. Following the jailing in June 1991 of Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj, the two leading FIS figures, Hachani directed the party’s electoral campaign leading up to the first round of parliamentary elections in December 1991. Following the January 1992 coup d’état, this technocratic, number three in the FIS was jailed and later released in 1997. While allegedly favoring a dialogue with the government and other political forces, Hachani was assassinated in December 1999. 3. Kébir became prominent in the FIS after 1992 when he took up leadership of the FIS Executive Committee Abroad, an important, German-based faction of the outlawed FIS. 4. After the 1992 coup, Haddam headed an FIS faction in the United States called the FIS Parliamentary Delegation Abroad. After flirting with a violent Islamist group in 1994 and 1995, he had a falling-out with Kébir. He was arrested and incarcerated in the United States in late 1996, only to be released in December 2000. 5. Djeddi was one of a number of second-level FIS officials below Madani, Belhadj, and Hachani. Although arrested after the coup, he was released in early

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1994. Considered a moderate, he urged Islamists in 1995 to lay down their arms. 6. Belhadj, a fiery, young orator, is deputy leader of the FIS and a supporter of radical policies. He was imprisoned from June 1991 until his release in June 2003. 7. The GIA emerged in 1993 as one of the most violent Islamist organizations in Algeria. It is committed to the overthrow of the Algerian regime and establishment of an Islamic state. By 1995 it had become a virulent opponent of the FIS as well as the FIS’s armed wing, the Armée Islamique du Salut (AIS, Islamic Salvation Army). Made up of a group a former Afghanis, disaffected youth, and criminals, the GIA has regularly resorted to assassination of foreigners and intellectuals, kidnapping and rape of women, massacres in villages, destruction of public schools, and terrorism in France. In early 2002, its leader, Antar Zouabri, was killed by the Algerian army. 8. The AIS, officially formed in 1994, was the outgrowth of an armed movement known as the Mouvement Islamique Armé (MIA). It was headed by Madani Mezrag, who was not under the tight control of the FIS’s civilian leadership. Although committing a number of assassinations and attacks on infrastructure, the AIS was not considered as violent as the GIA; nor did it have as many recruits and as broad a territorial base as the GIA. 9. One of the motivations for the Barcelona Process was the fact that the European Union had in the late 1980s and early 1990s neglected the southern Mediterranean as it shifted massive financial resources and attention to Eastern Europe. 10. The intended pun in French derives from the fact that “FIS” and “fils” are pronounced the same way. 11. For example, Abassi Madani was particularly intent on recuperating much of the stock of legitimacy of the FLN by appealing to its bigoted, arabophone base (Kepel 2000). 12. For example, unemployment among males in the 15–24 age range was at least 45 percent in 1990, rising to more than 60 percent by 1998. 13. In 1990, the National Popular Assembly passed a law that would make Arabic the official language of Algeria after 1997 and fine private companies or political parties that used either French or Berber. 14. Mahfoud Nahnah, who died in June 2003, was a moderate Islamist who advocated gradual Islamization of society and rejected violence as a political instrument. His Hamas party, later renamed the Mouvement pour une Société de Paix (MSP), participated in the 1991 parliamentary elections. Nahnah also ran as a candidate against Liamine Zéroual in the 1995 presidential election. In 1997, MSP participated in parliamentary elections, winning 69 out of 380 seats, and subsequently joined a coalition cabinet along with members of the FLN and Zéroual’s party, the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND). Like Nahnah, Abdallah Djaballah is a generally moderate Islamist willing to cooperate with Algeria’s authoritarian rulers. His an-Nahda party won 34 out of 380 seats in the 1997 parliamentary elections. Djaballah split from his an-Nahda in 1999 to form a new party called the Mouvement de la Réforme Nationale (MRN). He was a candidate in the 1999 presidential election (in which Nahnah was barred from running). 15. The FFS is headed by Hocine Ait-Ahmed, a historic figure in the war of independence who has emphasized secularism, pluralism, protection of human rights, and promotion of Berber rights. The RCD is headed by Said Saadi, a strident secularist and anti-Islamist who supported the 1992 coup.

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16. Responding to Berber unrest, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in late 2001 had the constitution amended to make Tamazigh, the main Berber language, an officially recognized national language. 17. During the Algerian war of liberation from 1954 to 1962, Frantz Fanon was an influential writer on the subject of anticolonial violence. In his analysis of Algeria’s deep-rooted, war-oriented imaginaire, Fanon (1967) argued that the horrific violence and social destruction experienced during the war would be a cathartic process, producing a new, more unified Algerian identity and national purpose. Arguably, his predictions were not borne out following independence and, in light of the effects of the most recent decade of violence, seem even more ludicrous. 18. For two recent accounts that implicate the Algerian military and security services in some of the country’s violent acts, see Habib Souaïdia (2001) and Nesroulah Yous (2000). 19. In addition to the GIA, another violent and criminal Islamist group is the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat headed by Hassan Hattab. 20. From early 1992 through December 1993, Algeria was governed by a selfappointed, five-member collective executive called the High Council of State (HCS). It was initially chaired by Muhammed Boudiaf, a respected figure from the war of liberation who had returned from a long, self-imposed exile in Morocco. Boudiaf was assassinated in June 1992. Following a failed effort to convince the main political parties to join a national dialogue conference in January 1994, the HCS named Zéroual head of state. 21. After the 1992 coup, the FLN redefined itself as an opposition party and argued that the HCS was unconstitutional. Although willing to enter into negotiations with the government, Abdelhamid Mehri, the FLN’s leader, opposed the government and called for a boycott of the 1995 presidential election. In early 1996, Mehri was ousted as secretary-general by Boualem Behamouda, who proceeded to ally the party with Zéroual. 22. Drawing a distinction between the FIS and violent Islamist groups was not common in France, which was shocked by GIA metro bombings and the GIA’s murder of seven French Trappist monks in Algeria in 1996. It can be argued that French society, like European society as a whole, though concerned by human rights abuses committed by the Algerian military, views Algerian Islamists collectively as a threat. 23. In 1997, under pressure from the Belgians, Zaoui fled to Switzerland. In 1998, the Swiss authorities expelled him to Burkina Faso. In 2000, he moved to Malaysia. In December 2002, he fled to New Zealand where he applied for political asylum. The New Zealand government declared him a national security risk, incarcerated him, and threatened him with deportation. In early 2004, he was petitioning for release and a granting of refugee status. 24. Shortly after the election, Le Monde cited a military official as indicating that turnout was only 23 percent and that Bouteflika won 28 percent of the votes to Ibrahimi’s 20 percent, Ait Ahmed’s 13 percent, Djaballah’s 13 percent, and Hamrouche’s 12 percent.

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8

Islamism and Iran’s Postrevolutionary Economy: The Case of the Bonyads

The crudest depictions of fundamentalism tend to focus on the anachronisms inherent in the endeavor to implement a literal interpretation of religious scripture. As the first state in modern history to emerge as the result of a fundamentalist revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran helped to define these very stereotypes. Under the leadership of its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, revolutionary Iran invoked Islamic doctrine as its primary legitimation and appeared to reject the centuries-old system of nationstates in favor of an idealized notion of the Muslim umma, or “community of believers.” Through its policies and institutions, its rhetoric and cultural requirements, Khomeini’s Iran appeared in many respects to be retrospective and retrograde. However, nothing in the Islamic Republic of Iran has ever been quite as simple as appearances may suggest. As both the Iranian state and the scholarly understanding of it have matured, it has become clear that the republic does not represent a reversion to some mythical bygone era. Unlike other arguably fundamentalist states, such as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran’s Islamic government was forced from its inception to absorb the institutions and expectations of a complex state with a long tradition of participatory politics as well as a multifaceted integration into the international economy. As Olivier Roy points out, the postrevolutionary regime “had to establish a new Islamic political order . . . not on a tabula rasa” but on the foundation of all these forces that had coalesced to effect the revolution (Roy 1999: 204). Irrespective of the intentions of the clergy at its helm, revolutionary Iran had to adapt its explicitly traditionalist worldview to meet the demands of consolidating power and governing a thoroughly modern state. Nowhere is this adaptation more evident than in the evolution of the economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. For the most part, the clerics who managed to prevail in the power struggle that dominated political life for sev191

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eral years after the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi had little regard for economic theory and the realities of the marketplace. As Khomeini is famously said to have declared, the revolution was not about the price of melons. Ironically, the strongest influence on the economic structure and policies of the new state was not Shiite jurisprudence, which, in fact, has traditionally been interpreted to sanction private enterprise, but rather the radical fusion of Marxist dogma with Islamic invocations to strive for social justice that had been popularized in Iran during the 1970s. This ideological predisposition converged with the practical imperatives of imposing order over Iran’s revolutionary chaos to condition the enduring dominance of the state in the management of the national economy. The revolution may not have been waged over the price of melons, but the government that it established asserted its authority over every aspect of the marketplace. In doing so, Islamic Iran empowered a unique set of institutions, parastatal foundations (bonyad, sing.), as the beneficiaries of billions of dollars in assets that had been either seized from the former royal family and other exiled elites or nationalized during the revolution. Bonyad control of vast sectors of Iran’s economy was ostensibly intended to address the philanthropic needs of designated constituencies, although the bonyads operate quite distinctly from the historic system of mosque-based charitable endowments (vaqf, sing; awqaf, pl.). Despite their detachment from the religious infrastructure, the bonyads compose an integral component of the clerical power structure in the Islamic Republic, through financial support of the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (whose title is given as jurisprudent, faqih, sing., or guide, rahbar, sing.), who in turn utilizes this income to support and expand his political base among the clergy. As powerful institutions born not of religious doctrine but rather of revolutionary idealism and opportunism, the bonyads are emblematic of the political economy of Islamic Iran. Although their establishment implicitly slighted the clergy’s historical institutions in favor of state interests, the bonyads remain steeped in an identity and a legitimacy that cannot be separated from their ideational foundations in the 1979 revolution. Their mandate to enhance the new state’s commitment to social justice—a fundamental principle of the revolution—facilitated their assumption of nearly unlimited authority and their adoption of an expansive agenda. This mandate has long impeded necessary oversight of their accounts and activities. The narrative of the bonyads parallels the structural and ideological transformation of the Islamic state from its first expansion of state apparatus and institutionalization of the ideological objectives of the revolution, to the drive for postwar reconstruction and economic competitiveness. In consequence, the outcome of recent efforts to reform these organizations is likely to play a key role in the success or failure of the larger project of reform in Iran. An examination of the bonyads will contribute to our under-

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standing of the implementation of an “Islamic” economy in revolutionary Iran, as well as to our expectations regarding the future course of the Iranian economy.

Postrevolutionary Economy The revolution’s focus on social justice as a key concept unifying the disparate interests opposing the shah directly linked its outcome to the welfare of the country’s populace. Although sharp differences would emerge within the postrevolutionary coalition, and even within the ruling clergy (‘alim, sing.; ulema, pl.) over the nature of the economy and the extent of government intervention, the postrevolutionary regime supervised both an instrumental (though ultimately ineffective) redistribution of socioeconomic power and an ideational transformation of the state’s approach to development and economic planning. Ironically, given the revolutionary coalition’s castigation of state management of the economy under the monarchy, the successor state pursued policies that featured an even more central role for the government, which had assumed direct ownership and control of many expropriated resources through the National Iranian Industries Organization or the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization. In the early years of the Islamic Republic, the creation of new vehicles of authority and influence and the redistribution of formerly elite-owned resources accompanied a dramatic program of nationalization of major sectors of the economy, including all private banks, insurance companies, all heavy industries (which included the mining and metals industries as well as plane, ship, and automobile manufacture plants), and all factories and organizations in debt (Moaddel 1993: 252–3). Nonetheless, there is little evidence that this outcome—state ownership, vast layers of government regulation, an inadequate tax base, endemic corruption and inefficient public investment, and a rentier system of foreign exchange management—represented the original intention of the revolution’s leadership, was the consensus of its constituent actors, or was the product of conscious and deliberate planning. In fact, consistent with traditional Shiite jurisprudence, which generally holds private property rights to be inviolable, Ayatollah Khomeini was a reliably staunch defender of the sanctity of private property and the role of the private sector: “in his fortysix years of political activity, Khomeini shifted ground on many issues, but he remained remarkably steadfast on the crucial issue of private property” (Abrahamian, 1993: 39–34). This predisposition was reinforced by the ulema’s strong alliance with the merchant community, forged on the basis of their common understanding of the economic, political, and cultural threats posed by the shah’s modernization programs. Indeed, this proved to

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be the key factor in the success of the movement against the shah. Khomeini spoke out repeatedly during the early years of the revolution against unlawful confiscation of property and the desirability of a secure environment to attract the return of domestic capital. Khomeini and the Council of Guardians that he appointed to vet parliamentary legislation consistently favored a conservative interpretation of Islamic law and tradition regarding legislative disputes concerning the economy. As a result, aggressive measures for land reform and the nationalization of foreign trade were ultimately rejected by the Council of Guardians. In practice, however, Khomeini found that tortuous political competition, chaos and violence in the streets, international financial pressures, and, most significantly, the war with Iraq demanded a central role for the state in the postrevolutionary economy. In this environment, Khomeini’s rhetoric began to focus more on the role of the oppressed (mostazafan, pl., a term that had been far less prominent in his earlier writings and in his messages to Iran sent from exile during the revolutionary mobilization). Once in power, the ulema articulated a strong appeal to the Iranian poor, broadening the reference of the term to incorporate an ever wider socioeconomic range of the population. This was part of a strategy to outmaneuver their rivals within the revolutionary coalition: They did so, first because the lower classes were seen as a solid social basis for the new regime; second because lower-class radicalism in the post-revolution forced the clergy to adopt a radical language; and third, because the clergy’s emphasis on mustaz’afin could disarm the left’s proletarian discourse after the revolution. (Bayat 1997: 43)

Even Khomeini’s canonical defense of private property seems to have become more nuanced after he had assumed power, tacitly sanctioning the wave of expropriations and the political tremors that followed the revolution. In an atmosphere of political instability, labor unrest, and the flight of capital and expertise, the government’s mandate to provide social justice and protect the downtrodden resonated with the population and became functionally embedded in the structure and policies of the postrevolutionary regime. The transformation in Khomeini’s rhetoric, while endorsing a significant reconstitution of state control of the economy, did not wholly override his innate conservatism on economic issues. As a result, it perpetuated the bitter dispute among the political elite, between those dubbed “Islamic socialists”—advocates of a larger state economic role to cultivate a more socially just order based on the radical theories of Mahmud Taleqani, Mohammad Baqer Sadr, and others—and those who, either out of institutional interest or a more conservative interpretation of Islamic law, were committed to the legal protection of private property and private enterprise.

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The debates over nationalizing foreign trade, subsidizing basic consumer goods, and supporting organs and programs such as the cooperative sector exhausted a great deal of the political capital of the ruling clerics. It also threatened their instrumental alliance with the merchant community. These controversies dominated the first five years of Majlis activity, and their legacy continues to stymie structural adjustment in Iran today. Populist rhetoric never achieved a broad restructuring of the socioeconomic base in Iran. Indeed, dueling approaches to the economy intensified the patrimonial dimension of governance—such a critical component of the shah’s legitimacy—and left an ambiguous legacy for the market in Iran. In the absence of a fully articulated command economy or the unfettered ability of private capital, both domestic and foreign, to pursue opportunities, the economy of the Islamic Republic stagnated, dominated by rent-seeking interest groups and agencies, such as the parastatal foundations that concentrate on enhancing their own market positions.

Parastatal Foundations in the Islamic Republic The election of President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami in 1997 sparked a vigorous public debate over the nature and future of Islamic rule, one that gradually extended to a critique of the country’s economy. As a result, discussion of the role of the parastatal organizations burst the bounds of censorship and ascended to the top of the list of priorities for the nascent reform movement. It also drew surprising attention from Western academics and policymakers. The willingness of the Iranian media and public to take on such a sensitive subject demonstrates the substantive achievements of the changing political climate. Until very recently, criticism of the foundations was conducted in private or was met by governmental recriminations. Today in Iran, such criticism has instead stimulated at least one major bonyad to seek a more accommodating relationship with the government, generating hopes for the eventual establishment of greater authority over bonyad activities. Yet, the discussion itself tends to be inadequate and flawed. Iran’s foundations represent a conveniently enigmatic proxy for the litany of frustrations and failings of the political and economic system of the republic. Unfortunately, much of the debate over the foundations is characterized by hyperbole, hearsay, and uninformed assumptions. Outside Iran, the bonyads are commonly credited with controlling 80 percent of Iran’s economy,1 a statistical impossibility, given the acknowledged size of the public sector (the latter a measure that the government, anxious to privatize, is unlikely to have inflated). Meanwhile, in Iran, the foundation leadership has taken great pains to rebut criticism with unsubstantiated figures attesting to the

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organizations’ rising profitability and contribution to the public good. Lost amid this populist outcry is any sense of the bonyads’ substantive impact, as well as their complicated interrelationship with the Islamic government in Iran. Often overlooked in discussions in both Iran and the West is a recognition of the broadness of the term: bonyad is a broad institutional designation, and many of these organizations have primarily or exclusively charitable and cultural agendas. Thus, the vast majority of Iranian bonyads are simply nonprofit organizations or research institutes. Nonetheless, in policy circles and the press, the word bonyad has become conflated with several infamous organizations, such as the Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan (MJF, Foundation for Oppressed and War-Wounded), whose economic agendas match or outweigh their philanthropic purpose. At the risk of contributing to that misrepresentation here, let me stress that while most bonyads are thriving examples of the small but significant domain of civil society that has forged a precarious existence on the fringes of the Islamic state in Iran, this chapter will in fact focus on the outliers. It is also important to differentiate between semigovernmental bonyads, such as the MJF, and the traditional religious endowments that have played a significant role in the development of economies and the accumulation of landed property in Muslim societies for a millennium. There are compelling parallels between parastatal bonyads like the MJF and the awqaf with respect to their massive financial clout, conservative factional leanings, and extensive operational autonomy. Indeed, the critiques and reform strategies offered below apply in equal degree to both sets of institutions. However, awqaf occupy a different place from the postrevolutionary organizations, both in Islamic history and in the administrative framework of Islamic Iran, and these distinctions warrant brief attention at the outset. For centuries, Islamic endowments have contributed to the public benefit—financing the construction and development of mosques, schools, hospitals, and other charitable endeavors—as well as to individual advantage by augmenting the security of inheritances (Anderson 1991: 11; Keddie 1981: 17). To the clergy, awqaf offered both immediate financial rewards and secure income for the religious educational system. In sixteenth-century Iran, new conceptualizations of property rights and the religiosity of the Safavid Dynasty greatly expanded the scope of these religious foundations. Since that time, the strength of Iran’s religious endowments afforded Iran’s ulema, unlike their counterparts in the Arab world, “economic independence” from the state (Keddie 1995: 12). For many of the same reasons, Islamic charities have engaged various governments in clashes for influence with the clergy. Many regimes attempted to regulate the utilization of vaqf assets, to confiscate or reallo-

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cate their properties, and to reinterpret their legal status selectively (Kozlowski 1985; Reiter 1996). Such conflicts emerged prior to the Islamic revolution, whenever the Pahlavi shahs attempted to control or restrict vaqf management—something that instilled deep resentment and prompted closer cooperation between the ulema and the merchant communities (VakiliZad 1992: 22; Moghadam 1990: 148–154; Morshiri 1984: 97). After the revolution, the republic focused on eliminating those legal restrictions on charitable endowments imposed under the shah that had been considered unjust or detrimental to the maintenance of vaqf assets. It annulled preferential leases and sales and returned titles to properties that had formerly belonged to religious charities as part of a larger program of land reform. The government assumed limited responsibility for religious endowments in 1984, with the establishment of the Organization for Religious Endowments and Charitable Affairs under the supervision of the faqih. The fortunes of the largest vaqf in Iran, the Bonyad-e Astan-e Qods-e Razavi in Mashhad, demonstrate the continuing influence of these institutions in Iran’s economy and politics (Amirahmadi 1995: 234–235; Avery, Hambley, and Melville 1991: 487; Shahbáz 1997). The annual budget of Astan-e Qods-e Razavi is said to be in the range of $2 billion. It owns or controls much of the province of Khorassan, as well as assets bequeathed to it over the years in the capital and throughout Iran.2 Its mutavalli (superintendent) is Ayatollah Abbas Va’ez Tabasi, a close ally of Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Va’ez Tabasi also serves as Khamenei’s provincial representative and is a member of the Expediency Council. From these positions, he vociferously opposes political liberalization. The shrine, through the family of Va’ez Tabasi and its management of the Sarakhs Free Trade Zone, is intimately involved with the economic development of the province and in Iran’s trade with its northern and eastern neighbors. Other awqaf, such as the foundation attached to the shrine of Shah Abdolazim in Shahr-e Rey, command vast amounts of resources, and nearly all of the country’s 79,000 religious institutions are entrusted with endowments. A highly unscientific survey by several Iranian academics concluded that Iran’s mosques alone command 69,000 billion rials in assets, 24,000 billion rials in endowments, and 1,290 billion rials in nongovernmental income (Akhavi-Pour and Azodanloo 1998: 77). Religious endowments licensed by the state (via the Endowments Organization) are exempt from taxation and other government fees, and there is no state oversight of their activities and accounts. However, the parastatal foundations are where the republic has invested a far greater volume of assets. The most important of these foundations are legally designated as public nongovernmental organizations, a some-

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what paradoxical classification, but an accurate reflection of the bifurcated nature of authority in the Islamic Republic (Resalat, November 12, 1997: 12–13). Emblematic of the redistributive and idealized character of the Islamic revolution in both name and mission, the foundations exemplify one of the core ideological innovations of the revolution’s architect, Ayatollah Khomeini: the amalgamation of traditional religious imagery and modern organizational forms in a populist, class-rooted appeal that deliberately targets a broad array of socioeconomic groups. Yet these organizations, operating in the name of deprived segments of the population, have, in practice, developed into conglomerates oriented toward capital accumulation, with their proclaimed ideological objectives distinctly subordinate though never fully subsumed. The Islamic era in Iran has seen a surge in the number of foundations that are unconnected to the traditional vaqf system of charitable endowments. The handful of bonyads existing outside the religious infrastructure prior to the revolution had been conceived as vehicles for the shah’s personal political goals, and naturally their close identification with the monarchy resulted in their dissolution soon after his ouster. In their place, the republic spawned a wide range of bonyads as part of a frenzy of institution-building during the postrevolutionary consolidation of power and authority. Reflecting the institutional dualism that prevailed during the early months of postrevolutionary consolidation, these bonyads tended to replicate functions formally assigned to the central government. In some cases, foundations merged with ministries or evolved into independent government agencies for reasons involving logistical efficiency, political infighting, or both. Several of the bonyads established after the revolution are active primarily in the cultural arena, such as the cinema-oriented Farabi Foundation. Others—including the Sazman-e Tablighat-e Islami and the Bonyad-e Resalat (which publishes an influential conservative newspaper with the same name)—are powerful vehicles for disseminating Islamic ideology and energetic partisans in the factional wrangling that is a persistent feature of politics in Iran. Several of the largest and most influential new foundations were entrusted with protecting victims of the revolution and the war that soon followed and, more broadly, with fulfilling the revolutionary mandate to promote a more just society. These include the Bonyad-e Shahid, established in March 1980 to provide services to veterans of the revolution and their families (and, later, to families of casualties in the war with Iraq), and the Imam’s Relief Committee, which provides medical, educational, and social assistance to needy rural families. Both receive (and increasingly rely on) substantial government funding3 and also engage in industrial activities through a web of subsidiary enterprises.4

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Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan The case of the Foundation for the Oppressed best illustrates the challenges to the state posed by these institutions. The reach of this foundation extends throughout the economic, political, and social life of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Bonyad-e Mostazafan was established on March 5, 1979, by Khomeini’s decree. It immediately absorbed the Pahlavi Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by the former shah in 1958. That institution had served a variety of purposes for Mohammad Reza Shah, shielding his assets from public criticism while providing an umbrella for the royal family’s investments and a vehicle for its prestige and patronage. The Pahlavi Foundation had also, and not insignificantly, initiated a modern network of philanthropy outside of Iran’s traditional, religious-based community organizations. In reorganizing the shah’s personal foundation, the new regime vested it with extraordinary resources and political consequence. In addition to the approximately $3.2 billion in Pahlavi Foundation holdings, the Revolutionary Council directed the Central Bank to provide a 1 billion rial loan to the new organization (Rashidi 1994: 47). In addition, when the assets of the country’s fifty-one largest industrialists were nationalized, many of these were transferred to the control of the MJF (Ehteshami 1995: 83–88). Like the Pahlavi Foundation, the MJF quickly assumed a multidimensional role. Its initial charter sketched its mandate in the vaguest terms, authorizing the seizure of all the shah’s properties and those of his “affiliates, agents and associates” to be “duly utilized for the benefit of the needful people from all walks of life, in such development projects as housing, farming etc” (Moayed 1991). The foundation’s initial expansion demonstrated the extent to which the former elites had lost all popular support. Public clamor for expropriation in some cases actually preempted government action, and radical labor mobilization, assertiveness by neighborhood security organizations, fatigue among embattled owners, and shifts in government policy also unhinged the socioeconomic order. The MJF’s establishment heralded the wholesale organizational and ideological transformation of the state orchestrated by the Revolutionary Council under Khomeini’s leadership. This foundation, along with several others, formed the centerpiece of the republic’s commitment to social justice and a more equitable distribution of national wealth. It thereby embodied one of Khomeini’s key themes—the victory of the mostazafan over their oppressors (Abrahamian 1993: 16). During this period, the foundations, which were explicitly outside the Provisional Government’s scope, also exacerbated the rivalry between it and the Revolutionary Council.5

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In these respects, the Bonyad-e Mostazafan and similar organizations became de facto power centers, serving a profuse and often contradictory set of purposes. Their resources and access to power enabled these organizations to generate goals of their own as well as mechanisms for achieving them. From the start, the foundations also served as convenient repositories for the accumulated economic dilemmas of the new order. Through these institutions, the new government strove to restore the nation’s economic life and outmaneuver leftist elements within the initial coalition government (Nowshirvani and Clawson 1994: 255; Ehteshami 1995: 86). The early history of the MJF was marred by poor management, a host of debts and unproductive assets in its vast portfolio, and recurring problems with corruption. In May 1980, on the heels of an investigation into the foundation, Khomeini delegated its administration to the office of the prime minister. Over time, while other institutions succumbed to pressure for greater efficiency and transparency during the government’s fitful attempts at economic reform, the vicissitudes of Iran’s ideological and political currents did not impinge substantially on the autonomy of the MJF (and certain other foundations). In fact, the MJF was strengthened by the war with Iraq, which, in forcing the consolidation of clerical authority, intensified the Islamization of society and expanded the jurisdiction of these trusted vehicles of power (Workman 1994: 128–130). The MJF’s mission (and title) expanded in 1989 to include responsibility for those wounded in the war with Iraq, elevating its position within the social order to protector of those who had risked their lives for the republic. The MJF’s expansion led to its reorganization into three functionally distinct divisions: one to manage general charitable activities; one to oversee activities directed toward disabled veterans; and a third responsible for the foundation’s financial and industrial affairs (Gozaresh, 1998–1999: 15). From the assets of two philanthropic divisions, the foundation claims to provide subsistence for approximately a half-million Iranians. Its veterans’ division provided housing and wide-ranging rehabilitative programs to the disabled and does research and advocacy work on their behalf. 6 It also invests in twelve historically impoverished Iranian provinces, focusing on construction of schools, mosques, health care clinics, and leisure facilities, as well as capital investment and direct individual assistance. MJF programs bring 150,000 young Iranians to youth camps in Tehran and provide new clothing for a half-million underprivileged children to mark the No Ruz holiday each year (Sobhani interview 1998; Gozaresh 1998–1999: 284–314). The appointment of Ayatollah Khamenei to the position of supreme religious leader upon Khomeini’s death significantly changed the position of the foundations. Constitutional revisions made in 1989 strengthened the presidency and eliminated the prime minister’s position, leaving a gap in

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the division of power that was resolved in favor of the supreme religious leader (Ehteshami 1995: 47). Oversight of the MJF and other foundations was transferred from the central government to the leader’s office in what appeared to be a simple reversion to the status quo ante of the initial postrevolutionary period, but it actually represented a structural transformation of the government’s oversight function. The MJF’s day-to-day management was handed over to Mohsen Rafiqdust, who stepped down as commander of the Revolutionary Guard to take on this post. With these structural changes and the short-lived postwar economic boom, a dramatic shift in the MJF’s modus operandi took place. Direct government subsidies—which totaled 320 billion rials in 1989–1990, the first year of Rafiqdust’s authority—were eliminated. 7 From that point forward, the MJF’s involvement in production and investment increased substantially, as did its profits. Rafiqdust proudly compared the MJF’s now profitable balance sheet with its 26 billion rials in losses in the year preceding his arrival (Hamshahri, November 25, 1998; Islamic Republic News Agency, November 24, 1998). The precise details of these balance sheets are, of course, unclear. As a public nongovernmental institution, the MJF’s accounts are not publicly released, audited, or taxed. The financial and industrial division consists of economic organizations responsible for agriculture, commerce, construction and development, mining and industry, tourism and recreation, transportation, and real estate. Each of these manages subsidiary companies (approximately 400 in all) engaged in a remarkably broad range of endeavors from the manufacture of nonalcoholic beer to the operation of hotels and ownership of a leading Iranian soccer team (Jomhuri-ye Islami, November 25, 1998; MJF website). Its presence in key industries is commanding: MJF enterprises produce as much as 80 percent of Iranian textiles, two-thirds of all glass products, and significant proportions of tiles, chemicals, tires, and oil products; and they control sizeable shares of Iran’s tourism, transportation, and construction sectors (MJF website; Sobhani interview; IRNA, various reports from 1996–1998; Moshaver 1995: 22–23; Jomhuri-ye Islami, January 12, 1995: 13: Kayhan International, November 19, 1994: 8). Its scope is not limited to Iran; MJF subsidiaries have interests or trade relationships in Armenia, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Bulgaria, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Libya, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and the United Kingdom. Like the details of its holdings, the MJF’s income and profits are shrouded in ambiguity, and even those reports released by the foundation are characterized by contradictory and cryptic accounting conventions. The foundation’s total value is said be in the $10–12 billion range (Financial Times (FT), July 17, 1997: 4; The Economist, January 18, 1997: 7; Resalat,

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July 4, 1994: 5, 15). Management interviews cite profits of $170 million in 1996/1997 (1375 by the Iranian calendar), with a total of $430 million in the five preceding years (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 9, 1996). The MJF’s contribution to national income is significant, although here, too, estimates vary. Based on figures provided by the foundation and the government (all of questionable accuracy), I estimate that it is responsible for approximately 5 to 6 percent of Iran’s gross domestic product, admittedly a rough appraisal.8 By virtue of their charters, the revenues of the MJF and other organizations designated as public but nongovernmental (i.e., organs supervised by the rahbar) are not subject to taxation. The bonyads pay a sum equivalent to an estimate of their tax liabilities into a special account of the state treasury. These funds are managed by the bonyad and are ostensibly devoted to charitable activities (Arabmazar 1999; Salam, November 25, 1998: 1–2). Throughout the years, the bonyads have attracted popular protests (in Shiraz in 1992 and more recently in Mashhad) as well as scholarly critiques. Former MJF Director Mohsen Rafiqdust attributed the criticism to his provocative style of leadership. “It is related to my ways of management. Today in the universities they call this way of management ‘creative management.’ Whatever I decide, I will do it by all ways and powers. . . . For sure, people should be frightened of me” (Rafiqdust interview 2000). Rafiqdust’s “creative management” has been interpreted by many analysts, politicians, and ordinary Iranians alike as monopolistic and authoritarian.

Bonyad Impact on Iran’s Politics and Economy Religious endowments have a long history in Iran and other Islamic societies, but the MJF—which is the largest socioeconomic organization created since the advent of theocratic rule in Iran—is not attached to any religious institution. This highlights the extent to which the Islamic state in Iran was deliberately construed as superseding prevailing religious institutions rather than empowering them (Najmabadi 1987: 226–227; Zubaida 1989: 175–176). The decision to concentrate the treasures of the vilified monarchy in institutions unconnected to the clerical hierarchy demonstrates the regime’s awareness of both the potential utility of such a vehicle for generating resources and the dangers of its autonomy or capture by rivals, even within the clerical hierarchy. The Bonyad-e Mostazafan, like many other revolutionary institutions, was born at the intersection of charismatic patriarchal authority and the environment of contention among diverse social groups, and it was underwritten by the republic’s fusion of the monarchy’s distributive function with the revolution’s populist rhetoric. As political debate in Iran increasingly targets economic stagnation

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and the structural economic inefficiencies that plague the country, attention is focused on the distortions engendered by the foundations. Yet, before dismissing them out of hand, one should assess the potential for productive dynamism within these enterprises, as well as the possibilities for synergy between public and private enterprise. The bonyads’ very autonomy from the government suggests that their economic activities are less encumbered by political considerations than those of organizations that are strictly stateowned. Self-interest appears to motivate foundation management, an incentive structure that may be more rational than in state-owned enterprises, if for no other reason than that foundations face budget constraints, and some subsidiaries are permitted to fail. In addition, the foundations’ self-interested lobbying for policy changes, such as a smaller role for the government, removal of trade restrictions, and targeted subsidy removals, offers benefits to Iran’s economy. The bonyads are prominent supporters of Iran’s long-stalled bid to begin accession talks with the World Trade Organization (WTO)—a move that remains controversial among Iranian politicians and economists due to the painful reforms WTO membership would entail.9 Indeed, the foundations support privatization, and their active participation in the market for privatized state assets suggests that they could play a transitional role as mediators between the public and private sectors during adjustment to a smaller state role in the economy (Amirahmadi 1995; IMF 1995: 16). The bonyads may well be the only organizations in Iran capable of absorbing the assets of the state sector as it privatizes. Bonyad efforts to attract foreign direct investment, as well as to seek out overseas opportunities for their subsidiaries, also support the government’s articulated shift to an export-led growth strategy. In similar fashion, the foundations have occasionally cooperated with the government to manage the economy. It is standard practice for the Bonyad-e Mostazafan to increase basic food imports to compensate for government subsidy reductions, as well as to consult with the bazaar over inflationary price increases (The Economist, September 25, 1993: 58; Barraclough 1995: 9). Such crisis management contributes to social stability and could help to preclude the urban unrest that has waylaid structural adjustment programs elsewhere in the region. Bonyad contributions to the competitiveness and potential of the Iranian economy correspond to the image of symbiosis between state and private enterprise envisioned by the growing number of theorists rejecting the long-held neoutilitarian critique of state intervention and the rent-seeking competition it engenders. More disturbing, however, is the potential of these large and privileged parastatal foundations—owing to their size and political perks—to exacerbate the distortions that plague the Iranian economy. Their ambiguous status and the dearth of accurate information about their activities fosters the

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commonly held perception outside Iran that the bonyads are direct and pliant instruments of state power. Ironically, the converse is true. “With no governmental discretion over expenses, no shareholders, no public account, and no clear legal status,” the MJF operates outside the scope of the government, governed solely by its charter and internal regulations, and supervised only nominally by Iran’s supreme religious leader (Farzin 1995: 183; Moshaver 1995: 22–23). The formal institutions of government—the relevant cabinet ministries under the elected president—have no direct input into foundation decisionmaking. Even though the foundations operate largely on the basis of self-regulation, there are loose lines of accountability to the power structure. The faqih can appoint and remove the directors of the MJF and other foundations and, where applicable, their boards of trustees.10 Although its authority in this realm has been fiercely contested, the Iranian Parliament also retains some leverage over the foundations. Legislation prescribes roles for the charitable divisions of various bonyads that serve as official agencies, vetting claims for benefits made by veterans of the revolution and the war. Potentially more significant is the Majlis’s influence over the bonyads’ purse strings. The Parliament disburses some of the funding for veterans’ affairs and welfare activities that fall under the purview of the MJF and other foundations. In addition, the prevailing interpretation of the constitution accords the Majlis authority to investigate bonyad activities. However, such scrutiny requires the permission of the faqih and has been challenged by an Expediency Council decision affirming the prohibition on parliamentary investigation into state institutions under the rahbar’s direct supervision.11 In any event, to date this limited oversight authority serves more as a safety valve for public frustration than as an actual restraint on foundation practices; on the several occasions that inquiries were undertaken, they produced more reproaches than actual reform. The details of a widely touted 1995–1996 parliamentary inquiry into the MJF were never released publicly, although it reportedly concluded that the foundation had engaged in influence peddling (Middle East Economic Digest, June 3, 1996; Reuters Financial Service, May 26, 1996). The faqih’s supervision imposes few constraints on the activities of the foundations and their subsidiaries. The MJF and other parastatal bonyads, including Bonyad-e Shahid and Komiteh-ye Emdad, enjoy great influence with the senior leadership by virtue of their prominent place within bureaucratic and traditional networks. Insulated by their connections to influential social groups and powerful bureaucratic constituencies, bonyad managers have been able to evade excessive oversight and maximize their own rewards. In its economic activities, the MJF has repeatedly transgressed the law and the constitution and encroached on the turf of both the nascent private sector and state-run organizations. In 1995, the foundation established

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its own lending institution, the Bonyad Credit and Finance Association, which today boasts 365 billion rials in deposits in nearly 400,000 accounts (Shiva 1999). This move effectively violated constitutional prohibitions on private banking, and its unauthorized implementation set off a bitter quarrel with the Central Bank, which is responsible for approving and regulating all financial institutions. The MJF’s activities in the upstream end of Iran’s oil industry—a persistent objective of bonyad ambitions, undertaken most recently via joint ventures with Norwegian and Chinese companies— reportedly provoked similar territorial resentfulness from the National Iranian Oil Company (Agence France Presse [AFP], August 2, 2000). In addition to the bureaucratic implications of bonyad autonomy, the foundations’ self-regulatory mandate and minimal oversight from the supreme religious leader pose other hazards for the state. Domestically, it is widely believed—though not yet proved—that the foundations make substantial financial contributions to the office of the faqih. Iranian academics and journalists contend that the Bonyad-e Mostazafan provides the faqih with funding to support a wide network of prominent clerics. If true, it would be an inversion of the historical according of rank to those whose individual qualifications had secured them the support of lower-level clerics.12 This dynamic has engrained dual and dueling lines of authority under a system deliberately bifurcated between the formal, essentially religious institutions of government and those neotraditional networks, invested with sacral authority, associated with the ulema and the bazaar. In the international arena, the bonyads are alleged to have facilitated weapons procurement and production for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and provided financial support to and active political patronage of Lebanese Hezbollah and other violent organizations (Mohaddessin 1993: 133; Barth and Schmitt 1997: 182–184; Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 15, 1994; Katzman 1993: 33). Here again, the accuracy of these allegations cannot be determined. It is clear, however, that the conservative agenda of the foundations’ leaders extends internationally, where they tend to pursue separate and often contradictory foreign policies from those of the government. In so doing, the foundations threaten the sovereignty of the Iranian government by constraining its ability to act in the international arena and undermining its authority as the legitimate and unique incarnation of the national will, particularly because the foundations’ integration in the bifurcated Iranian system lends their undertakings the imprimatur of state sanction. Perhaps the clearest illustration of this dynamic can be seen in the treatment of the Bonyad-e Panzdah-e Khordad, which gained international notoriety in 1989 when it pledged a $2 million bounty for the implementation of Khomeini’s fatwa condemning author Salman Rushdie to death for apostasy. Bonyad-e Panzdah-e Khordad was closely associated with

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Khomeini, and its director is appointed by the faqih. Yet its administrative and financial autonomy enabled the government to assert that the foundation is not a public entity, allowing the regime to distance itself from the fatwa without explicitly disavowing or rescinding it, which would provoke the ire of Iran’s powerful hard-line factions.13 In this case and others, the bonyads’ ambiguous status and blurred lines of authority facilitated the two-track diplomacy that has been the hallmark of the republic’s international relations. Questions arise over whether the profits of the foundations should be reinvested or devoted to charitable purposes. Several organizations have been dogged since their inception by allegations of corruption and abuses of power. Initially at least, such charges inhered in their status as beneficiaries of expropriated resources, exposing the foundations to the enduring bitterness of the targets of government seizures. 14 Rising MJF earnings have, in fact, entrenched the popular image of the organization as exploitive and praetorian. Rafiqdust, despite his formal charge by Khamenei to rid the foundation of any fraud or excess, only further tainted it, particularly because of his family connections to a widely publicized embezzlement scandal.15 Even the bonyads’ genuinely philanthropic endeavors have evoked popular dissatisfaction. Changing social and economic conditions in Iran contributed to shifting priorities among its population. Many Iranians now question the public support these foundations receive. Such reservations particularly apply to the bonyads’ international philanthropy. The Bonyad-e Shahid, established to care for the families of casualties of Iran’s revolution and war, is actively involved in charitable activities in Lebanon and other Muslim countries, and the Komiteh-ye Emdad performs international development work and distributes disaster relief in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, as well as in Kosovo and Lebanon. Potentially more sensitive are signs of the population’s growing disenchantment with domestic priorities of the revolution. The distribution of special rights, such as priority in university admission and employment to bonyad constituencies among families of war veterans and casualties, has become highly politicized in Iran, where there is intense competition for the limited number of university places available (Yarshater 1985: 360–361; Amirahmadi 1995: 236–237; Iran Research Group 1989: 10, 45–46). On a purely fiscal basis, it is difficult to determine whether the bonyads actually organize or operate their subsidiaries efficiently. The Bonyad-e Panzdah-e hordad’s ability to deliver even a small percentage of the multimillion-dollar sum it pledged toward the implementation of the Rushdie fatwa was considered highly dubious by those familiar with its financial position, especially in light of its minimal capital commitment to a grandiose dam project in which it participated. The MJF’s performance

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also raises similar questions. In one recent case, despite the fact that the Mostazafan was the only organization outside the government authorized to operate a domestic air carrier, its Bon Air subsidiary declared bankruptcy after five years of losses. Some textile factories may be forced into bankruptcy, and one observer has charged that its agricultural division is “in ruins” (Iran Press Digest January 16, 1999; Iran News, October 3, 1996: 2–3). Some failures are obscured by the foundation’s opportunistic privatization initiative, trumpeted as a contribution to the government’s structural adjustment programs but that also serves as a convenient means of divesting unproductive assets without regard to the human toll.16 Beyond their direct costs to the state, the bonyads’ political and economic activity presents other challenges to government economic development efforts. Despite comparisons to semigovernmental organizations in East Asia, there is no evidence that the foundations can provide the kinds of innovation, technology transfer, and entrepreneurship that characterize the activities of South Korean chaebol or Japanese keiretsu (Ehteshamie July 1995: 20–22). Rather, the bonyads’ most successful sectors appear to replicate traditional areas of merchant community expertise—trading, construction, and, more recently, credit and finance. They have done little to foster scientific, technical, and industrial research. Moreover, rather than cultivating a climate for entrepreneurial activity, the bonyads—like the state itself—intimidate and constrain Iran’s historically anemic private sector. The perquisites at the disposal of the bonyads also must be considered in appraising their bottom lines. The foundations benefit from preferential access to foreign exchange, which enables them to muscle out small businesspeople. Political clout enabled them to compensate when the exchange rate was briefly liberalized by securing additional credit from the state-controlled banking sector (Karshenas and Pesaran 1994: 171). Further, the bonyads are not subject to most of the regulations governing the activities of state-owned enterprises. This frees them from government audits and other restrictions, such as employment regulation. The scant oversight also lends credence to suggestions that the MJF is an active participant in Iran’s underground economy, where reportedly it sells everything from foreign currency to pharmaceuticals to contraband U.S. cigarettes (Farzin 1995: 183; Mackey 1996: 370; Scheurer 1994: 99–101). The nature and scope of the bonyads impede efforts to promote competition and economic efficiency in Iran. The MJF’s vast portfolio, along with its political influence, confers market dominance. Its relationships with other bonyads and with state-owned enterprises offer preferential access to contracts and opportunities. The pattern of cooperative activities and resource transfer between the various foundations (and with the government) suggests that these organizations, individually and as a group, exert a significant level of market control. Aggregating industrial activity within

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the bonyads during the initial period of postrevolutionary consolidation and during the war offered the best potential for economies of scale. However, at some juncture, Iranian planners must address the extent to which these foundations’ extensive vertical and horizontal integration in key industries actually restrains economic development. The Mostazafan controls car production and shipping and engineers the largest road and rail projects. Its economic reach deters competition and creates barriers to entry by new private-sector actors in these markets. The foundations engage in tactics that epitomize unfair trade practices, and they constrain growth by subverting competition and amplifying external concerns about Iran’s climate for foreign investment. Even where their own economic interests are not directly threatened, the inherently political agenda of the foundations tends to undermine efforts to instill a more outward orientation in the Iranian economy, despite their international connections and opportunistic pursuit of foreign investment and trade. Individual enterprises may operate on the basis of rational signaling, but bonyad central management pursues broader sociopolitical objectives with respect to their stated charitable constituencies as well as to their interaction with clerical and merchant networks. The lack of transparency and accountability surrounding the bonyads adds to the sizable gray zone of economic activity on the fringes of legal enterprise. Since the anticorruption crackdowns of the early 1990s, rentseeking behavior among government enterprises has become more resourceful. The proliferation of private companies attached to government ministries—which utilize government resources for the benefit of private groups or individuals—has been exacerbated by inadequate regulatory control (Moqaddam 1997: 7). Through quasilegal maneuvers, government resources have been effectively transferred beyond the purview of the state, enriching well-placed individuals along the way and contributing to the escalation of prices through noncompetitive bidding (Resalat, August 27, 1997: 1, 13). The proliferation of state-affiliated enterprises—sometimes referred to as first-generation companies, to indicate their degree of distance from actual government ownership/control—represents one of the most serious problems for the Iranian economy today, and the bonyads represent the most prominent offenders. One Iranian legal expert castigates the bonyads as “a government within a government. For this reason they can affect the entire process of the national economy” (quoted in Iran May 29, 2000: 5). Finally, the myths about the foundations—their potent political connections and vast array of assets—contribute to the lack of confidence in the security of capital that plagues Iran. Even if their balance sheets were demonstratively healthy, the fortunes of the bonyads are largely built on confiscated or expropriated resources and their continuing capacity to wrest

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a host of perks from a recalcitrant government bureaucracy. These factors evoke in Iranians a sense of threat and injustice. As one Iranian economist cautions, in the long run “an organization that does not see it necessary to abide by conventional systems will have to adjust or default” (New York Times, January 7, 1995: 8). The new era of Iranian politics, inaugurated by the 1997 presidential election and furthered by the emergence of a popular movement advocating reform, is confronting the foundations with those very alternatives.

Reform of the Bonyads This new era has produced an explosion of publications marked by a growing audacity and organizational purpose among writers and political activists and a new climate for inquiry into the affairs and management of the parastatal bonyads. Ironically, this public debate, empowered by President Mohammad Khatami’s administration, was furthered by the arrest and trial of one of his key allies, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, then the mayor of Tehran, on charges of corruption. Karbaschi’s prosecution unleashed a new level of factional infighting within the political elite. It also emboldened the reformist media to dig into the affairs of the foundations, partially as a result of charges of preferential dealings between the MJF and the municipality that were aired during the mayor’s trial. Responding to the Karbaschi trial, one publication prodded: Equally, people ask why the judiciary has not investigated the reports of the Research Committee of the Islamic Consultative Majles concerning the Foundation of the Oppressed or the Voice and Vision. . . . These double standards have strengthened the public suspicion regarding the political nature of the trial of the mayor of Tehran. (Mobin, July 18, 1988: 2–4)

Another reformist journal audaciously questioned state subsidies to the prosperous Bonyad-e Astan-e Qods-e Razavi, suggesting that any transfers should, in fact, occur in reverse. In a thinly veiled jab at the MJF and other large parastatal foundations, the magazine continued: “Nongovernmental foundations which receive limitless and unaccountable government funds, and which are not answerable to the government or the nation, are among the most difficult economic, political, cultural, and even foreign policy problems of the country” (Iran-e Farda September 23–October 22, 1997: 25–28). At a basic level, this criticism targets the most serious distortions presented by the foundations: challenges to the authority of the state, the undermining of Iran’s competitiveness, and the institutionalization of rentier factionalism. Mohammad Reza Khabaz, then a member of the Majlis

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Economic and Financial Affairs Commission, lamented that the foundations are “far from the supervisory eyes of the Majles and . . . remote from the supervisory eyes of the responsible agents of the economy and assets” (Salaam, November 25, 1998: 1–2). Criticism also comes from conservative and hard-line politicians who fault the bonyads’ lack of attention to their charitable mission. Several influential clerics have publicly upbraided the Mostazafan for “neglect” of the war-wounded and the poor; the Friday prayer leader in Qom, the center of Iranian theology and the wellspring of revolutionary thought, lambasted the management of the foundation for its inadequate support of the country’s war casualties. Even the state broadcasting organization, which also operates under the rahbar’s supervision and is routinely criticized for its conservative bias, has aired complaints from disabled veterans about the foundation’s lack of attention to their plight, as have some conservative newspapers (IRIB, June 22, 1999). The remedies proposed by the bonyads’ many critics zero in on their leaders, most of whom are closely associated with the staunchly conservative element of the clergy. Possible replacements for the directors of the MJF and the Bonyad-e Shahid were regularly bandied about in the press.17 Prior to the October 1998 Assembly of Experts elections, the press began to suggest that this institution should exercise greater supervision over the organizations within the office of the rahbar (Kar va Kargar, October 19, 1998: 3). More recently, the parliament—particularly since the assumption of a reformist majority in mid-2000—has become an active forum for attempts to reduce the power and autonomy of the foundations. In November 1998, the Majlis held a closed session on the MJF; when the deputies emerged, a member of the parliamentary presidium called for the foundation to increase its activities on behalf of veterans (Jomhuri-ye Islami, November 25, 1998). In an interview that might have provoked an arrest warrant two years earlier, one Majlis deputy described the MJF’s title as a “misnomer [because] the division for wounded veterans affairs has not done anything significant”; several others called on the government to assume supervision and tax authority over the foundations (Salaam, November 25, 1998: 1–2). Parliamentary activism extended beyond rhetoric, even during the conservative-controlled fifth Majlis. In several small but telling decisions, the deputies attempted to strip the MJF of minor patronage perks and extend parliamentary taxation and investigatory power over the bonyads as a whole (Resalat, January 11, 1996: 6, 12–13; and June 11, 1997: 13–14; Kar va Kargar, January 16, 1999: 1–2). These censures culminated in the replacement of MJF director Rafiqdust on July 22, 1999. His successor, former defense minister Mohammad Foruzandeh, pledged to work more cooperatively with the elected institutions of government and with the president, and he met with Khatami soon after his appointment to reinforce this assurance publicly

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(Khordad, July 22, 1999: 13; July 23, 1999: 9). Although some doubted Foruzandeh’s commitment to change—as one conservative publication noted, “the only thing that has been said about him is that he’s not a thief” (Kayhan July 29, 1999: 4)—the new management has lived up to expectations (Neshat, July 23, 1999: 9; Khordad, July 23, 1999: 13). A year after his ascension to the post, Foruzandeh eliminated more than 100 senior management positions in the organization’s central office and adopted a new charter governing its internal operations (Iran News, August 14, 2000). The new procedures reportedly impose strict measures to reduce corruption and conflicts of interest, which should streamline, separate, and rationalize the central management as well as the administration of individual subsidiaries. Most dramatically, the new charter outlines separation of the charitable activities of the Bonyad-e Mostazafan from its economic sectors, much as the fifth Majlis proposed two years earlier (Hamshahri, November 25, 1998). Whether and how extensively these directives will be implemented remains to be seen. Ideally, reorganization would impose a strict partition between the economic and charitable sectors and would divorce the operating budget and lines of authority of the productive enterprises from those of the philanthropic division. The Janbazan division had already evolved into an essentially autonomous, multifunctional agency with its own public relations department, TV network, legal division, and parliamentary lobby, as well as a sizable health care network, housing division, research center, lending organization, and offices organizing social, cultural, and athletic activities for disabled veterans (Gozaresh, 1998–1999: 129–270). The new charter envisions a future in which the MJF is transformed into a holding company, underwriting a separate nonprofit organization for disabled veterans with the expectation that the management, efficiency, and organizational culture of each division would benefit from the separation. The blueprint for reorganization was accompanied by other encouraging signals. The foundation under its new management embarked on a new privatization program and acceded to public pressure for greater financial disclosure by releasing limited financial statements and offering to cooperate with a comprehensive state audit (Entekhab, January 27, 2002: 1). Perhaps the most telling indication of the genuineness of these changes comes in the response of the former management. Reportedly, the new charter was bitterly opposed by the old guard. Rafiqdust himself complained bitterly about the MJF’s new policies, criticizing the new director for transforming the MJF from “a private company” to one with “a heavy state role” (Rafiqdust interview 2000). Should the political and economic pressure on the regime become intense, the assets of the bonyads could offer easy solutions for economic woes and tempting sources of revenue and hard currency for a cash-

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strapped government. Critics of the bonyads have long advocated divestment of productive assets, arguing that the status quo enables political considerations to prevail over economic signals. Some call for the full nationalization or privatization of the foundations’ assets to reduce their distorting impact on the economy. In a pinch, the government could invoke existing provisions of the constitution, such as article 49, which reserves the prerogative to confiscate all properties acquired through the “misuse of endowments” to carry out these suggestions. However, any effective resolution to the problem of the bonyads will require more than simply shifting their assets to the government or the private sector. From a systemic perspective, the political relationship between the foundations and the state has hampered reform efforts and will in all likelihood continue to protect the bonyads’ privileged position. Their management evokes powerful imagery of the organizations’ social contribution to mobilize public support on their behalf and invokes all of the protection of their patrons.18 There also are practical issues that need to be addressed in implementing structural change in the foundations. First, it is questionable whether a country whose low rate of capital formation has retarded industrial development and expansion possesses either the means or the capacity to effect such a massive transfer of resources. Indiscriminate transfer of foundation assets to the government would not guarantee more rational budgetary constraints over their activities. And if they were to be privatized, it is unclear how to undertake a scientific valuation of their assets or whether the anemic private sector could absorb them. A more controversial issue involves the continuing grievances of Iranians inside and outside Iran who were the original owners of bonyad assets. Any wholesale privatization program would have to confront the legal status of confiscated properties. Asset transfer would also affect other economic institutions, such as the stock exchange, where the foundations are among the most energetic actors. Finally, the importance of their philanthropic role should not be underestimated; the experience of other reform programs in the region demonstrates that successful adjustment across the Iranian economy depends on the development of an adequate social safety net (Karshenas 1988: 220). Since the foundations—the very organizations that require reform—also are key elements of Iran’s social welfare system, maintaining the efficacy of these activities is critical to the larger process of reform. In fact, a simpler and perhaps more feasible step forward to right the balance between the foundations and the state would be to release financial information and rescind the most egregious perks at their disposal. Publishing their income statements and balance sheets would provide verifiable information on their economic and political activities. Ending the effective tax holiday they enjoy would begin the slow but necessary

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process of creating a culture of fiscal responsibility rather than patrimonial distribution in the country’s economic apparatus. In addition, privatization of their assets, where feasible, would diminish their individual impact on economic and political processes and, equally important, their prominence and corresponding ability to crowd out other actors. Beyond the immediate dilemmas of structural reform, it is not yet clear whether the government and its critics are prepared to address the larger economic and systemic issues raised by the foundations. The republic’s third five-year economic development plan, like its predecessors, avoids any discussion of the future of the bonyads, and critics remain dismissive about the prospects for substantive transformation. “There is no real dialogue about economic reforms unless there is discussion about making the bonyads more accountable and bringing them into the system” (Murphy 1999). More troublesome is the evidence that the bonyads are not the crux of Iran’s problems that casual analysis tends to posit but rather are symptoms of a deeper and enduring crisis in the political economy. Both deliberate rewards to political loyalists and the inadvertent byproducts of the regime’s early ideological battles have created a culture of crony capitalism that has entrenched itself firmly in Iran. The fundamental obstacle to confronting this dilemma and cultivating private enterprise and entrepreneurship lies in the convergence of political and economic distortions in Iran, as well as the exceptionally precarious prospects for removing both simultaneously. The country’s basic economic problems—stagnation, unemployment, consumer price inflation—require sustained structural reform and vast improvements in the security and transparency of investments. Both, in turn, are predicated on political stability. Structural economic reforms, particularly insofar as they affect the bonyads, cannot be undertaken without addressing the very essence of Iran’s Islamic system—the position of the clergy, the responsibilities of institutions legally considered “public,” and the boundaries of the currently absolute authority of the supreme religious leader. From this perspective, even in the wake of auspicious reforms within the MJF, the issue of the bonyads inspires a tautological frustration. However, for all those who believe that the bonyads cannot successfully make the transition from their current privileged positions to responsible economic actors and genuinely disinterested vehicles of philanthropy, there may be a hopeful precedent. Nearly eighty years ago, the politically active elites in another country decried the dangerous influence of foundations established on the basis of private fortunes. One government official warned that “their ultimate possibilities are so grave a menace . . . that if they could be clearly differentiated from other forms of voluntary altruistic effort, it would be desirable to recommend their abolition” (Nielsen 1985: 24). Today, U.S. private foundations command more than $268 billion in

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assets and are widely considered to be some of the most estimable actors in U.S. social, political, and cultural life (Koch-Weser 1999: 32). Given time and the sustained efforts of a responsive leadership, Iran’s bonyads may experience a similar transformation. The prospect that Iran’s bonyads could metamorphose into institutions as benign and benevolent as Western philanthropic organizations is, admittedly, distant. Despite the modest progress achieved in reforming the Bonyad-e Mostazafan, few Iranians today are sanguine about the near-term possibilities for rationalizing this organization or the other parastatal entities that thrive on the rentier and patrimonial aspects of the country’s current economic structure. As long as fundamental changes to Iran’s prevailing economic and political structure remain elusive, the bonyads will continue to deploy their prerogatives and links to power to forestall systemic reforms. Although changes in Iran’s bonyads continue to be necessary, the fact that this exigency has gained widespread acceptance points to a shift in the domestic economic debate. Departing from the economic discourse of the revolution, economic policy in Iran today is seldom framed in terms of Islamic norms or law. Rather, arguments over Iran’s economic direction are dominated by demands for performance and efficiency. This results-oriented discourse also represents a marked contrast to the wider context of the Iranian reform movement, which has generated a rich and innovative literature on social and political issues that fuses both Islam and democracy. But in shaping the country’s future economic development, Iranians now talk of market imperatives rather than moral ones. What does the saga of the bonyads and the changing nature of the economic debate imply for Iran’s tortuous experiment in constructing an Islamic order? The clearest lesson from the Iranian experience may simply be that an Islamic-oriented economy is no less immune to inefficiencies and profiteering than a capitalist economy. Indeed, in the Iranian case, the competition for influence and authority that came in the wake of a profoundly contested revolutionary transition cultivated distortions and gave rise to the empowerment of organizations such as the bonyads. These groups and the popular backlash their ascendance has incited have served to discredit the very concept of an Islamic economy among Iranians. Of course, the final irony is that the bonyads—in inspiration, scope, and purpose—are not intrinsically “Islamic” institutions. Rather, they were invested with pivotal symbolic and substantive roles through the evolution of the unique ideological and institutional framework that comprises the Islamic Republic of Iran. Today, as this framework comes under intense pressure from both a divided political elite and a disillusioned population, Iranians are endeavoring to craft a new social compact. Any new formula for achieving growth and development will have to curb the worst excesses

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of the current clientelistic system while offering assurances to politicians and the public that the populist promises of the Islamic revolution will not be wholly abandoned. For the economy, as with Iran’s political institutions, true reform will entail stripping away the amalgamation of interests and ideologies that were subverted and entrenched by the revolution.

Notes 1. Such unsubstantiated estimates are used commonly and casually by U.S. policymakers. 2. One expert estimated that Bonyad-e Astan-e Qods-e Razavi holds up to 90 percent of the property in the province of Khorassan and 30 to 50 percent of Tehran’s real estate (Arabmazad interview, 1998). 3. Subsidies to both organizations have increased steadily, with the Komitehye Emdad receiving 720 billion rials in the 1376 (1997) budgetary allocations, up from 228 billion rials in 1373 (1994), while direct state support to the Bonyad-e Shahid totaled 398.5 billion rials in the 1373 budget and has also continued to increase. 4. As of 1990, Bonyad-e Shahid owned 150 different enterprises, active in industrial production, construction, agriculture, commerce, and services. The largest of these is the Shahid Investment Company, with a wide range of its own business ventures. The Imam’s Relief Committee commands substantial property and landholdings and also engages in economic activities, such as the development of the country’s largest rock quarry. 5. For example, the MJF’s charter declares that “the Government should be notified that such property does not concern it, but it shall be handled by the Islamic Revolution’s Council” (Moayed 1991, “Charter”). 6. In fact, the MJF has been recognized internationally for its treatment of and research on victims of chemical warfare. See www.opcw.org/geespe2.htm for the text of a speech by John Gee, deputy director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, in which he lauds the foundation as “the world’s leading expert in the treatment of mustard gas casualties.” 7. According to a close associate of Rafiqdust, when the new director complained, Khamenei reportedly told him that the Bonyad-e Mostazafan was as powerful as an independent country and that it should be managed so that government support was unnecessary (Sobhani interview 1998). 8. An estimate of 1.5 percent of GDP was given in International Monetary Fund, Islamic Republic of Iran—Recent Economic Developments, IMF Staff Country Report No. 95/121 (Washington, D.C.: December 1995), 46; upper estimate from Iran Research Group 1989, 10/43. My estimate is based on data provided by Hossein Sobhani, MJF Director of International Affairs, September 1998, Gozaresh (1998/1999), 37–38; 294–295; 350; and Dr. Mehdi Asali, Director General, Macroeconomics Bureau, Economic Affairs Division, Iranian Plan and Budget Organization, Tehran 1999. 9. “MJF Head: Iran Should Join WTO,” Islamic Republic News Agency, May 27, 2000, www.irna.ir. Iran’s WTO application has been blocked since 1996, first by a lack of support from the organization’s general council, then beginning in May 2000 as a result of pressure from the U.S. government. 10. Since 1995, the MJF has been managed by a faqih-appointed director and

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governing board—a modification of the governing structure of the foundation that was perceived as an attempt to provide a check to the powerful Rafiqdust. The members of this board represent traditional right-wing constituencies. See “Iran Foundation Chief Reappointed with Less Powers,” Reuters July 22, 1995. 11. This judgment came at a moment of fierce factional tension over the Majlis’ powers, immediately following the first round of parliamentary elections, which had given a resounding victory to reformist supporters of President Khatami. However, the ruling actually represents only one salvo in a long-running battle that began with discussions over 1996 legislation empowering the Majlis to probe the activities of all state institutions. 12. Historically, advancement through the religious ranks among Iran’s Shiite Muslim clergy was achieved through peer assent. In theory at least, rank and title are predicated on the basis of religious scholarship, piety, and integrity, as well as the cultivation of a network of devotees. Religious students prepare for years, competing to attend the most prestigious seminaries and to study under influential mujtahids. After years or even decades of study, they are eligible to undertake an extensive examination in order to obtain their ejaze—a license to engage in ijtihad (interpretation). The system entails considerable competition. Middle-ranking clergy vie with one another by publishing treatises on theology to win the acclaim of their peers as well as the attachment of believers who are free to pledge their religious donations to any individual cleric. At the apex of this hierarchy sit the various marjas, whose role literally embodies their title, which means “source.” They offer religious guidance to those who choose to embrace their teachings and are the sources of revenues for networks of junior clerics, distributing charitable donations that are tithed individually rather than to the religious hierarchy as a whole. 13. The vagaries of the foundation’s status have enabled the government effectively to remove the Rushdie fatwa as a significant obstacle to improvising relations with the West. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi noted in September 1998 that while the edict cannot be revoked, there would be no official assistance to any individual or group to implement it. This provoked a series of announcements of supplements to the Bonyad-e Ponzdah-e Khordad’s stated reward by the foundation itself and by others throughout the country (“New Moves on Rushdie Expose Iranian Rifts,” New York Times, October 21, 1998; Daniel Pipes, “Salman Rushdie’s Delusions, and Ours,” Commentary, December 1998: 51–53; Christophe de Roquefeuil, “Affaire Rushdie: les durs du regime iranien font monter la pression” [Rushdie Affair: the hard-liners of the Iranian regime face pressure], Agence France-Press, February 13, 1997; “President Rafsanjani on His Future, Rushdie, Foreign Ties, Other Issues,” Vision of the Islamic Republic Network 1, February 12, 1997, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, February 17, 1997). 14. It bears noting that even though more than two decades have passed, outrage over the confiscations remains. See, for example, “Iran News Reviews Iranian Press, Television,” Iran News, January 5, 1998, 3; Foreign Broadcast Information Service, NES-98–012. 15. The embezzlement of U.S.$450 million from Bank-e Saaderat did not involve Rafiqdust or the foundation directly. However, the conviction of his brother Morteza and seven others unleashed an unprecedented level of criticism against the MJF and its leadership, which was rumored to be closely associated with the coverup. Abbas Abdi makes the allegation explicitly in a series of Salaam columns published in his book, Qudrat, Qanun, Farhang: Yaddashtha-ye Siasi-i Ruznameh-i Salaam (Power, law, culture: Political notes from Salaam [newspaper]), (Tehran: Tarah-e No, 1998), 84–89.

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16. The MJF’s attempt to sell off a textile factory in Shahr-e Rey, south of Tehran, in mid-2001 generated a prolonged stand-off and sporadic violence by workers protesting the loss of their jobs and the foundation’s failure to pay wages for several preceding months. 17. Ostensible candidates for these positions, suggested by anonymous press reports, included former prime minister Mir Husayn Musavi, reformist Member of Parliament Hadi Khamenei, then-Jihad-e Sazandegi minister Mohammad Saidi-Kia, and Education Minister Hossein Mozaffar. Former parliamentary speaker Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri was once said to be a candidate for the top post in the vaqf associated with Astan-e Qods. 18. The MJF attempted to confiscate the offices of the student group whose leader criticized the foundation. “The Monopolist Political Faction Tries to Make up for Its Inefficiency by Social Misbehavior,” Jahan-e Islam, January 3, 1999: 2, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, NES-99–016.

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9

Globalization, Islamization, and Women’s Employment in Indonesia

One of the most powerful public appeals that President George W. Bush made in support of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan concerned the treatment of women under the Taliban. Together with support for terror, the Taliban regime was charged with mistreating the majority of its own population. In response, Afghanistan was bombed beginning in October 2001, and a huge refugee problem was created. Many women lost their lives, homes, and relatives, as well as their sources of income. The Bush administration has continued its war on terror, associated with Islamic religious fundamentalism, and the media continue to remind the U.S. public of the plight of Muslim women. And though the condition of women in many parts of the Muslim world is a problematic issue, the context in which any such discussion takes place has equally become a matter of concern. Staging a war against Afghanistan, then Iraq, and perhaps eventually Iran is not an answer to the problems Muslim women face. This chapter aims to unpack the simplistic, stereotypical assumptions about the conditions for women in the Muslim world, with special reference to economic conditions in the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia. I make several arguments. First, Islamic movements have long been part of the anticolonial political landscape and often are far more supportive of the poor, women included, than those strategies that focus on traditional modes of modernization. This is illustrated by reference to the rise of an Islamic leadership in Indonesia after the fall of Suharto. Second, Islamic law is not as inherently biased against women as generally believed, and it is open to widely different interpretations. Third, arguments suggesting that Muslim regimes are destructive of women’s economic rights often rest on faulty interpretations of employment data. Such data show, to the contrary, that formal employment of women is more a regional phenomenon than a religious phenomenon. Fourth, focusing on the Islamic religion as a primary factor in explaining the situation of women in the Muslim world takes attention away from other factors, such as the structure and operation of the national and international political economy. Finally, a 219

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quick comparative review of female employment trends in Egypt, Iran, Tunisia, and Turkey suggests that religion does not play the negative role so often imputed to it and that culturally biased analyses of the situation faced by women in the Muslim world are simplistic if not misleading.

Political Islam in Indonesia The rise of political Islam in Indonesia is not a new phenomenon. It was in the early part of the twentieth century that an Islamist movement mobilized in the fight against Dutch colonialism. Indonesia, a vast and ethnically diverse country, needed a unifying ideology to fight a strong colonial enemy. Islam provided that unity (Turner et al. 1997). As the independence movement became stronger, Achmad Sukarno, the father of independent Indonesia, was able to form a nationalist party sympathetic to socialist ideals (Bowie and Unger 1997: 47). From the time of the establishment of independent Indonesia in 1948 until the mid-1960s, the Islamist movement kept a very low profile. Yet the Sukarno government failed to develop a coherent economic policy, and its rampant corruption became a source of disappointment for Indonesians. The president gradually lost his mass support. At the same time, the United States wished to ensure the continued flow of oil and other natural resources from Indonesia and worried about Sukarno’s ties to the Soviet Union. In the mid-1960s General Mohammed Suharto, with the help of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, prepared for a coup against Sukarno’s government (Vreede-de Steurs 1960). A massacre of close to 1 million people followed, allegedly because of their support for communism. The newly installed Suharto was a secular, pro-Western dictator who could be counted upon to secure the flow of oil and other exports to the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Suharto, unlike Sukarno, belonged to a nationwide Muslim organization called Muhammadiah. This organization recruited its members from the urban middle class (Bahramitash 2001), and Suharto enjoyed the support of this group in his fight against communism. But Suharto was not a member of Nehdatoll Ulama, the largest Muslim group, which recruited mainly from poor and underprivileged rural and urban populations. In spite of his adherence to the Islamic religion, Suharto’s regime was highly Westernized (Crouch 1984). As part of this Westernization, cabarets, bars, and massage parlors appeared in major cities. This provoked strong resistance from Nehdatoll Ulama. Suharto himself held lavish parties to which movie stars and fashion models were invited. Their pictures appeared in the newspapers. The president’s family and associates were seen to be accumulating more and more wealth, and many ordinary Indonesians could not

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meet their own basic needs. This became a source of growing frustration. Rising income disparities were a focus of discontent during the early part of the 1970s, when a major scandal concerning oil revenues led to the Malari riot in 1974. Muslim groups mobilized against the regime for the first time (Brenson 1993), the only available source of political opposition since all other civic organizations had been crushed and dismantled after the coup.

The Political Economy of the Suharto Era and Female Employment Suharto, like the shah of Iran and President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, established an autocratic state committed to modernization. Using the revenues generated by oil and other natural resource exports, Suharto pursued a dual economy policy. One sector of the economy, agriculture, became the major source of employment and the breadbasket for the majority of Indonesians. Most of the revenues from oil and other natural resources, however, were channeled into the modern industrial sector. Indonesian female employment patterns reflect this duality. Many women are employed in the agricultural sector, as illustrated by Table 9.1. The percentage of women in this sector remains very high, both as paid labor and as unpaid family workers (Bahramitash 2001). As this sector decreased in overall size, the share of women in it remained relatively stable. It is worth noting, therefore, that Suharto, a Westernizer and modernizer, did raise female employment, but the nature of that employment did not necessarily empower women economically. Suharto had grand plans to make Indonesia an industrial power like Europe and the United States (Bresnan 1993). The manufacturing sector was divided into capital-intensive and labor-intensive sectors (Keum 1992; Hill 1992). The capital-intensive sector was financed by oil revenues and,

Table 9.1

Agriculture Industry Services

Female Share of Employment by Sector 1980

1985

1989

1990

1992

1995

1997

54.2 13.1 32.7

53.6 12.2 34

57 12 30.8

56.3 12.4 31.1

56.5 12.8 30.5

47.3 16.2 36.2

42 16.3 41.7

Source: The World Bank, World Development Indicators Online (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2001, http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline).

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in the 1980s, consisted largely of ventures to build cars and helicopters. Most of the businesses in this sector belonged directly to Suharto, his sons, and his associates. This sector drained the economy of capital but never became a major source of export revenue. It employed mainly men as skilled workers (Brenson 1993). The labor-intensive manufacturing sector employed a great number of women and was significantly, though not totally, located in free trade zones. This light manufacturing sector was profitable largely because of the low wages paid to its predominantly female workforce (Bahramitash 2001). Suharto also invested part of the revenue generated by the sale of oil and other natural resources into expanding health, education, and other welfare and community programs. These programs brought many women into the formal labor market, and as a result the percentage of women in the service sector increased from 32.7 percent in the 1980 to 41.7 percent in 1997. The service sector also provided employment in tourist industries, additional sources of hard currency. The government built centers for entertainment in certain areas of the country. On the island of Batan, for example, a large number of sex workers, primarily if not exclusively female, provided services to men from neighboring countries. The number of registered prostitutes increased from 4,807 in 1984 to 71,281 in 1995. There are no official data on the number of unregulated prostitutes, but it is plausible to assume that, just as the number of registered sex workers has increased, so has the number of unofficial ones (Lin 1998). In addition to the hospitality industry, the number of women in trade also has grown. There has been a steady increase in the number of women working both on their own accounts and as unpaid family workers in the petty trade sectors. This is not limited to the urban centers. Many women work as traders in rural areas as well, and some travel long distances to sell their products (Grijns et al. 1994). Suharto’s government supported women’s employment in both the formal and the informal sectors. Increased urban poverty and political unrest, a major concern for the regime, made the authorities conscious of the role that women’s employment in the informal economy could play to improve hiring conditions for the poor. Thus, the government encouraged women to seek employment in the informal sector as well as in the formal sector. In 1988, Kopkantib Sudomo, the minister of manpower, noted that the informal sector was a “safety valve” for easing unemployment, stressing its importance in a speech (“The Dynamics of Women Venturing in the Informal Sector”) in 1986 (Bahramitash 2001). Women’s employment continued to increase throughout the Suharto era. This increase was coupled with an increase in gross national product per capita. However, in the late 1980s the government was forced to adopt neoliberal policies under pressure from the World Bank and the

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International Monetary Fund. In 1987, the local currency, the rupiah, was devalued for the first time. Currency devaluation put pressure on the prices of imported consumer goods, thus decreasing real wages. As long as the revenue from oil and other natural resources could generate enough income to support programs for welfare and poverty relief, the poor could survive. But after the state was forced to decrease public spending under the neoliberal policy regime, the poor started to feel the squeeze (Adioetomo et al. 1999, Aswicahyono et al. 1999). This was particularly true of women occupying the lowest socioeconomic strata. Liberalization of the economy and cutbacks in government services occurred as the entire region went into a deep recession. The recession reached its peak just before 1997, the year of the Asian financial crisis. Economic crisis on the one hand and widespread impoverishment on the other fueled anger against the regime, which had dominated the country for more than three decades. With the eruption of the Asian financial crisis, the rupiah fell to onesixth its previous value. The rate of inflation rose dramatically along with capital flight, estimated at U.S.$16 billion, and the country experienced bankruptcy (Hasnain 2001). The International Monetary Fund rescued the economy and the rupiah, but the damage had been done. The crisis caused widespread unemployment, and prices for basic goods kept rising. The crisis provided momentum for the growing discontent of the urban poor and mobilized them against the regime (Adioetomo et al. 2000).

The Fall of Suharto, the Rise of Political Islam, and Female Employment As political discontent mounted, many Indonesians joined Nehdatoll Ulama and the Islamists. Apart from the middle class-oriented Muhammadiah, Nehdatoll Ulama was the only organization that had remained fairly autonomous from the regime. This was so for two reasons. First, Islamist movements were in the forefront of opposition to socialism, and Suharto’s respect for the autonomy of Islamist organizations had lasted until the final days of his regime. Second, both Muhammadiah and Nehdatoll Ulama were active in charity work and poverty reduction. Muslim women’s groups, such as Aissiyah (the women’s branch of Muhammadiah) and Fatayat and Muslimat (women’s branches of Nehdatoll Ulama), played a significant role by delivering services and social welfare to the growing numbers of poor, particularly in rural areas. Nehdatoll Ulama enjoyed high levels of support in rural areas, and its welfare functions made it increasingly popular among lower-income and working-class urban families as well. These groups increased their activities, using funding from Islamic charities col-

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lected as zakat (every Muslim is required to give a certain percentage of his/her total income to charity). In addition to Islamic charity funds, these groups increasingly sought resources from international donors. They had an excellent reputation for delivering necessary services honestly and efficiently. Given this background, it is not surprising that the Islamists in general and Nehdatoll Ulama in particular attracted a great deal of support in the wake of the fall of Suharto. It is not a surprise that Abdurrahman Wahid, a dedicated Muslim and a highly respected Indonesian cleric, became very popular at this time. Wahid’s popularity was due to his advocacy of economic justice and political freedom. His long-standing role in the organization along with his political message won him widespread support within Nehdatoll Ulama. The success of Islamists in taking power in Indonesia was to a great extent due to the strong support that women had lent the movement through their volunteer work as welfare providers. Newly elected President Wahid, in turn, was very supportive of women’s rights. He formed an alliance with Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Sukarno, the nation’s founding father. The appointment of Megawati Sukarnoputri as vice president put an end to disputes among Muslim scholars about whether a woman could become the leader of the largest Muslim country in the world. This, of course, did happen only two years later, when Sukarnoputri became president herself. In addition, during Wahid’s rule, his wife, Nuriyah Wahid, who held a degree in women’s studies, made regular appearances in the media, raising consciousness about women’s issues. Many women’s organizations were formed at the time, taking advantage of presidential support for popular politics. The government appointed Khofifah Indar Parawansa, a prominent feminist activist, to head the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Parawansa’s first move was to change the official title of her office to Menteri Negara Pemberdayaan Perempuan (State Ministry for the Empowerment of Women), opting for the word perempuan (women), rather than the formerly used wanita (ladies) (see Dzuhayatin 2001; Rohmaniya 2001). Under both Wahid and Sukarnoputri, the government’s control over civil society declined dramatically, allowing women’s groups much more freedom to advocate gender rights.

Is the Muslim Religion the Source of Women’s Economic Deprivation? Wahid’s positions in favor of women should not surprise those familiar with sharia law. Although women face family-related legal barriers, there are no differences between men and women with respect to commercial

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interactions, rights, and obligations (Amawi 1996; Wadud 1999). Laws that affect women’s economic roles can be divided into two categories: those with a direct impact and those with an indirect effect. Under the former heading, the most notable is the requirement that a wife have her husband’s permission to leave the house. This directly affects a woman’s ability to work outside the home. Inheritance law is another aspect of Islamic traditional law that has a direct effect, because it results in unequal access to capital. A son inherits twice as much as a daughter (Quran, Sura 4: 7–12), and a widower has far more rights to a deceased spouse’s possessions than does a widow (Mundy 1988). Laws that have an indirect impact on women’s economic roles include those governing polygamy and divorce. Under Islamic law, men can have as many as four wives. This means that family income has to be divided four ways, leaving fewer financial resources for any individual wife. Furthermore, in Islamic traditional law, men are regarded as the head of the household and are responsible for family maintenance (e.g., they are required to pay nafigah, or household expenses, to support their families) (Mohamad Nejad 2000). In practice, this responsibility is interpreted as giving men the right to make financial decisions for the family. In this view, men are seen as breadwinners and women as homemakers, a dichotomy that can be an impediment to women’s engagement in the economic sphere outside the home. Furthermore, men have repudiation rights in marriage whereas women do not. Under these unequal terms for divorce, a married woman can spend a lifetime with her husband yet be denied the fruits of her labor by his unilateral decision to divorce her. Because household possessions are in the man’s name, upon divorce a woman loses access to all common family resources (Esposito 1982; Mernissi 1985). Nevertheless, traditional laws and practices also offer women ways to increase their economic power. One advantage for women under Islamic law is the mahr, the “bride price” given to a woman upon marriage. In many Muslim societies, the bride price is given to the family of the bride rather than to the bride herself, but when it is paid directly to the woman (as specified in the Quran, Sura 4:35), it is legally under her control and is a source of capital. According to tradition, mahr is determined by the combination of a husband’s ability to pay and a woman’s economic background, both factors that can, in some cases, tilt the advantage in favor of the woman in determining the sum (Marsot 1996). In addition, women are entitled to keep the income and property with which they enter a marriage without having to contribute them to the household. Because men are obliged to pay nafighah and women do not have to spend their income, there is a potential for women to accumulate capital during marriage.

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Moreover, the sexual segregation implicit in the Islamic tradition means that women can trade more easily with other women, free from competition with men, who usually start with far more economic resources. This explains the emergence of women-only banks and other businesses in some Muslim countries, particularly in those places where Islamic codes of justice prevent husbands from controlling their wives’ financial and economic assets. Despite Western images of a monolithic Islam, sharia is interpreted differently within the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence; there also are complexities and variations in the way it is practiced even within the same tradition. In Malaysia, for example, divorce is decided in a court (either Islamic or civil), and men no longer have the right to divorce their wives unilaterally. This is also true in some other Muslim countries, such as Tunisia. The decisions expanding women’s access to the public sphere made by Wahid in Indonesia are not isolated incidents. Trends in many parts of the Muslim world show movement toward an interpretation of Islamic tenets that are more sensitive to women’s rights, and many women have been able to use interpretations of sharia laws to their advantage. For example, Parliament passed a law in Iran in 1993 that enables women to demand wages in return for their housework on the basis of sharia law. This law was passed because of the political pressure that was brought to bear on the government by women, many of whom had a long history of activism in the process of bringing the Islamic regime into being. These women had the support of some religious authorities and members of the Iranian ulama (Moghadam 2001). The trend toward interpretations of sharia laws favoring women has become widespread, as many Muslim feminists in different parts of the Muslim world are pressing for changes and, in some cases, receiving support from members of the ulama.

Regional Trends in the Economic Position of Women Table 9.2 shows that Indonesian women’s proportion of the total labor force falls in the lower-middle of the range in the countries of Southeast Asia. In Table 9.2, I present the female percentage of the total labor force (using the working age population of men plus women as the denominator), rather than the more conventional female activity rate, which is women in the labor force as a percentage of the total female population of working age. The measure I use directly compares women’s employment with men’s employment, providing a better understanding of women’s overall participation in the economy. Any employment fluctuation can cause a drop in the female activity rate, just as it will reduce the male activity rate. It is only by

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Table 9.2 Female Workers as a Percentage of the Total Labor Force in Countries in Southeast Asia, 2000 (calculated) Labor Force

Percentage of Total

Cambodia Vietnam Thailand China Korea, Rep. Indonesia Singapore Malaysia Philippines

51.80 48.98 46.32 45.18 41.20 40.08 39.06 37.68 37.68

Source: The World Bank, World Development Indicators Online (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2001, http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline).

considering the total labor force that we can control for factors that are not gender specific. Comparable data from other regions indicate that the percentage of female employment varies regionally, even though political and religious systems may vary greatly within a particular region (see below). Nevertheless, the figures shown in Table 9.2 for Southeast Asia are similar to those for other regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. In Latin America, female employment varies in a range around 30 percent to 40 percent. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, the employment rate for women is generally higher, ranging between 40 percent and 50 percent. This is partly because African countries employ mostly women in the agricultural sector. In each country and region, it must be remembered that employment figures alone say nothing about the empowerment of women. In a country like Rwanda, which has a 48.84 percent employment rate for women (World Development Indicators Online, 2001), it is problematic to associate this high figure with empowerment, knowing the hardships Rwandan women have suffered as the result of years of genocidal conflict.

Islamic Fundamentalism Versus Political Economy Looking at the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a region that is mostly Muslim, Table 9.3 shows generally a lower percentage of female employment than other regions. The literature on women’s employment in the Muslim world argues that this low participation rate is the result of Islamic culture (Moghadam 1993; Mojab 1999; Cinar 2001; Shafik 2001).

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Table 9.3 Female Workers as a Percentage of Total Labor Force in the Middle East and North Africa: The Gulf, Maghreb, and the Levant, 2000 Labor Force

Percentage of Total

The Gulf Bahrain Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates

20.44 31.26 16.42 14.56 15.46 14.46

Maghreb Algeria Morocco Tunisia

26.98 34.68 31.44

The Levant Egypt Iran Iraq Jordan Lebanon Libya Syria Turkey

30.06 26.52 19.36 23.95 29.32 22.62 26.74 37.30

Source: The World Bank, World Development Indicators Online (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2001, http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline).

However, including in our comparison the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, suggests that the employment rate for women is affected more by the regional environment than by religion. In fact, the rise of political Islam in Indonesia was precipitated by the Asian financial crisis, which has since led to deteriorating conditions of employment for both men and women there. When the MENA region alone is divided into subregions, the results contradict the mainstream assumption that the status of women is primarily a product of religion or ideology. As Table 9.3 indicates, with the exception of Kuwait, the countries of the Persian Gulf have the lowest female labor force participation rates, generally below 20 percent. These countries rely heavily on oil revenue and import many skilled immigrant workers. In the Maghreb, women have higher labor force participation, with rates around 30 percent; Morocco, with the second highest rate of female labor force participation among the

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countries listed, reports female employment in agriculture and manufacturing. In Tunisia, the state has encouraged female employment. In the Levant, the female participation rate is generally above 20 percent. Turkey reports the highest rate in the series. Only prewar Iraq is below the 20 percent threshold. The low labor force participation of women in Iraq is partly due to the fact that, like the other Gulf countries, Iraq’s economy relies heavily on oil. The effects of economic sanctions may also be a factor. Thus, in spite of the fact that the Baath regime was committed to increasing labor force participation for women, the structure of the economy may have prevented higher rates of female employment. Another indicator that political economy matters more than religion is the fact that the whole MENA region is experiencing an increasing rate of female employment at the same time that support for radical Islam also is growing. Let us assume that Islam plays a key role in determining female employment and then examine four countries with regimes evidencing varying degrees of Islamization. Iran had an Islamist revolution in 1979, Turkey was anti-Islamist until its most recent election, Tunisia has an antiIslamist state, and Egypt is a secular state but tolerates strong Islamist movements. Figure 9.1 illustrates the trend for female employment in these four Muslim countries. If analyses that focus primarily on Islamic religion were correct, we should expect to find a declining employment rate for women in Iran, which has had more than two decades of Islamic government, high employment rates in Turkey and Tunisia, and a middle range of employment for women in Egypt. What we see, in fact, is quite different. In the case of Iran, female employment increased in the 1990s, much faster than during the 1960s and 1970s when a secularist regime was in power (Bahramitash 2003). In the case of Turkey, there was a decline in female employment until the 1990s. This is interesting because Turkey has long advocated women’s liberation and strongly opposed and even repressed Islamists. Thus, while in Iran’s Islamist state women’s employment has increased, under the anti-Islamist Turkish regime female employment decreased until the late 1980s when neoliberal policies were endorsed by the Turkish government. In Tunisia as in Turkey, the government, under the leadership of the secularist Habib Bourguiba, took a strong position against the Islamist movement at the same time that it favored women’s employment. Yet, the rate of female employment has not grown there to the extent that it has in Iran. Since the time of Anwar Sadat, Egypt has shifted toward the West and adopted a freemarket economy, particularly since the late 1980s and 1990s. Egypt has a secular state but allows the Islamist movement to operate openly, although under varying degrees of restraint. Female employment also rose during the era of Gamal Abdul Nasser, whose policy was to bring women into the

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labor market. Many women became part of the expanding state apparatus and of professions such as teaching and nursing. Since the rule of Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, employment growth for women has been steady. All four cases show a steady increase in the female employment share in the 1990s. This is a pattern common for the region and the rest of the third world. It is true that the MENA region has a lower female employment rate than other parts of the third world. This is partly because oil revenue has secured income for these countries, allowing them to rely on foreign instead of domestic labor. But the expansion of the global market and free trade fuels two processes. The first is the expansion of labor-intensive light manufacturing, inside as well as outside free trade zones, that typically employs cheap female labor. The other is that neoliberal policies have reduced government spending on social services and food subsidies, which has put pressure on low-income families. Devaluation and inflation have decreased real wages for the poor. Many families cannot live on one income, and women have to seek jobs. Some of their employment has been in the formal economy and has been reflected in the official data that is captured in Figure 9.1; since the 1990s, employment for women shows a steady rise.

Figure 9.1

Female Labor Forces as a Percentage of Total Labor Force in Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia, 1960–2000

45% 40 35 30 25 20 15

Iran Tunisia Turkey Egypt

10 5 0 1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Source: The World Bank, World Development Indicators Online (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2001, http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline).

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Conclusion Conditions in Indonesia and elsewhere resonate with a global pattern of female employment in the age of neoliberal economic policies (Standing 1999). This global increase in female employment does not necessarily mean that women’s economic conditions have improved; in fact, the contrary may be true. Out of 1.3 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day, 70 percent are women, and the number of women in poverty is not declining (Elson 2000; Lourdes 2000; Human Development Report 1997: 64). Yet even though neoliberal economic policies have created a great deal of poverty throughout the world, particularly among women, the focus of many is still on Islam as the most oppressive factor in women’s lives. The particular irony of the Indonesian case is that, in spite of the fact that a religious leader wanted to advance women’s access to the public sphere, he could not because the country was and continues to be economically and politically devastated as the result of the Asian financial crisis. The future of women in Islamic regions is a matter of great concern. These areas have the largest share of the world’s oil reserves. This means that multinational oil companies will try to safeguard their interests; this is what President George W. Bush’s foreign policy, with its strong ties to oil companies, seems to be aiming to do. Many argue that the war on Iraq is intended to guarantee a regime that will serve Western interests. The region is also plagued by political legacies of past U.S. foreign policy intervention, including the funding of extremist groups and repressive states that now threaten the United States itself. The war on terror gives a great deal of political legitimacy to Islamist groups in the eyes of ordinary people in Muslim countries. Some of these groups have taken a reactionary stand against women, making it very difficult for local activists to defend women’s rights. The power of Islamist groups in general is likely to grow because of the rapid increase in poverty in the age of neoliberalism. As governments are forced to withdraw from supporting domestic economies and cutbacks in welfare programs become a common feature, more and more Islamist groups will become mobilized to fill the vacuums in their communities. It is hypocrisy to blame the Muslim religion for the poverty of women. It is the failure of the global economy that gives radical religious groups their appeal and undermines female autonomy—economic and otherwise.

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10

Falun Gong and the Threat of History

In this chapter, I use a discourse-centered approach to analyze the banned Chinese spiritual practice of Falun Gong. Although the chapter generally addresses the question of how spiritual movements emerge in an increasingly globalized economy, my primary goal is to provide an overview of the many ways that Falun Gong has been publicly discussed since the Chinese government issued its ban in 1999. Clarifying these sometimes contradictory discourses helps us to understand the policy-generating role that Falun Gong plays in both internal Chinese politics and international relations. Beyond that, it uncovers a complicated relationship between Falun Gong and the cultivation of desire in the global marketplace for New Age practices and products. I am concerned, therefore, with both the question of why people actually take part in Falun Gong, which I address in detail in the ethnographic section, and with the question of how Falun Gong might be viewed as a case study of the relationship among transnationalism, neoliberal economic policies, and the rise of global fundamentalisms.1 With the caveat that the act of typologizing presents its own discursive problems, I have divided Falun Gong discourse into five mutually constitutive categories: foreign media, particularly news accounts that have linked Falun Gong with past millenarian movements like the Boxer Uprising and the Taiping Rebellion;2 Chinese media accounts that have adopted the language of past “rectification” campaigns; an emerging scholarly discourse that sometimes questions and sometimes confirms media representations; a human rights discourse that marshals statistical and legal evidence to take an anti-Party, though not necessarily pro–Falun Gong, political stance; and a practice-oriented discourse that draws on fieldwork and the sensual experience of Falun Gong to account for practitioner belief. Looking at Falun Gong from the standpoint of discourse is not merely an exercise in postmodernist obfuscation. Since the initial Chinese Communist Party (CCP) crackdown on Falun Gong in 1999, representations of the movement as a continuation of a violent past or as a potential 233

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powder keg for future chaos have influenced policy decisions in both China and the United States. The “hungry ghosts” of Chinese history haunt Party leaders, who recall the nineteenth-century concern with “internal chaos and external calamities” (nei luan wai huan), which remind them that they are just as susceptible to losing the Mandate of Heaven as past regimes were. Likewise, they are reminded of past humiliations at the hands of the West and see Falun Gong as one more in a long line of chaotic movements that the West has covertly or overtly supported.3 The same ghosts plague Falun Gong members, who expend considerable energy convincing journalists and scholars that they have nothing in common with the violent rebels of previous centuries. In turn, elective bodies in democratic countries weigh these contradictory images to devise policies regarding Falun Gong, sometimes treating it as a cult, sometimes as a repressed religious group. Despite the best efforts of public intellectuals to provide a deeper understanding of Falun Gong (see Chen 2000, 2003; Ownby 2000, 2001a, and 2001b; Ter Haar 2001, 2002; Thornton 2002; Tong 2002), images continue to float forward from the past, coloring our perception of the present. As the discussion of nineteenth-century news stories in this chapter illustrates, these ghosts continue to provide a key conceptual and historical reference point for the contemporary public’s understanding of Falun Gong. The first part of the chapter provides background information on Falun Gong and the political and economic context of the 1999 crackdown. I then cover in detail the typology outlined above, including a report on fieldwork conducted in the southern United States and Washington, D.C. I conclude with an attempt to synthesize these discourses, in the context of my own views regarding Falun Gong’s place in the global New Age marketplace.

Fundamental Beliefs, Structure, and Origins of Falun Gong The term Falun Gong may be translated as “attaining skill through the Dharma Wheel,” or even as “Dharma Wheel Workout.”4 Practitioners also refer to the practice as Falun Dafa (Fundamental Law of the Dharma Wheel) and Falun Fofa (Buddhist Law Dharma Wheel). The practice consists of a set of five basic exercises that share characteristics of both Buddhist and Daoist meditation systems, though practitioners are careful to point out that Falun Gong does not conform strictly to either school (Li 1998). Two guiding concepts lie at the core of Falun Gong: first, zhenshan-ren, “truth, benevolence, and forbearance”; second, that one must cultivate xinxing, or “innate morality,” in order to benefit from Falun Gong. As far as the latter is concerned, Falun Gong texts serve a key scriptural func-

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tion (Ownby 2000). Simply doing the exercises, followers believe, is insufficient for spiritual growth. Falun Gong is one of many qigong, or “vital energy,” practices whose popularity skyrocketed during the 1980s and early 1990s as part of a national qigong re, or “qigong fever” (Chen 1995, 2003). The specific origins of the practice remain unclear. David Ownby argues convincingly that Falun Gong shares characteristics with much older White Lotus practices5 (e.g., breathing exercises, recited formulas, relatively egalitarian social structure, voluntary participation, and, to some degree, apocalyptic rhetoric), but no firm evidence links Falun Gong directly to any preexisting system. Nonetheless, it operates within a contemporary qigong re environment that draws heavily on notions of tradition and antiquity. It shares with other qigong re forms an ambience of “invented tradition” (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983) rooted in the Chinese past but re-created for the present. Li Hongzhi’s own description in his texts, Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun (Turning the Dharma Wheel), links the practice to ancient meditation systems and modern qigong, but he also places it above those practices (Li 1998, 2001). Falun Gong’s creation story shares characteristics with many other popular traditional practices, in that it locates itself in a nonspecific past and a vague lineage. Aside from that, much of the information about the formal organization of the group in the early 1990s agrees with Chinese government accounts. In the official Falun Dafa version, Li Hongzhi, a former soldier and the founder of Falun Gong, claims to have received the forms at an early age from a succession of old masters. After modifying the forms to make them easier to perform, Li claims, he began teaching it in Changchun, Jilin Province, in 1992 (Li 2001; Schloss 1999). Chinese press accounts and Falun Gong websites note that Li taught seminars all over China and overseas between 1992 and 1995 (Falundafa.org 2002; Renmin Ribao 1999b), for which he charged fees (as did many other qigong instructors at that time). According to James Tong’s organizational analysis of Falun Gong, Li established the Falun Gong Research Society soon thereafter, along with Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, and Yu Changxin (Tong 2002; Renmin Ribao 1999b). In August 1993, they gained official status as a branch of the China Qigong Scientific Research Society (CQSRS), a government umbrella organization that vetted would-be qigong organizations, sponsored seminars for members, and is rumored to have tracked the activities of qigong masters on behalf of the Public Security Bureau. By 1996, either as a result of fallout from a Party crackdown on “pseudoscience” or because of petty jealousy, Li officially withdrew Falun Gong from the CQSRS. In 1997, after several fruitless attempts to register with such government cultural and religious organizations as the National Minority Affairs Commission, the China Buddhist Federation, and the United Front

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Department, Li and his top assistants formally disbanded the Falun Gong Research Society (Tong 2002; Ownby 2001a). After conducting several seminars in the United States and taking up residence in New York, Li officially immigrated in 1998. While all parties are more or less in agreement about the above chronology (save, perhaps, Li’s tale of Falun Gong’s ancient origins), the events that triggered the initial April 1999 protests and the subsequent crackdown in July are less clear. Falun Gong practitioners staged a demonstration at Tianjin Normal University to protest the publication of an April 19 anti–Falun Gong article written by physicist He Zuoxiu (Ownby 2001a and 2001b). Li Hongzhi admits to being in Beijing on April 22 but claims he was in transit to Hong Kong and Australia. He says he had nothing to do with either the Tianjin demonstrations or the mass protest on April 25, when an estimated 10,000 practitioners surrounded Zhongnanhai, the government leadership compound in Beijing. For reasons that are unclear, the government did not formally ban Falun Gong and Falun Gong–related materials until July 22, 1999 (Renmin Ribao 1999a), but the demonstrations resulted in the arrests of several thousand practitioners and, according to practitioners and independent observers, the torture and deaths of hundreds (Human Rights Watch 2002). Several theories have been advanced regarding the timing and intensity of the crackdown, among them that the involvement of high-level military officers in Falun Gong required a response, that President Jiang Zemin considered the protests to be a personal affront, and that a nationwide crackdown would divert attention away from economic problems. Regardless of the reasons, the ban sparked protests in Hong Kong and in cities outside of China, where they met with a wide variety of responses from foreign governments, ranging from minor crackdowns in Singapore and Malaysia to subdued support in the United States and Canada. Sporadic actions have continued in China, including the brief takeover of a TV station in 2001. Li Hongzhi went into hiding in the months following the crackdown, fearing that Chinese police might kidnap him. He communicated occasionally through postings on Falun Gong Internet sites but did not reemerge publicly until 2001 (Ownby 2002; Palmer 2001). While some practitioners grumbled about Li’s absence, his status as the patriarch of the group remains undisputed. This status goes well beyond shifu, a polite term for a skilled teacher or “master.” Practitioners generally refer to Li in terms of veneration. His own writings imply that he is a kind of celestial bodhisattva, 6 or mahsattva (great bodhisattva), in the tradition of the Mahyna pantheon (Li 1998; Robinson and Johnson 1982). Not surprisingly, Li’s propensity to imbue himself with such religious qualities lies at the core of the Party’s public case against him. One of the accusations made against him by the Chinese government, for example, is that he falsified his

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birth certificate, so that his birthday (May 13, 1951) would coincide with Buddha’s. In August 1999, a People’s Daily article reported that the midwife who delivered Li claimed that he had lied about his birthday (People’s Daily Online, July 30, 1999b; Renmin Ribao 1999b). Li himself states that his birthday does indeed coincide with Buddha’s, claiming that sometime during the Cultural Revolution authorities had misprinted the date as July 7, 1952, and points out that “many other people were also born on this day” (Schloss 1999). Li has implied his own Buddhahood on other occasions as well. In a 1998 message to his followers, he stated that “at present I have once again come to this world to teach the Fa [“law,” or in the Buddhist context, “Dharma”] . . . and directly teach the fundamental law of the universe” (Li 1998, emphasis added). Falun Gong’s seminar fee structure is another area of dispute. The government cites figures that make it appear that Li swindled the masses, but practitioners dispute this. Tong’s organizational analysis places Falun Gong’s fees on the low end among qigong groups (Renmin Ribao 1999b; Tong 2002). Li’s personal motivations, however, remain a matter of hot dispute. In Zhuan Falun (Turning the Dharma Wheel), Li’s book-length treatise on the theory of Falun Gong, he specifically prohibits charging money for conducting large-scale meetings or individual healings with Falun Gong. At the same time, Li’s book makes it clear that he is allowed to collect money, but solely for the purposes of producing and distributing materials and paying meeting expenses (Li 1998). In the early 1990s, like many other charismatic qigong re leaders, Li popularized his form through books, tapes, and videos. According to U.S.-based practitioners, these materials are freely exchanged among group members, and the full texts of Li’s writings are available in several languages on the group’s website (see www.Falundafa.org). These practitioners say that Li charged low workshop fees (relative to other famous qigong masters) and sometimes no fees at all. Several stated that they were never asked to contribute money, either to Li or to any member of the practice groups in which they participated, although they did admit to paying small fees to attend occasional conventions. There seems to be no question that Li benefited financially from his promotion of Falun Gong. Li himself admits this, but his market-oriented methods do not differ significantly from those used to sell the many other products and services that emerged during the post–Cultural Revolution economic reform period. Yet, in addition to charges that Li was illegally growing rich off the blood of the masses, the Chinese government also accused him of tax evasion, secretly owning a luxury apartment, and profiting excessively from sales of books and tapes (People’s Daily Online, July 30, 1999b). Since the crackdown, Li has only occasionally appeared at conferences in the United States and abroad.

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Although I touch upon the issue only briefly here, it is important to place the rise of Falun Gong in the context of the division within the Party over economic reforms during the 1980s, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests arising out of Party corruption associated with reform, and Deng Xiaoping’s famous “trip to the South” that finally put the last nail in the coffin of opposition to his brand of free-market socialism. As reforms gathered steam, China’s state-owned enterprises began a slow process of top-tobottom evolution in production methods, organization, management, and marketing. Free-market economic policies (albeit limited ones) encouraged entrepreneurship to a degree not seen in China since the Republican Era. “Tradition,” packaged not only in the form of qigong but also in music, film, food, and fashion design, became a hot commodity, even as foreign products, services, and styles also gained popularity. Chinese entrepreneurs, for the first time in decades, gained exposure to a transglobal marketing culture from which China had previously been excluded. One outgrowth of this freewheeling business atmosphere was the rampant corruption that infected the Party when high-level officials used both foreign and domestic connections to enrich themselves. Deng suddenly found himself battling not only conservatives but also former allies who had used their positions in the worst tradition of the Late Qing Dynasty. Despite Deng’s mistake in authorizing the bloodletting of June 4, 1989, he was able to use the Tiananmen protests successfully, which included calls for the Party to address corruption, and finally box out the worst of the antireformers. His 1992 trip to the South, where he found a comparatively vital economy, operating more or less on a Hong Kong model, became a key symbol for small-scale entrepreneurs who supported Deng’s economic policies. Since Li began traveling outside China, several thousand people in North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia have taken up Falun Gong (estimates of the total number of practitioners vary widely). The group has consistently claimed a worldwide membership of 100 million, the majority in China. Before the crackdown began in earnest, Chinese officials estimated Chinese membership at 70 million but reduced it to 2 million by the time the crackdown was under way in July 1999 (Human Rights Watch 2002). Media accounts suggest that retired people constitute the single largest group of practitioners in China, but the membership also includes peasants, factory workers, military personnel, and Communist Party members. In other words, Falun Gong attracted people from diverse backgrounds throughout China (Tong 2002; Pomfert 2001; Chen 2000). The demographics in the United States are quite different. Based on interviews, the majority of practitioners in the United States were of Chinese descent and welleducated (Ownby 2002; Frank 1999a). Most came to the United States to study, many to pursue graduate degrees, a large percentage in the physical

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sciences or engineering. Not surprisingly, Falun Gong websites were (and still are) often linked to university servers (as are the websites of many other qigong re groups, e.g., Yan Xin Gong, Xiang Gong, etc.).

A Discourse-Centered Approach to Falun Gong: The Transmission of Tacit Symbolic Structures Typologizing Falun Gong is not only a means of clarifying several competing discourses but also a tool for understanding what drives policy regarding the practice in both China and the United States. I admit at the outset that distinguishing five categories of discourse on Falun Gong is an arbitrary choice. Yet despite its inadequacies, a typology can help us sort through what has become a tangled web of intellectual, moral, and political assertions. Each of the discourses discussed in this section—foreign media, Chinese media, scholarly, human rights, and practice-centered—offers a perspective whose proponents have staked out relatively distinct territory for themselves. The first of these, the foreign media perspective, almost completely dominates the public’s viewpoint of Falun Gong and often sets the stage for scholarly debate as well. My purpose here is neither to disparage nor favor any one viewpoint but to look at how each has interacted with the others to create feelings, impressions, and images of Falun Gong. Foreign Media When Falun Gong protestors surrounded Zhongnanhai in April 1999, foreign journalists competed with one another for the scoop. “China hands” who had spent years in the country or had been educated in Chinese history, language, and culture generally approached the situation with a sound store of knowledge. The Taiping Rebellion and the Boxer Uprising were obvious analytical frameworks for them, as they were for many academics, and early Chinese reports on Falun Gong, along with reporters’ own witnessing of Falun Gong practice and protests, seemed to validate such connections to the past. One possible reason for the speed with which these comparisons were made is the long history in the foreign press of representing China as exotic. Reporters for the New York Times, for example, need only have checked the web-based archives of their own newspaper to find stories of past uprisings that seemed to parallel what was unfolding before their eyes. Reporters in the present found themselves acting as mediums for the voices of long-dead colleagues. I am interested here primarily in the categories of images that reporters chose in very different eras, the minutiae of impressions and events that

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become the building blocks of imagination,7 and the language used to communicate them back. Many nineteenth-century news articles used the rich language and imagery that still color our fantasies about China today. In the August 8, 1900, issue of The Times of London (1900: 8), for example, the Rev. Dr. Clark wrote “from Tung-chau, on the Pei-ho near Peking, just before the crisis became acute”: In many ways this [Boxer] movement seems to be a recrudescence of old witchcraft days. The “Boxers” are hypnotized or mesmerized by their leaders and fall into trances and see visions and perform all sorts of antics of which afterwards they have no remembrance. By these trances they are supposed to render themselves invulnerable to foreign bullets and Western arms of every description. The new recruit is thus drilled and prepared for battle. First he bows to the ground three times, knocking his head on the earth, until, after many drillings, his hair is worn off, and a scar appears which in many places is the honourable insignia of the “Boxer,” the only sign by which he can be distinguished from his more peaceable neighbours. . . . After these three profound bows he must repeat nine times the name of a certain god. Then the head “Boxer” stokes [sic] the face of the recruit with mesmeric passes, or, sometimes standing behind him, waves his hand in true hypnotic fashion, until the raw recruit suddenly stiffens out, his eyes set and bulging, his muscles rigid and tense. Unable to support himself, he falls over backward, and lies like a log until his leader sees fit to bring him to.

Clark’s description of the Boxers is more detailed than what was reported by many journalists writing at the time, and his facts are corroborated in other contemporary accounts. The exoticism arises less from the tone of the piece than from the invisibility of a “normal” China against which the rest of Clark’s description could be measured. Like today, readers then were rarely exposed to China outside of stories about something jarring or unusual. To the average U.S. reader in 1900, who was more or less at home with the Chinese Exclusion Act, Clark’s story would have informed yet also reinforced prevailing stereotypes of Chinese people as other worldly at best or less than human at worst. Similar in tone and content is this excerpt from a December 9, 1900, article from the New York Times (1900: 8): Something like a craze for the thing [the Boxer movement] was started. It appealed not only to fanaticism, prevalent in the northwest among the Mohammedans, but a mystic quality which invested it made it specially attractive to thousands. The creed that devotees of Boxer rites became invulnerable found believers among the multitudes, and even natives who rank as highly intelligent subscribed to it; evidence to the contrary proving to the native mind merely that the victims lacked faith or were not sufficiently advanced in the order to enjoy its full benefits.

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Both of these excerpts reflect a preoccupation in contemporary reports of the Boxer Uprising with invulnerability rituals, mysticism, and membership. With few exceptions, the foreign press failed to get beyond sensationalism. The temptation to exoticize China often took precedence over a clear recounting of events. Foreign reporters of the Boxer Uprising were themselves susceptible to the ghosts of predecessors who had covered the Taiping Rebellion. An article that appeared in the New York Daily Times (1858: 2–3) reprints a Taiping proclamation that surely implanted an image in the minds of “civilized” foreigners as wild as any rotating Dharma wheel: Yang, entitled the Eastern King and General-in-Chief, with SEAOU, entitled Western King, also General-in-Chief of Thae-ping, by Divine appointment Emperor of Theenkwo, the Celestial dynasty unitedly issue this proclamation to announce that they have received the commands of Heaven to slaughter the imps [the foreigners] and save the people.

While the Taiping Rebellion was much less a war against foreigners than a rebellion against the Qing establishment, such violently racist proclamations understandably fueled the sensational tone of foreign reports on the conflict. Again, the question is not one of accuracy but invisibility of alternative images. The Taiping Rebellion was indeed unimaginably violent. Contextualizing events probably seemed less important than up-todate reporting from the constantly shifting battlefronts. Yet because images of blood overshadow portraits of individual lives in these accounts, it is the blood that survives the passage of time in the public imagination. A century and a half later, exoticism once again rendered individuals invisible in early reports on the Falun Gong crackdown. The facts were generally correct, but the normalcy that millions of Chinese practitioners associated with the practice had all but disappeared: “The word Falun means ‘law wheel,’ a high-energy rotating body said to be in a practitioner’s abdomen that harnesses cosmic forces and expels bad elements. Followers are told to harness this power, rather than using medicines, to cure disease” (New York Times, May 3, 1999: A10). As before, the New York Times and other media outlets initially glossed over the diversity of Falun Gong membership. Although some practitioners did indeed take the extremist position regarding medical care described above, others interpreted Li Hongzhi’s ambiguous ideology more selectively.8 Many early journalistic treatments of Falun Gong peddled a kind of vague exoticism. Others made explicit, often dubious links between Falun Gong and past millenarian movements: Qigong has not always been associated with nonviolent activities. In the third century a qigong-style movement that used faith healing and predic-

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ted the end of the world took over a fourth of the country and helped bring about the fall of the Han dynasty. Similar movements in the Middle Ages and late 18th century led to violent upheavals. Qigong was also central to the Boxer Rebellion against foreigners early this century, as the fighters believed qigong protected them from bullets. (New York Times, April 28, 1999: A26)

In fact, we have little information about how the Boxers actually performed their rituals, but their methods seem to have had more in common with spirit possession rituals (Esherick 1987; Chesneaux 1971) than with the quasi-Daoist, esoteric meditative practices associated with most qigong styles. Indeed, the term qigong did not come into popular usage in China until the twentieth century. The New York Times excerpt also underplays the pop-culture sense of the term qigong as “vital energy workout.” Common images link these news reports across time: “mesmerized,” “trance,” “mesmeric,” “faith healing,” “violent upheaval,” “cosmic forces,” “slaughter the imps,” and so on. If the facts presented about Falun Gong omit specific links to the Taiping Rebellion or the Boxer Uprising, then certainly the focus on the exotic implies such links. Tacit symbolic structures embedded in journalistic accounts link Falun Gong with a mysterious, sometimes frightening past.9 Despite increasing scholarly input and ample opportunity to check historical sources, the journalistic link between the Taiping Rebellion/Boxer Uprising and Falun Gong continues.10 As recently as June 9, 2001, a scholar of new religions, Susan Palmer, published an op-ed on Falun Gong in The Gazette of Montreal that raised the apparently rhetorical question: “Will potential martyrs continue to gravitate toward Tiananmen Square, testing their qigong magical defenses against the Evil, reminiscent of the Taiping rebellion?” (Palmer 2001: B5). While Palmer’s question makes sense in the context of her report on the fanatical devotion practitioners demonstrated during Li Hongzhi’s visit to a May 2001 “experience-sharing conference” in Ottawa, it is still somewhat baffling in light of practitioners’ attempts to distance themselves from the fanaticism (e.g., self-immolation) reported in the same article. Even more baffling is Washington Post Beijing correspondent John Pomfret’s uncritically anti–Falun Gong article entitled “A Foe Rattles Beijing from Abroad: Falun Gong’s Mastermind in New York Guides a Campaign of Protest.” Pomfret declares that recent testimony by followers in China points to the key role played by Li in fomenting the confrontation and in exploiting differences within the Chinese government to befuddle the Communist Party. From the start, Li, a former state grain clerk who leads Falun Gong from a secret location in the New York City borough of Queens, sought to take on Chinese police and continues to urge his followers to confront the security services. (Pomfret 2001: A1)

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Pomfret, one of the first reporters on the scene when the Falun Gong protests began in 1999, goes on to describe Falun Gong as “a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese martial arts” (Pomfret 2001: A1), providing no further explanation for the reader. He cites speculation by the renowned historian of secret societies, David Ownby, that Falun Gong practitioners at the end of their rope in China might opt for martyrdom (see Ownby 2001a for a more complete picture of his viewpoints). An example of the foreign press fanning the flames of sensationalism that perplexed even journalists is a Salon.com report of the controversy that erupted when media magnate Rupert Murdoch, through a policy speech made by his son James, called Falun Gong a “‘dangerous’ and ‘apocalyptic cult’ that ‘clearly does not have the success of China at heart.’ Murdoch also chastised the Western media for painting a relentlessly negative picture of the Chinese government by focusing too often on the topic of human rights violations” (Boehlert 2001). In questioning the journalistic focus on exoticism, we must keep in mind that the viewpoint from the ground, especially in China, is quite different from the viewpoint from the academic’s proverbial ivory tower. It is possible that Falun Gong practitioners in China really are more fanatical (they are certainly more desperate) than their counterparts in North America. Another explanation, perhaps applicable in Pomfret’s case, is “compassion fatigue.” In a world where antifundamentalism is the order of the day, sympathy for Falun Gong practitioners may be running thin. In Rupert Murdoch’s case, the explanation is probably a bit more self-serving. Murdoch has substantial interests in Chinese media and is widely seen as “pimping for the People’s Republic” (Salon.com 2001). Murdoch’s explicit vilification of Falun Gong might be viewed as one of several smoking guns that contextualize the practice within a global marketplace. Indeed, even as he condemns Falun Gong, Murdoch’s statement reaffirms its impact on the globalization of media. Chinese Media The evocation of chaos in Rupert Murdoch’s statements overlaps with the general tone of the Chinese media discourse on Falun Gong. This discourse emerged in three main rhetorical strands in the postcrackdown period. The first adopted the language of past “anti” campaigns to argue that Falun Gong was a threat to order; the second used the rhetoric of science and modernity to argue that Falun Gong was a threat to progress; and the third used anti-Western rhetoric to argue that Li Hongzhi, a dupe of the West, threatened Chinese tradition. In other words, Party media cadres devised a multipronged attack designed to appeal to a broad cross-section of Chinese society.

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By adopting the language of past rectification campaigns, the Party implicitly situated Falun Gong in the context of not only historical examples of chaos, such as the Taiping Rebellion, but also in the more recent chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Any Chinese citizen over thirty-five could recognize in anti–Falun Gong newspaper reports a particular style of bureaucratic jargon, one that may have more to do with the specific ways in which meaning is valued—and therefore negotiated—in China than with any particular political ideology. I am referring here to the Confucian principle of zhengming (the rectification of names), Confucius’s admonition that one’s use of words must be in accordance with truth. In times of revolution and change, the meaning of “rectification” becomes politically and ideologically charged (Cheek 1995). It has always been the prerogative of the powerful in China to rewrite history. The rectification of names was the guiding principle behind the dark stories that newly installed emperors told about their predecessors, and it was a convenient way to handle the inevitable political cliques that emerged under new regimes. The tradition carried through to the communist revolution. Timothy Cheek writes that during the CCP’s 1942–1944 Yan’an Rectification Movement, “The contest over the meaning of revolution had devolved into a contest over the meaning of rectification. The contest included a power struggle among the top leadership (particularly between Mao and Wang Ming for preeminence) and a related fight over who had the best way to carry out the Revolution” (Cheek 1995). Early intra-Party struggle for the control of meanings set the tone for future rectification campaigns and also provided an early indication of how the Party would actually disseminate ideological struggle through public meetings and the press. Cumulatively, the voices that emerge through this process also extend beyond their original venue. Like their foreign counterparts, they become hungry ghosts, moving forward in time and ensconcing themselves in new interpretations of similar events. The referents in Chinese media differ from those in the foreign press, but they evoke many of the same images of violence and instability, even though they are described in bureaucratic tropes. Two weeks after the July 1999 crackdown, for example, the People’s Daily wrote that the “Falun Gong cult tried to persuade people to give up their ideals and pursuits, and eschew social practice, which militates against the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics” (People’s Daily Online, 1999c). The rhetoric of socialism in this passage acts differently for different generations. First, for those who remember it, the language implicitly revives images of the Cultural Revolution. Since everyone knows that the conversation actually is about capitalism with Chinese characteristics, the words themselves are meaningless. The style, however, sends a clear message that Party authority is not to be trifled with. Second, especially for the twenty-and-under generation, the language holds an added shock: the rhetoric of socialism so

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prominent in newspapers and scholarly journals in the early post-Mao period (c. 1980) has been replaced to a surprising degree by a style of language that reflects foreign influences. By 1999, for example, modernized museum displays in Shanghai and Hangzhou had almost completely shed references to socialism. Consequently, young people who read the language of rectification lack their elders’ literacy in deciphering nuances and decoding underlying meanings. A second trend in the Chinese media discourse involves adopting the rhetoric of scientism in order to combat Li Hongzhi’s own scientism (Ownby 2001 and 2002). The He Zuoxiu anti-qigong article that originally sparked the Falun Gong protests came partly in response to Li’s claims that Falun Gong had proved that modern science was inadequate to explain the universe (Li’s references to quarks, ancient astronauts visiting the earth, etc., draws on a kind of transnational language of “alternative” science that “legitimate” scientists find distasteful). One week after the crackdown, Renmin Ribao commented that “it is necessary to utilize correct theory and scientific knowledge” in the struggle against Falun Gong (Renmin Ribao 1999c). Chinese scientists came forward in the press to criticize Falun Gong as superstitious and pseudoscientific. In 2001, Shanghai bookstores prominently displayed an “updated” version of Zhong Kewen’s How Falun Gong Became Influential: An Analysis of Qigong and Supernormal Abilities. A comparison between ancient esoteric practices and modern qigong, Zhong’s book had originally appeared several years before the crackdown without making a significant impact. The postcrackdown version, which added anti–Falun Gong essays by Party officials and excerpts from anti–Falun Gong news articles, sold well. In addition to blanketing print media with anti–Falun Gong propaganda, the Party also adopted innovative TV strategies following the crackdown. For several years before the ban on Falun Gong, James Randi, the leading U.S. skeptic and a professional magician, appeared on Chinese TV talk shows to debunk qigong re charlatanism. Randi offered $1 million to any qigong master who could prove, in a controlled scientific study, that his or her supernormal claims were legitimate. Perhaps without his knowledge, since the crackdown the Party occasionally rebroadcasts Randi’s appearances. Chinese television also broadcasted an English-language interview with a “reformed” Falun Gong practitioner, still in prison in China, who publicly denounced the practice. The set design and format of the show borrowed from U.S. and Japanese investigative news programs. Both of these examples draw on capitalist iconography to present an image of techno-modernity that feeds directly into the state’s claim to scientific legitimacy. The third main strand of the Chinese media discourse, which has played a relatively minor role to date, places a traditionalist argument with-

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in the framework of anti-Western rhetoric. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether the Party is implying that the West is behind Falun Gong or that Falun Gong is itself somehow pro-Western (and therefore anti-Chinese). A February 2001 Xinhua News Agency article, for example, states that “antiChina forces in the West will face a dilemma if the cult nature of Falun Gong that they use to cause trouble in China is revealed to the world” (Xinhua 2001): Because of Falun Gong’s nature of going against science and the progress of human society, Falun Gong is losing followers in both China and the rest of the world. Li Hongzhi and the Falun Gong cult have been struggling to throw themselves into the lap of the anti-China forces in the West.

Anti-West rhetoric frequently appears in the Chinese press, and in the context of Falun Gong it is imbued with an underlying appeal to tradition. Jiang Zemin has often laced his speeches with warnings against corrosive Western cultural influences and accompanying appeals to Chinese tradition. These speeches reflect a general sense among the older generation in China that young people have too quickly succumbed to the evils of capitalism. The fact that McDonald’s and Pizza Hut have become staples in urban China does not always sit well with the generation that Jiang represents. Placing Falun Gong in the same category as American pop music and clothing styles appeals directly to that constituency. Zhong’s How Falun Gong Became Influential works in a similar manner. Part of the book is devoted to distinguishing “real” Buddhist and Daoist esoteric practices, the finest elements of China’s spiritual tradition, from “fake” qigong practices. There is, in other words, a traditionalist response to the effects of globalization. Purveyors of neoliberal policies, even those who pushed for China’s membership in the World Trade Organization, often find themselves caught in a dilemma that pits the old internal-chaos-and-external-calamities worldview against a hybrid socialist-neoliberalist view of global economic progress. Scholarly Discourse The emerging scholarly discourse on Falun Gong generally seeks a place for the practice in the wider discourse of Chinese history but without resorting to sensationalism. While academic discussion continues to evolve as scholars from diverse disciplines contribute to the literature, several identifiable concerns have emerged since 1998–1999. Scholars initially intrigued by the idea have generally rejected explicit links between Falun Gong and violent rebellions or uprisings like the Boxers and Taiping. They attempt to place Falun Gong within the context of other heterodox practices, both past and present. They also offer social, political, and economic

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contexts for the popularity of Falun Gong, using detailed analyses to test the claims of both Falun Gong adherents and the Chinese government. They recognize that both the global nature of the practice and the context of modern China differentiate Falun Gong from previous Chinese spiritual movements. Nearly all express empathy toward Falun Gong members yet at the same time often publicly distance themselves from them. This latter feature indicates the tightrope scholars walk between being too controversial and gaining a professional reputation from writing articles and presenting papers on hot topics. Rejection of the Boxer Uprising/Taiping Rebellion thesis came early in the academic debate. Initially, the same ghosts who guided the pens of reporters also seemed to guide the scholars’ pens. Academics devoted a considerable amount of list-serve chatter to Falun Gong as early as October 1998, a full six months before the April demonstration at Zhongnanhai (Frank and Foreman 1998; Liu 1998). Some of this discussion focused on potential links with past millenarian movements, but by 2001, when detailed information about Falun Gong had begun to accumulate, more focused and practice-centered arguments emerged that pushed the Boxer/Taiping thesis aside. Publishing in scholarly journals and the popular press, David Ownby, Nancy Chen, Barend J. Ter Haar, and others compose a group of public intellectuals who have attempted to translate the unfolding events for the public. Ownby, as I have already mentioned, has drawn qualified connections between Falun Gong and the Song Dynasty folk Buddhist practices known as White Lotus. But he approaches the question from a discursive standpoint, emphasizing that White Lotus is “not a value neutral description” (Ownby 2000). Rather, it appears frequently in stateproduced historical documents “to label groups that they did not like.” Ownby adds an important point: It is very hard to get past what the state described, to get a handle on the historical reality of groups who may have been peacefully cultivating in a way that was fairly similar to Qigong or Falun Gong but which wound up being labeled, in spite of themselves, as a subversive group. There were, of course, groups that did use these ideas to foment rebellion. Let us not brand them all as completely innocent, but my suspicion is that there was a wide range of these kinds of peaceful groups and that we have had a very narrow fix on them because of the Chinese state’s preoccupations. (Ownby 2000)

Like Ownby, Chen makes clear distinctions between Falun Gong and “previous sectarian organizations” (Chen 2000). A medical anthropologist, Chen places the practice within the context of popular healing methods in China, including the Party-discredited qigong re phenomenon. She also places Falun Gong and other qigong systems within a global context:

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The more cosmopolitan travel of masters, via circuits of greater China and diaspora communities, means that the political arena of containment at home has been entirely transformed. Using foreign press coverage as an intervention in the Chinese mainland has meant that the state also needs to respond at a broader and more unified level. (Chen 2000)

This broader level, Chen comments, includes continued promotion of qigong “because it is uniquely Chinese and promotes an important element of state identity” (Chen 2000). Chen cites one state bureaucrat who, in arguing for the value of qigong, remarked that “Qigong is a treasure house of China and we need to protect it from unsavory characters who use it to sell themselves” (Chen 2000). With respect to Falun Gong, the bureaucrat’s accusation that “unsavory characters” are undermining qigong is based largely on the Chinese government’s charges that Li Hongzhi demanded excessive fees for workshops and Falun Gong study materials and that Falun Gong set up antigovernment cells at every level. In 2002, James Tong published a balanced article on Falun Gong’s organizational structure, financing, and communications that challenged the substance of these accusations. At the same time, Tong argues that Falun Gong’s organizational structure has evolved with the political climate, becoming much looser, with greater local autonomy, when government scrutiny grew troublesome during the anti-pseudoscience campaign. He concludes that “this decentralized system . . . contributed to the militancy of the local units that antagonized local authorities, leading to spiral conflict escalation” (Tong 2002: 660). That Tong uses the language of objectivity to distribute responsibility for the conflict to both parties reflects the ambivalence of many scholars who took on the topic of Falun Gong. Concerned, at one extreme, with assumptions by colleagues and Chinese government officials that they are cult members themselves and, at the other, with protecting the rights and confidences of research subjects, these scholars walk a thin line. In a lecture at Rice University, Ownby made a point of mentioning that he had learned the rudiments of the practice in the course of his fieldwork but neither shared the Falun Gong belief system nor considered himself an adherent. In the two academic papers I presented at regional Asian studies conferences, I made similar statements. At least one graduate student I know at a U.S. university was strongly advised by a dissertation committee member not to get involved with Falun Gong research lest she lose the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in China on her dissertation topic. Others have reported persistent inquiries about Falun Gong from the U.S. government, a situation that has created both ethical and professional concerns. Despite these difficulties, scholars continue to conduct fieldwork, present papers, and write articles (as have foreign reporters in China, despite occasional harassment and detention). In doing so, they have staked out a discursive space

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that provides relatively neutral territory for all parties in the conflict. That is not to say that scholarly discourse holds a monopoly on objectivity, only that all parties have been willing, at one time or another, to speak frankly with scholars on the topic. Human Rights The opposite is true for the discursive space created by the human rights approach to Falun Gong, a discourse that defines nonpractitioner opposition to Chinese government policy. Since human rights questions lie at the core of the political debate on Falun Gong—and all parties, therefore, have addressed them from time to time—I focus only briefly here on the relatively narrow space where human rights questions are defined and codified, namely, in reports published by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the U.S. State Department. Aside from raising crucial moral issues associated with human rights abuses, the value of these reports lies in their detailed marshalling of information about legal mechanisms in China, other banned organizations, the status of individual cases against practitioners, and key documents and press coverage. The 2000 Amnesty report, for example, devotes several pages to the activities of quasiChristian “heretical organizations,” as well as to several banned qigong organizations. By documenting the activities of these groups, the report places the anti–Falun Gong crackdown within the context of the post-Deng antisuperstition campaign. Although it focuses on Falun Gong, however, the report actually reduces the spotlight on the practice, seeing it as only one antagonist in the Party’s attempt to maintain tight control over religious and spiritual organizations. Human Rights Watch (2002) corroborates much of the Amnesty information. It also includes an extensive section on foreign government responses and how those responses have affected relations with China. Less detailed but equally damning of the crackdown, the State Department report is notable for its tone, reflecting cross-pressures between obeying the mandate of Congress to provide complete and accurate information on human rights abuses, and its relatively low position in the State Department hierarchy. Officials at the Bureau on Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which prepares the annual human rights reports, sometimes complain about pressure from embassy staff and political appointees to soft-pedal human rights violations in the interests of maintaining positive relations (private communications with State Department officials). With respect to Falun Gong, it is unclear whether this conflict of interest has had any impact on the information presented or the language used to condemn Chinese policy in these reports (U.S. Department of State 2002). As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, one purpose in analyzing Falun Gong in terms of discourse is to help us better understand how

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and why particular policy decisions have been made. The reports generated by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. State Department are especially important in this regard because they are influential sources of moral authority, both nationally and internationally. Congressional resolutions condemning China’s policy toward Falun Gong practitioners are based in large part on information provided by these and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Further, the actual process of human rights policy making and lawmaking in Washington and other democratic capitals involves meetings between experts from NGOs and government officials. Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace, and other NGOs concerned with human rights in Asia actively promote policies and contribute language to human rights legislation. How effectively have NGOs and Falun Gong practitioners contributed to government policies? In Hong Kong, the former colony’s status as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) has allowed practitioners to continue their activities more or less without harassment (Human Rights Watch 2002). SAR administrators do make frequent anti–Falun Gong statements signaling approval of Beijing’s policy, but the continued presence of human rights organizations and a relatively free press in Hong Kong serve as reminders to SAR administrators that they are still obligated to uphold the Basic Law—the agreement between Beijing and Great Britain that guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion until the middle of the twenty-first century. Elsewhere in Asia, Japan has neither banned Falun Gong nor offered support to members seeking asylum. Scarred by its own experiences with “evil cults” and always concerned to maintain good relations with its powerful neighbor, the Japanese remain reluctant to turn Falun Gong into a political issue. Taiwan maintains a similar policy. Officials there give the impression that they would prefer that Falun Gong practitioners go elsewhere, but in the interest of saving face they refuse to bow to Chinese pressure to ban the practice. In Australia, North America, and Europe, human rights NGOs often have the ear of high-level national officials and, perhaps more important, municipal officials, many of whom have passed resolutions supporting Falun Gong. Foreign governments have had their hands forced to some degree by China’s detention of their citizens on Falun Gong–related charges (Human Rights Watch 2002). In Canada, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien included references to Falun Gong members in a speech denouncing China’s human rights policy. In the United States, responses came from several levels in addition to the State Department report. President Bill Clinton publicly criticized China for its treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on August 6, 1999, “calling on China to release Falun Gong adherents and permit fol-

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lowers to resume practice” (Human Rights Watch 2002: 80; Schechter 2000). While individual European governments have made diplomatic decisions regarding Falun Gong on an uneven, case-by-case basis, the European Parliament passed resolutions in 2000 and 2001 condemning Chinese government actions that promoted harsh rejoinders. China also reminded “France, Italy, and Germany of their own problems with ‘cults,’ and offered to collaborate against the common threat” (Human Rights Watch 2002: 79). All of these actions reflect collaboration with human rights NGOs (the Human Rights Watch report cited in this chapter, for example, was circulated widely in Washington, D.C., and in Europe). They also reflect the limited but concrete successes of Falun Gong lobbyists in getting pro–Falun Gong resolutions passed at the highest levels. Practice-Centered Practitioner lobbying represents one aspect of the final category I will discuss: a practitioner-driven discourse that arises not only from the textual and organizational features described above but also from the sensual experience of the practice itself. Falun Gong contains a powerful physical component for practitioners, a sense of strength, energy, and healing. These features lay a psycho-physiological foundation for accepting Li Hongzhi’s ideology, as well as for resisting state control. The accounts of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States that follow, drawn primarily from my own U.S. fieldwork in 1998 and 1999, provide alternative perspectives on what has appeared in popular media and underscore the wide gap between the way practitioners perceive themselves and the way they are portrayed by others. The fieldwork also indicates how Falun Gong actually functions as a commodity in the global New Age marketplace and how resistance is itself a currency of a kind that allows practitioners to gain transnational legitimacy. Falun Gong adherents are active participants in shaping their public image. Overseas adherents engage in a professional public relations campaign designed to counteract negative images that emerged in the press and on the Internet. Not surprisingly, they actively cultivate relationships with journalists, anthropologists, politicians, and religious leaders to report the Falun Gong viewpoint or to advocate for Falun Gong members. Of foremost concern to practitioners in the United States is that outsiders understand the details of their exercise system and of their ideology. As a researcher, it was necessary, therefore, to learn the practice and participate in group practice sessions in the U.S. locations where I conducted the fieldwork (at no time did I engage in Falun Gong–related fieldwork in China). My own practice ceased when the fieldwork ended in 1999. In the field report that follows, I have attempted to represent practitioner viewpoints as

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accurately as possible, but I make no claim to having a true insider perspective. In the spring of 1999, I participated for three weeks in the Friday-night practice sessions of a Falun Gong group in the southern United States. The group met weekly at the home of two female members. Professor Zhou held an advanced degree and taught in a distant city. She managed to drive home every weekend to practice Falun Gong with her retired, elderly mother, who practiced Falun Gong twice daily. Her husband was not a practitioner and occasionally made disparaging comments during sessions held in the Zhous’ large home. On a typical night, practitioners generally arrived around 7 P. M . Between 7:30 and 8 P.M. they chatted informally and exchanged books and other information about Li Hongzhi. Except for me, all of the practitioners in the Southern group were from Greater China (the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, or Singapore). Most were highly educated. Several held doctorates in physical and computer sciences. According to group members, most Falun Gong practitioners in the United States are educated, mainland Chinese currently or previously affiliated with U.S. universities. At 8 P.M., the practitioners began watching an English-language videotape of Li Hongzhi practicing the Falun Gong movements. Practitioners stood evenly spaced around the room in order to maintain an unobstructed view of the television, but Zhou always occupied the center-front position. Several group members commented to me privately about Zhou’s dedication (her central position in the practice space may have reflected this feeling). Practice sessions generally lasted two hours. Though the individual exercises are not difficult to learn, the length of practice makes Falun Gong a relatively rigorous qigong set. 11 Several practitioners reported being unable to complete the whole two hours even after several months of practice, especially the Way of Strengthening Supernormal Powers, which consists of an hour of sitting meditation in either a half-lotus or full-lotus position (see the accompanying note for a detailed description of the Falun Gong postures).12 Adherents attach no stigma to dropping out along the way, although anyone who can complete the full exercise acquires a degree of social capital. Generally, practitioners come and go as they please, often breaking form to speak to one another or correct a newcomer’s posture. Despite this informality, most practitioners maintain high expectations of themselves. For example, Mr. Yu, a forty-two-year-old petrochemical engineer, said that he would “like to eventually endure—and even enjoy—the entire sitting period in a full lotus position [each leg crossed over the other]. This is essential to advancing.” Away from group practice, individuals reported daily variations in how long they performed each exercise,

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depending on individual preferences, level of fatigue, and time available on any given day. Practitioners reported a variety of bodily sensations during practice. The following description is typical: Definite heat. In fact, I became quite hot. . . . At one point during the moving qigong, I felt a slight third eye buzz. Later in the evening, after going home, I felt a tingling in the top of my head. . . . Probably because I was more relaxed, I felt greater circulation of the qi.13 On certain postures, I find myself directing the qi to various points, usually my fingers. Other times, I notice the tingling/heat sensations are in different parts of my body or are moving around. The interesting question is whether or not I’m causing this with mind-intent (qi, go here) or if I am simply paying attention to a process that’s already happening. . . . Several people sweat, though not profusely. I didn’t sweat a whole lot tonight. Greatest difficulty for me is in the sitting postures. I can’t hold the sitting for very long. My solution is to slowly lean forward to relieve the pressure on the lower back.

Particularly in the early stages of practice, tingling, heat, gas, and cramping are frequent occurrences. However, unlike with many other qigong forms (e.g., Yan Xin Gong14), Falun Gong practitioners make no attempt to manipulate these sensations mentally, to move qi along specific energy meridians associated with Traditional Chinese Medicine, or to engage in mental imaging of natural objects and internal landscapes as described in various writings on Daoist esoteric practices. In Falun Gong, practitioners are simply advised to relax. Following the practice, Mrs. Zhou served tea while practitioners read Li Hongzhi’s texts together, discussed upcoming events, and generally reflected on the experience. During one meeting with the group, for example, Professor Zhou emphasized that the external movements of Falun Gong were secondary to reading the texts continuously and steadily. She implied that the very act of reading had a certain spiritual efficacy. Several other members of the group also emphasized this point. In the sense that texts play a central role in how practitioners conduct their lives, I agree with Ownby’s reference to them as “scriptures” (Ownby 2000). However, the practitioners I interviewed did not use this characterization themselves. My research with this group took place at a time when Falun Gong was still a relatively unknown and obscure practice in the United States. By the time I reconnected with Falun Gong adherents in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1999, the situation had changed dramatically. From July 22–25, 1999, in response to the Chinese government crackdown that had occurred several days earlier, I found several Falun Gong practitioners protesting in front of the Chinese embassy. Outraged by the events of the previous few

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days, they had chartered a bus from some distance away, remained for three days, and were now waiting to board their bus home. “When we heard that at least 10,000 practitioners had been detained without proper food or water,” one protestor stated, “we felt obligated to protest.” Asked how he felt when reporters compared Falun Gong to the Taiping Rebellion or the Boxer Uprising, Mr. Zhang, a physical scientist, replied, I feel uncomfortable. You know, it’s completely different. And Falun Gong will never involve in politics. . . . Compared to Yihequan [“Righteous and Harmonious Fist,” or “the Boxers”] or some other things, it’s not the same category. It’s compare apple with orange. It’s different things. . . . They sent undercover people to join our activities. The undercover people finally, you know, they joined the Falun Gong practice.

As the protests continued, Falun Gong practitioners learned to anticipate certain lines of questioning. Because charges of illegal financial practices was one of the central accusations made against Li Hongzhi, many practitioners felt obligated to provide their personal perspective on money issues. Zhang, for example, emphasized that “in Falun Gong practice, there is no donation accepted. No money involved. . . . Nothing related to money. . . . All activities are volunteered.” Both before and after the crackdown, other practitioners also stressed that their participation was “voluntary” and “free of charge.” During the mid-August Washington, D.C./Baltimore city council–mandated Falun Gong Week,15 for instance, a spokesperson for Li Hongzhi mentioned that she had “spent a lot of money in the last twenty-five years doing different disciplines. A great deal of money.” Regarding Falun Gong, she said, “Nobody’s ever asked me for money. I’ve never donated. There’s never a cost to anything I’ve done.” When questioned about their financial participation, other practitioners corroborated the spokesperson’s statement: Falun Gong, they claimed, was a relative bargain in the global New Age marketplace of practices and products, including qigong. Tong’s research on Falun Gong’s financial operations, cited above, supports this position. A second common topic of conversation and public testimonial during the August Falun Gong Week was recovery from illness, injury, and disease. One U.S. practitioner, now middle-aged, described her near-death from cancer during her twenties and the years of emotional turmoil and search for meaning that followed. Her encounter with Falun Gong came following the end of a disastrous relationship. “Emotionally, I was not in great shape,” she said. “Physically it took a toll on my health. For the first time in twenty-five years, I was on heavy medication, anti-depressants.” She went on to say,

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I went for a trip to China. I was there for a month on business. I went to the areas and practiced [Falun Gong] on the weekends. And when I heard some of their stories, their health stories, how they turned—these were people in their sixties, seventies, eighties—I came back to the hotel room and dumped all my medicine. . . . It’s been over a year now. And I—as you can see, I don’t look my age, I don’t think.

Freddy, an American practitioner in his early fifties, relayed the following story. A serious head injury several years earlier had left him with reduced motor skills, crippled his ability to read and write, and made it difficult for him to concentrate. His injuries drove him into a deep depression that he dealt with through heavy drinking and pot smoking. His wife, Judy, a government-employed computer scientist originally from China, had introduced him to Falun Gong several months earlier, and he reported a slow but significant reduction in his alcohol consumption. However, Freddy did not entirely embrace Falun Gong until he injured a finger in a gardening accident. At the time, he believed that the finger was broken or severely sprained. Judy urged Freddy to practice the Falun Gong exercises for a few minutes, after which, Freddy claims, the finger completely healed. Similar stories abound: a graduate student in the physical sciences, for example, publicly described his recovery from heart trouble after he began practicing Falun Gong; and a man described his recovery from stress-related headaches that had persisted even after surgery on his sinuses. In addition to money and illness, a third common topic involved the relationship of Falun Gong to science. Although approximately 90 percent of the practitioners interviewed had been educated in the natural sciences, their scientific training in no way hindered them from uncritically accepting Li Hongzhi’s writings. Several mentioned physical experiences that had confirmed Li’s paranormal claims for them. Others rejected the notion that the exercise was in any way related to “superstitious” qigong re styles (practitioners usually referred to Falun Gong as shulian, or “cultivation exercise,” rather than qigong). They also expressed doubt about empiricist claims to truth. Jeremy, an electrical engineer and consultant, reflected such views in his statement that “I do have a science background. I guess, you know, cause you’re always searching, and I guess you figure that science doesn’t really give you all the answers that you need. That’s the way I’ve always felt.” All of these issues contributed to the intense period of community formation that occurred among Falun Gong practitioners after the crackdown. They provided common weapons to combat criticism from enemies and common tools for building relationships with potential friends. Moreover, they constituted a set of commonly held experiences and beliefs that contributed to a sense of shared identity. Group activities out-

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side of practice took on even greater importance during this period, and practitioners in Washington enthusiastically participated in public outreach activities. At the same time, since it was difficult to tell who was a practitioner and who was working for the Chinese embassy, distrust ran high. During the week of July 26, 1999, for example, I spoke to several protestors from a group of some 500 who had gathered on the grounds of the Capitol. This group included practitioners from all over the United States and abroad, some of whom had traveled to the West Coast that week to attend a Falun Gong event but left for Washington when the protests began. As a result, there were many unfamiliar faces in the crowd. Even though practitioners wanted to speak openly and share their feelings about what had happened, they were constrained because they never quite knew to whom they were talking. In one case, an elderly Chinese American from the Bay Area freely criticized Jiang Zemin and Chinese communism in general. As he spoke into my tape recorder, two women hovered close by, staring anxiously, and eventually interrupted to ask him the purpose of our interview. He explained that I was an anthropologist doing research on Falun Gong, at which point they pulled him aside out of earshot. A few moments later he returned and requested that I surrender the tape, repeatedly asking, “We’re still friends aren’t we?” I handed him the tape. Another suspicious incident occurred during the August 14, 1999, opening ceremony of Falun Gong Week on the Washington Mall. Two elderly Chinese men in threadbare clothing carefully videotaped the event from several vantage points (including three feet from my face). They told me that they were practitioners from Houston, but neither actually participated in the day’s events. Several protestors commented that these two were probably from the Chinese embassy or one of the consulates. “To me, I have nothing to hide,” Judy told me after watching the two men for a while. “There was a white guy videotaping earlier, but he kept trying to hide it. I just don’t get it. This event is open to the public. He doesn’t have to hide it.” The crackdown created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion among practitioners, but that was not the only source of tension. Even before the crackdown, differing degrees of commitment to Li Hongzhi and the manner in which followers publicly demonstrated that commitment sometimes prompted disagreement. Judy, for example, criticized those who worshiped Li Hongzhi too zealously, noting “Master Li said ‘treat me as a human.’” Freddy agreed, pointing out that far from seeking worshipers, Li admonished followers to not “get caught up in the images. Don’t fall into attachments.” When I asked Freddy if he was attached to Falun Gong, he replied, “We choose our attachments.” Freddy and Judy echoed the opinions of many other practitioners, particularly in their desire to disassociate them-

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selves from anything that might be regarded as cult or religion, even if that meant being critical of other qigong styles. Judy related a story of paying twenty Chinese dollars several years earlier to take a workshop with Tian Ruisheng, “sole living receptacle of China Xiang Gong.”16 In keeping with the name (“Fragrant workout”), this teacher could emit fragrances from his fingertips. “So what?” Judy declared. “The teacher asked everyone to place their palm over an area of illness and he would heal it. At the time, I was having an allergic reaction to the metal on my eyeglass chain. After the workshop, the rash got worse.” Judy also mentioned that a friend’s husband had spent thousands of dollars on Yan Xin Gong workshops. In telling these stories, Judy implied that Falun Gong was the real thing in contrast to the questionable practices that she and her friends had encountered in past years. These attempts to separate the “authentic” (Falun Gong) from the “fake” (Yan Xin Gong, Xiang Gong, etc.) also reflected a reluctance among practitioners to reveal the extent of their sensual experience of Falun Gong. They wanted to share the richness of their experience yet worried that nonpractitioners would view them as crazy. They selectively shared stories with outsiders to illustrate both the ideology and cosmology of Falun Gong. Mr. Zhang, one of the out-of-towners protesting in front of the Chinese embassy, recounted Li Hongzhi’s description of Falun Gong as “a miniature of the universe.” As Zhang described his personal experience of this statement, “Everything is rotating and smaller energy particles have higher energy levels, a phenomenon that human beings could not adequately explain.” Others report even more explicit sensual experiences. One morning Freddy, Judy, Jeremy, and I watched two women silently sitting backto-back while reading one of Li’s books. Freddy remarked that he could “see a Falun hovering above their heads.” “A lot of people don’t believe what Freddy says,” Judy told me. “I was like that too at first, but now I trust a lot of his insights.” Jeremy, ribbing Freddy, commented, “He’s a burned-out hippie.” Judy looked over at him and smiled. “I’ve never seen the spinning Falun,” she said. “The only thing I ever saw was Master Li’s aura.” Other experiences, while less dramatic, are perhaps more common. Virtually all qigong practitioners report sensations of heat or tingling in the body. Jeremy commented that Falun Gong gave him “a lot of energy, I feel like my legs are light, my body’s light, I’m quicker, I’m just quicker to respond, just my thinking is a lot quicker, my reaction time is so quick.” Jeremy later mentioned that he felt a slightly uncomfortable “massaging at the temples” when he practiced Falun Gong and a different style of qigong on the same day. As Chinese government attacks multiplied and provoked public response, such personal testimonials became increasingly rare. Practitioners objected to being exoticized in newspaper and magazine arti-

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cles. Discussion turned to the welfare of friends and family who had been arrested. One practitioner described how his mother had been arrested for protesting to a local cadre about the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners. Although they released her within a few days, the man found it difficult to accept that a modern Chinese government could subject an old woman to such mistreatment. In his opinion, a view he shared with many others, the crackdown had pulled the group together. Yet one could not help feeling that pulling together constituted a double-edged sword for them. True, the world suddenly knew all about Falun Gong, but many practitioners, recovering from a combination of physical and emotional illnesses, longed for a return to less stressful days. Discursive Dialogues The discursive spaces I have explored above do not exist independently of one another. Indeed, they are mutually constitutive, often in explicit, very concrete ways. Arising out of much broader and deeper economic, diplomatic, political, and personal relationships, they are spaces of action and reaction that together drive policy decisions forward. What imbues them with distinctness are the walls that surround each of these spaces. A paucity of empathy has created a condition of limited permeability. Further, because Falun Gong, as a quasi-organization, is not a state or even representative of any specific political position, its practitioners have been unable to take advantage of existing mediation mechanisms, such as the office of the United Nations Secretary-General. As is the case with most of the other fundamentalist groups mentioned in this volume, there is no neutral ground, only mutual action and reaction. In that sense, the conflict that surrounds Falun Gong is a microcosm of the broader conflicts that have arisen as a result of globalization and neoliberalism. Falun Gong in this wider context is the subject of the final section of this chapter.

Falun Gong as “Packaged Dissent” Sifting through contending images and stories of Falun Gong forces us to extract it from the imagined past and resituate it in the experienced present. Each of the discourses outlined above delineates a position that tells us something valuable about Falun Gong: Foreign media reports provide the obvious service of keeping us abreast of events as they unfold; they also tell us something about the preconceptions with which we approach Falun Gong and religious-spiritual revivalism in general. Chinese media reports give us a clear sense of the serious threat the CCP sees in any mass movement that lies outside state control, particularly one that echoes past

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upheavals. Recent scholarly debate deepens our understanding of Falun Gong’s possible origins and the potential directions it will take; it also tells us something about the politics of academia. Analyzing the human rights discourse provides us with a detailed understanding of the mechanisms of repression and the policy positions held by the various players. A practitioner-centered discourse gives voice to the beliefs and sensual experiences of individuals at the center of Falun Gong, while providing us with a picture of how and why an individualistic spiritual practice is driven to become a professionalized movement. In the remainder of the chapter, I would like to suggest an approach to Falun Gong that incorporates much from the above discussion, but it also returns to my earlier contextualization of the practice within the globalization of China’s economy in the early 1990s. Falun Gong can be seen as one component of a global New Age marketplace, where meditation practitioners (including qigong teachers), empowerment gurus, enthusiasts of Asian and Native American culture, and purveyors of alternative medical therapies vie for market shares. A diverse group, New Age entrepreneurs share a tendency to hybridize cultural perspectives, products, and techniques. They draw on the language of science to criticize science. Perhaps most important, the global New Age phenomenon crosses political borders to disseminate products and practices, successfully navigating the complexities of international trade and immigration. Thus, as Falun Gong became accessible to middle- and upper-middle-class sectors outside of China, Westernstyle herbal supplements, UFO organizations, nutritional philosophies, and individual empowerment plans became increasingly available in China. The transnational exchange of New Age values takes place through a wideopen door into the United States and a still narrow (but widening) door into China.17 China’s internal economic reforms, coupled with its participation in key global and regional neoliberal regimes (including its 2001 admittance into the World Trade Organization and hosting of the 2001 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum), create an atmosphere for the cultivation of consumer desire and enable transnational value exchanges. On an everyday basis, however, such exchanges happen not at the level of international diplomacy or global economic regimes but at the level of popular culture, people-to-people cultural exchanges, and small-scale business relationships. The culture of desire, in other words, emanates from the bottom as well as the top (Dutton 1998). It is difficult to say whether Li Hongzhi had consumer culture, EuroAmerican New Agers, and emigration in mind when he introduced Falun Gong to the public in 1992, but it was not long before overseas opportunities presented themselves. A long-term collusion among Party economic policy makers, foreign corporations, entrepreneurs, and consumers provided the tools whereby Chinese businesses could cultivate desires for prod-

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ucts and services and thereby compete successfully in an international market. While Jiang Zemin made speeches condemning Western values, he also encouraged inclusion of Chinese capitalists in the formal structure of the Party.18 Jiang’s policy of promoting tradition and Asian values simultaneously dismantled Chinese socialism and provided the perfect petri dish in which to culture Falun Gong and other qigong re practices throughout the 1990s. The great irony of the “antisuperstition” campaign and subsequent crackdown on Falun Gong is that the Party actively encouraged what Michael Dutton calls the “consumptive mode” in the first place: The power of the consumptive mode, while supplementing and promoting government initiatives and dreams of development in some ways, also undermines them in others. Consumerism transgresses the boundaries of government initiative, forcing the State itself to partake in “market initiatives.” In other words, this mode consumes government too, as recent State initiatives in the market all too clearly demonstrate. (Dutton 1998: 4)

In light of the Party’s encouragement of both consumerism and entrepreneurship, Li’s introduction of Falun Gong in the same year as Deng Xiaoping’s tour of the South is no surprise. Depending on one’s perspective, Li and other entrepreneurs either patriotically responded to a clarion call or used Deng’s trip as an excuse to modernize the marketing of “ancient wisdom.” Falun Gong began as one small component in a rising popular culture that encouraged a vision of China that was both futuristic (not merely modern) and traditional. This world of popular culture included not only qigong but also medicine, novels, comic books, drama, and movies. In 1991, for example, Ke Yunlu published his novel The New Age, which Geremie Barmé describes as promising “novel interpretations of the Tao Te Ching, the Book of Changes, the Bible, and the Buddhist canon” (Barmé 1999: 141; 1994). Certainly, by the time Falun Gong began to gain momentum in China, Li had already recognized its potential for overseas marketing. Like many well-informed Chinese businesspeople in the 1980s, he acquired a keen sense of Western marketing techniques and used these to his advantage in selling Falun Gong. Li also had existing transnational qigong marketing models to draw from. The legendary entrepreneurial exploits of New Age qigong pioneers, such as Mantak Chia, a Thai–Hong Kong Chinese who established a large following through books, videotapes, and seminars in the mid-1980s, would have been common knowledge to members of China’s professional qigong establishment. The purchase of books and tapes required only a small investment that almost anyone could afford, and Li emphasized as wide a distribution of products as possible, encouraging people to give away Falun Gong materials, promoting the dissemination of information over the web, and eventually sell-

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ing products through multilingual Falun Gong websites. Li’s writings reflect a specific knowledge of what might appeal to both a Chinese and a Euro-American New Age audience. For example, he argues in Zhuan Falun that the Earth was visited by ancient astronauts (Li 1998), a theory popularized in the West in the 1960s by Erich Von Däniken. At the same time, he promotes an ideology that rejects certain “decadent” Western values and valorizes Chinese tradition. In other words, he has something to offer every outsider to whom he can possibly appeal in his writings. His no-nonsense demeanor on videotapes, dressed either in a well-pressed kung fu uniform or in a business suit, projects an image of power and success that works cross-culturally. As an intelligent entrepreneur—and one who truly seems to believe in what he is selling—Li has successfully turned government repression into a sales strategy. Geremie Barmé has written that among Chinese artists in the early 1990s, dissent became a fashionable, “packaged” commodity, with the result that “in an environment in which the hierarchy of punishments determines surplus value, enforced invisibility is the ultimate violence against the individual, whereas those who can maintain a public profile become the international face of contemporary Chinese culture” (Barmé 1999: 200). Barmé’s statement applies well to Falun Gong. Because Rupert Murdoch, for example, is widely seen in Western circles as colluding with the CCP at any cost, his public condemnation of Falun Gong transferred significant social capital to Li and actually helped Li to keep Falun Gong in the news, as did the support of international human rights activists and U.S. presidents. If, as Barmé argues, invisibility is the death knell for the artistdissident, then globalization is the breath of life. In the diaspora, when the state is physically distant, a dissident group resorts to utilizing competing public discourses strategically to carry on its own discourse of protest, echoing Mary Ann Tétreault’s assessment in Chapter 1 of this volume that such actions are “not merely protest against practices, but also a Gramscian war of position against the ideologies that support systems of dominance.” Such groups continue to exert influence on the dominant ideology regardless of their physical location, thus fueling government paranoia and inciting further coercive measures (Roy 1994).

Conclusion I have attempted to lay out the many ways that Falun Gong has been publicly discussed since it was banned in 1999 and to treat the practice as one commodity in a global New Age marketplace. By adopting a discourse-centered approach, it is not my intention to diminish the passion of belief with which Falun Gong followers undertake the practice or to diminish the skep-

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ticism and concern that many people (both Chinese and American) express about Falun Gong. Rather, my goal has been to underscore the value of a discourse-centered approach in evoking empathy as a tool for understanding human behavior. Whether we are recalling the Boxers, decrying evil cults, acquiring professional academic capital, promoting human rights, or protecting our freedoms, it is the intensity of our belief coupled with our capacity for empathy that sets the boundaries for discursive spaces and ultimately drives both policy and individual action. Falun Gong is no different in this regard. If anything, it is a symptom of a particular moment in China’s transformation from an inwardly focused socialist state to a dominant player in the global economy, a transition that has been characterized by a conflict between traditionalist and modernist identities. What Falun Gong demonstrates is that this conflict is just as apparent at the level of the state as it is at the level of the individual. Like other forms of religious revivalism (if we are to read Falun Gong as religious revivalism), we cannot separate Falun Gong from the political and economic conditions in which it arose, nor can we absolve the state from responsibility for creating those conditions. Rather, we should take Falun Gong as an opportunity to read those conditions through the lens of practice and belief.

Notes This chapter is based on independent fieldwork conducted in the southern United States and Washington, D.C., in 1998 and 1999. I also draw on archival research conducted at the Library of Congress in the summer of 1999. Portions of the chapter are revisions of papers presented at the 1999 Southwest Conference on Asian Studies in San Marcos, Texas, and the 1999 Western Conference of the Association of Asian Studies in Boise, Idaho. I have used pseudonyms throughout and changed certain details in order to protect the identities of the those who participated in the research. Please note that I have used the pinyin romanization system throughout, except where a name or work appeared in another system in the original. 1. Throughout the chapter, I refer to Falun Gong as a spiritual movement, a choice full of discursive traps of its own. In a volume that addresses “fundamentalism,” my intention is not to avoid the term but to provide one that is less ideologically charged to strike a balance between the various discourses I address in the chapter. Spiritual movement seems to avoid some of the negative connotations associated with fundamentalism. Likewise, in an attempt to maintain an objective voice about a highly subjective topic, I have avoided using cult, a term that has generated considerable academic debate in recent years. I here note only in passing that we cannot easily escape the popular notions associated with terms like cult, sect, religion, and millenarian movement, even when we employ them within an academic context (Richardson 1998: 31). More important, Falun Gong does not fit easily within any of these categories. The crux of my argument is that the categories themselves have a performative quality that establishes identities, forces political positions, and so on. 2. Led by Hong Xiuquan, a religious zealot who believed he was the brother

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of Jesus Christ, the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) initially garnered American and European support, but enthusiasm waned when it became apparent that this was not a Christian revolution after all. By the time it ended in Hong’s defeat in 1864, millions of Chinese peasants had died. The Boxers (1900) fought an antiforeign rebellion with the tacit support of the Qing Empress Dowager. They practiced spirit possession rituals in the belief that they would be protected from foreign bullets. An expeditionary force quelled the uprising following the Boxers’ siege of the foreign legation compound in Beijing (Ebrey 1993; Esherick 1987). 3. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for the link I make here to nei luan wai huan. 4. The word gong can refer to “skill” acquired through great effort, or “meritorious achievement.” I suggest “workout” as a translation for gong because, in this context, it is attached to a wide variety of exercise forms in China, the vast majority legal, offered in parks, on videotape, and in books. Such exercises share with U.S. fitness regimes a claim to efficacy that arises out of and goes beyond physical exercise. American Billy Bank’s cardioboxing infomercials, for example, incorporate testimonials regarding increased business skills, sexual attractiveness, or “alertness” as a result of practicing the exercise. Similar claims are made for many popular qigong forms. It should be noted that Li’s English version of Falun Gong translates gong as “cultivation energy.” 5. Ownby describes the White Lotus as “a set of folk Buddhist lay practices that dates back to the Song Dynasty” (Ownby 2000). For more detailed discussions of the White Lotus, heterodox spiritual practices, and secret societies, see Ownby 1993 and 1996; Naquin 1976; Chesneaux 1971 and 1972; Esherick 1987; Ter Haar 1993; and Wakeman 1972. 6. Robinson and Johnson define a Bodhisattva as a “being who is to become fully enlightened” and, in Mahyna Buddhism, “one who has taken a special vow to continue being reborn” in order to deliver others from suffering (Robinson and Johnson 1982). 7. I refer here to Hayden White’s argument that history is primarily a construction of the imagination (White 1987; see also Trouillot 1995 and Flores 2002). 8. In his writings, Li Hongzhi himself offered vague, sometimes contradictory opinions on the subject of seeking medical care. While in Zhuan Falun he suggests that practitioners can heal themselves, he does not forbid them from seeking medical attention. However, the underlying implication is that “ye of little faith” go to the doctor, whereas the serious practitioner will let Falun Gong do its work (see Ownby 2002 regarding North American practitioner viewpoints on questions of health care). 9. Citing Claude Lèvi-Strauss’s use of antinomies in myth, Frederic Jameson argues that all literature is a socially symbolic act through which we can read several “horizons” of consciousness (see Jameson 1981: 83). I draw on both Jameson and Lèvi-Strauss here. 10. Although I emphasize a particular journalistic perspective to make a point, it is by no means the only perspective. Investigative journalist Danny Schechter produced a well-researched book on Falun Gong in 2000 that differentiates to some degree among CCP, foreign government, human rights, and Falun Gong perspectives as well. Schechter was also one of the last journalists to interview Li Hongzhi after the crackdown (Li cut off all interviews soon after). 11. I use the term qigong only as a point of reference. Although sometimes U.S. practitioners of Falun Gong refer to the practice as a kind of qigong, at other times they refer to it simply as shulian, or “cultivation exercise.” 12. At the start of the Falun Gong set, practitioners can either gather in a circle

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or sit in close proximity to one another. There is no specific coordination of breathing with body movements. Li Hongzhi’s tapes or videos (or group leaders) instruct practitioners to breath naturally and touch their tongues lightly to their hard palates, an instruction common to many meditative practices. At the beginning of practice and between each exercise, practitioners cradle one hand in front of the other at waist level, men left hand over right, women right hand over left. Exercise #1 consists of eight separate stretches of the arms in eight different directions. Between each stretch, the practitioner briefly tenses the muscles, followed by a sudden release. Each round of eight is repeated three times. Each of the eight stretches has a specific name, several of them borrowing from Buddhism, such as Mile shenyao, “Maitreya Stretching His Waist,” or Rulai guanding, “Tathagata Fills to the Summit.” Between each movement, they fold their hands in front of the chest in Shuangshou heshi, “Press the Hands Together to Form a Hollow.” Exercise #2 is Falun zhuangfa, or the “Falun Stake Method.” Although the posture has no martial implication in Falun Gong, it is outwardly similar to the “Standing Like a Stake” method used for self-defense training in xingyiquan, baguachang, yiquan, and other Chinese martial arts. There are countless variations of these standing methods, so it is difficult to say whether Li has taken this exercise from a specific martial art or from a health-related qigong practice that, in turn, borrowed from martial arts or whether he simply devised his own variation. The Falun Stake Method has four separate postures, each held for a minimum of five minutes. Exercise #3, Guantong liangji fa, “Perfect Understanding of the Two Ultimate Laws,” consists of two exercises where the arms are stretched upward, first one at a time, then together. Each exercise is done nine times, and the whole set is repeated three times. Men begin with the left hand, women with the right. Guantong liangji fa concludes with Shuangshou tuidong falun, “Turning the Dharma Wheel with Two Hands.” Palms facing the belly, the hands are rotated in two separate circles. For men, the left hand is on the inside, for women, the right hand. Exercise #4 is Falun zhoutian fa, the “Dharma Wheel Heavenly Circle,” consisting of nine repetitions of an intricate coordination of bending and arm movements. This set is repeated three times. The exercise concludes with Diekou xiaofu, “Overlapping the Two Hands Before the Abdomen,” and Shuangshou jieyin, “Conjoin the Two Hands” (these movements serve as postural “punctuation marks” throughout the whole set of five exercises). Finally, Exercise #5, Shentong jiachi fa, “Way of Strengthening Supernormal Powers,” is a sitting meditation form with seven separate hand gestures. The first three are mudras, specific Buddhist hand gestures repeated once on each side (these are simply called shouyin, or “hand gestures”). The fourth through seventh are held for about ten minutes each. The total sitting time is approximately one hour. 13. Throughout the fieldwork, practitioners referred to qi, in the sense of “vital energy,” using the same term in both English and Chinese. 14. Concurrently with my Falun Gong fieldwork, I did comparative research with a Yan Xin Gong group in the southern United States. The style’s founder, Dr. Yan Xin, gained considerable fame in mainland China and throughout East Asia as a doctor, a qigong healer, and a “superpsychic” (Dong 1997). Like Li Hongzhi, Dr. Yan Xin held workshops around the United States that drew several thousand followers. The demographics of Yan Xin practitioners closely paralleled Falun Gong. Also, like Falun Gong adherents, Yan Xin Gong practitioners used audiotapes to guide their practice. As with many qigong re forms, there is a certain added efficacy associated with hearing the voice or seeing the image of a charismatic leader. Xiang

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Gong (“fragrant workout”) practitioners, for example, sometimes mark their practice space with posters of the style’s founder. The basic Yan Xin Gong practice method consisted entirely of sitting meditation performed in a chair. For most of the forty-five-minute exercise, participants held a single sitting posture, palms facing one another. Men held the right hand above the left hand; women held the left hand above the right (in both Yan Xin Gong and Falun Gong, men and women often perform movements in opposite directions or configurations). Dr. Yan Xin, on tape, leads practitioners through a series of images, explains the efficacy of the exercise, and asks participants at key points to imagine themselves as young children (men seven years old, women six years old). He repeats his commands several times in the same steady, even tone of voice, guiding the meditator through the interior geography of the body, indexing imagery from ancient Daoist meditation texts. The practice concludes with massage at specific acupuncture points and a circular movement of the palms in front of the belly in order to sink the now-bubbling qi to the dantian, or “cinnabar field” (a point approximately an inch and a half below the navel and an inch and a half in). As in Falun Gong, practitioners conclude by discussing their experiences and upcoming events. One Yan Xin Gong technique, though not unique to the system, clearly differentiates it from Falun Gong. Bigu, perhaps best translated here as “conserving nutrients,” is a system of fasting that is found in one form or another in contemplative practices throughout the world. Specifically, bigu involves eating less and less food until one need not eat at all. In bigu theory, the practitioner is eventually able to transform breath itself into food. In response to criticism, according to one practitioner, Dr. Yan Xin modified the practice in recent years, allowing practitioners to eat sparingly. 15. At the request of practitioners, Falun Gong Week was proclaimed by the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore city councils. 16. My translation of zhongguo xiang gong dangdai weiyi chuanren, the title by which Tian is known in Xiang Gong literature. 17. I reported on one aspect of the U.S. end of this process, the New Age embrace of qi-related products and practices, in a poster session at the 1998 Boston meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (Frank 1999b). 18. After several years of quiet discussion about whether to admit private entrepreneurs, followed by Jiang’s explicit call for their admission in a 2001 speech, the 325-member Party Central Committee in November of 2002 passed changes in the Chinese Constitution allowing entrepreneurs to join the Party (Chao 2002).

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11

Fundamentalism and the Global Political Economy

This volume was organized in order to address several important questions: Does fundamentalism arise for systemic reasons? Can fundamentalism be understood in primarily economic, or political, or cultural terms? Are the religious underpinnings of fundamentalist movements consistently reflected in their political behavior and policy pronouncements? What role does violence play in fundamentalism? To what extent can fundamentalism be explained as a reaction to modernity or to globalization? The chapters in this volume help us address all of these questions, if somewhat unevenly.

Does Fundamentalism Arise for Systemic Reasons? Fundamentalism most often arises during periods of accelerated social change. Fundamentalist responses have a marked tendency to arise with the failure of socioeconomic strategies, whether that failure is global in nature or a more national reaction to the acceleration of global-level social change. As the speed of social change and the failure of socioeconomic strategies reflect systemic variables, which much scholarship suggests, so, too, is fundamentalism systemic in nature. This tendency to find resurgent religious movements during periods of social change is neither linear nor direct. It is affected in part by the fact that previous eras of rapid change also gave rise to religious social movements, some of which codified over the years and emerged as mature religions. The level of fundamentalism that arises is in part a function of how those established religious communities, their organizations, theologies, leadership cadres, and rank and file cope with the challenges posed by a new round of rapid social change. The more capable existing religious organizations are of providing both spiritual and social support, the less likely new religious movements are to attract a significant following. The more complacent existing religious institutions become theologically, spiri267

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tually, and socially, the more likely we are to see a resurgence of independent fundamentalist movements. Increasing levels of social change have long been implicated by authors concerned with fundamentalist movements. Writing on Christian movements, Nancy Ammerman (1991: 55) suggests that “in chaotic times and places . . . the certainty and clarity of fundamentalism often seems appealing,” primarily because rapid alteration in the nature of the social order inevitably affects practices in everyday life that individuals with religious proclivities are sensitive to. As social interactions are altered, moral ambiguities create new sets of pressures with which individuals and their families have to cope (Ammerman 1994: 155). More important, rapid change breaks down existing social norms and structures more quickly than it allows for new ones to be created (Roberts 1994: 434). A variety of organizations rush to fill the new space, among them, those we refer to as fundamentalist. Rapid social change and state failure generate fundamentalist responses most directly when they have a disruptive impact on family structure. The invasion of the lifeworld is the primary mechanism that Carolyn Gallaher (Chapter 2) implicates in the rise of radical Christian movements in the United States. Family issues are paramount. The reaction against changing conceptions of gender generates a “backlash masculinity” that helps bolster other traditional social formations. While Gallaher focuses primarily on one domestic movement, Doris Buss (Chapter 3) shows how the call for “natural family” relations has globalized. Instead of dismissing the United Nations out of hand, groups have coalesced to push their own agenda in that body. The focus here is on fostering policies that eschew alternative lifestyles, calls for gender equality, or almost any form of state intrusion into socially sensitive areas like reproductive rights, health care, and education. As testimony to the similar nature of fundamentalist movements, the “natural family” coalition has helped found a “global inter-faith alliance” of like-minded conservatives from a variety of faiths. The impact of rapid change on more specific issue areas may be found in various chapters. A common theme is a reaction against decadence. Ostentatious displays of wealth, sexual license, and the breakdown of the family are identified as focal points for religious political opposition in Algeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, and India (see Chapter 7, by Bradford Dillman; Chapter 6, by Mustapha Pasha; Chapter 9, by Roksana Bahramitash; and Chapter 5, by Shampa Biswas). Declining living standards may raise nonobvious problems as well. Dillman speaks to the role that inadequate housing, blamed on the failing Algerian state, played in the inability to allow for traditional family patterns to continue. Another source of social change is the failure of state economic and political strategies, especially those associated with Western-led efforts for

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third world modernization. Gross mismanagement and frequent corruption delegitimize the state in Algeria, India, and Indonesia. For Pasha, the failure of modernization is only partial. The growth of state-sponsored social engineering in areas like the provision of social services, legal systems for different economic systems, the creation of a middle class, and the consolidation of the mass media are key elements in the reframing, or “inversion,” of modernization and are very much a part of the rise of fundamentalist movements. Rapid social changes and the decline of the state may also give rise to religious social movements that focus on the viability of the domestic market for goods and services. Gallaher suggests that the more xenophobic edge of some Christian fundamentalist groups paints capitalism as the only acceptable economic system, one that would function in perfect harmony if only foreign elements were not allowed to impinge on the market with cheaper labor. Adherents must support capitalism, but only of the national variety. Adam Frank (Chapter 10) notes that one response to the spread of Western social and cultural modes in China is the repackaging of traditional art, cuisine, exercise, and medicine for sale as important vestiges of authentic culture. In something of a reversal of function, Frank explains that the Chinese state may hurl charges of inauthenticity against movements like Falun Gong that it wishes to delegitimize. Perhaps the most significant responses are noted in India, where preferences for and the protection of local products play a particularly important role in the rise of Hindu movements. Biswas explains India’s swadeshi movement, a mix of liberalization and the avoidance of foreign goods and consumption patterns. Imports of goods or methods that might help build Indian export industries remain welcome. Swadeshi is championed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose popular calls for liberalization and development are joined by their claim to a special status for the Hindu faith. This is a potent mix. Pasha concludes: “The implications of a symbiosis between profit and religious nationalism for Indian society cannot be overstated.”

Can Fundamentalism Be Understood in Primarily Economic, or Political, or Cultural Terms? Fundamentalism, like most complex social movements, is a confluence of social, political, and economic forces and can be adequately understood only interactively. Neither interdisciplinary nor intradisciplinary debates change that. The chapters in this volume are excellent examples of work that is sophisticated and synthetic. The contributors represent multiple academic disciplines, yet they identify the issue to be dealt with (fundamental-

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ism) and not how to deal with it as the primary focus of their work. They apply a range of analytical tools to the processes they seek to illuminate. There is a refreshing lack of methodological debate over which of a variety of essentially embedded processes to highlight or over what lenses must be used to understand them. Although this openness leads to a more coherent and mature treatment, we must realize that the lack of methodological and conceptual squabbling is not always the case, nor is it likely to remain so in the literature. Social processes are complex sets of interactions that are difficult to apprehend in the whole. In an attempt to cope with this complexity, different disciplines have emerged. Each has developed not only different foci but also specialized languages, methods, and perspectives in an attempt to shed light on various elements of social interaction. Ironically, the drive toward specialization that emerged in the hope of breaking down complex social processes into understandable bits has created serious problems with any pending reintegration. Having taken separate intellectual paths, various disciplines are not likely to reintegrate. A similar process emerges with regard to methodology. New methods appear and promise a fresh review of old problems. Debates generate a great deal of heat, although, sadly, not always much light. Nonetheless, the often trendy march from one method to another does provide an important impetus to intellectual growth. While we celebrate the focus on substance that informs this volume, we also ought to keep in mind that many of the debates that periodically infect our various disciplines are not necessarily so pathological as they are evolutionary. Like any treatment of a complex and diverse phenomenon, there is much else that could have been included in this volume. One particular omission is a historical treatment. Fundamentalisms are not new phenomena. Although attempts are made in the various chapters to identify what is specifically different about the kind of religious social movements we are looking at in the current moment, the search for differences, as opposed to continuities, is a controversial methodological choice. The addition of historical analysis has much to offer. Many of the most powerful myths of international studies: state-centrism, Eurocentrism, and the identification of a long series of alleged transitions to allegedly new systems have evolved for lack of even the simplest historical considerations (Frank 1998; Denemark 1999; Denemark et al. 2000). Our ability to ask intelligent questions about the role of processes like modernity and globalization on religious resurgence are especially dependent on the gathering of some historical perspective, as are any deeper considerations of systemic genesis, consistent nature, and a variety of specific traits. Historical considerations of religious social movements are not lacking (e.g., Eisenstadt 1999;

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Armstrong 2000) and ought, together with the relevant primary literature, be taken seriously.

Do Religious Tenets Consistently Underpin Fundamentalist Political Behaviors? Societies are divided in myriad ways, and alliances between groups with consonant interests are very much the norm. Fundamentalists have not been shy about making such alliances to increase their political strength. Gallaher notes the early alliance among religious fundamentalists and fiscal conservatives in the United States. The link is a natural one, as fundamentalists resent state programs that usurp their sense of what is socially acceptable in realms like education, health care, employment, and racial interaction. Fiscal conservatives, concerned with the avoiding the cost of such initiatives, were tempted in at least one case by the explicitly anti–New Deal policy focus of a major profamily lobby. Buss adds that this is not a phenomenon that is unique to the United States. Christian fundamentalists have sought out states with deeply ingrained conservative religious principles, whether Muslim, Hindu, or Jewish, in the search for allies to stand against United Nations policies they find unacceptable. Such alliances certainly do not in and of themselves undermine the religious character of fundamentalist organizations, although in some instances contradictions are quick to emerge. Dillman describes the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, often portrayed as the archetypal fundamentalist threat, as a fractured organization that lacks a coherent policy focus even on issues of intense religious relevance. These fissures became all the more obvious after the military coup that kept party members from taking the positions to which they had been rightfully elected. Under pressure, the party emerged without the coherence that the banner of Islam was supposed to provide, and it could even be viewed as more of a broadly popular antigovernment group with a serious religious wing. Following Olivier Roy, Dillman concludes that Islamist parties across the Middle East have adopted the rather banal parameters of other political parties, “interiorizing the rules of the political game and expressing a sort of Islamo-nationalism rather than a realizable vision of a transnational umma.” The religious content that helped bring attention and legitimacy to the Islamic Salvation Front did not disappear from its platforms, but it ceased to be its most prominent feature. In both Iran and India, strong alliances between the merchant class and the religious parties helped propel the latter to power. Suzanne Maloney (Chapter 8) traces the close cooperation between the merchant class and the

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religious movements in both the toppling of the shah of Iran and in subsequent policy. Her work on Iran perfectly illustrates the manner in which fundamentalists contend to fill the void left by rapid social change. It also raises the very specific question of what happens when fundamentalist institutions acquire significant resources. In Iran, the extensive wealth of the former shah, his family, and his close associates was transferred to several foundations that were given the mission of providing social services. These foundations were immediately faced with decisions about how the funds should be managed: Should piety or market rationality be their guide? The choices made illustrate a good deal about the complex nature of fundamentalism. Social services were not ignored, although in the most significant cases they quickly became a sideline. Nor has the management of this vast wealth turned on simple market principles. Instead, it was used in part to help consolidate power on behalf of religious conservatives and, in part, to acquire significant productive holdings. These holdings were not always managed in accord with market efficiency, either. Instead we find a mixture of political influence-buying and personal empire-building, which is hardly unique among large economic actors of any sort. For Biswas, the connections between liberalization and development, on the one hand, and Hinducentric movements, on the other, continue to flourish. Rafael Reuveny (Chapter 4) notes that in Israel religious parties flock to the Likud standard, apparently because of its conservative social and economic politics, as well as its hard-line military position. Several authors in this volume would concur with an extensive analysis, which includes states like Britain and Canada as well, that “fundamentalist politics have thus formed in opposition to various sociomoral orientations of the modern state, but in support of economic policies favorable to the middle class” (Wuthnow and Lawson 1994: 32). Fundamentalist movements may emerge with other sets of allies as well. Pasha mentions the politicization and militarization of Buddhism in Sri Lanka in his review of South Asia. Here the Buddhist majority is primarily an agrarian population long dependent on subsidies and large-scale government programs. Fiscal conservatism and open market policies are more often associated with the Hindu Tamil “other” (Denemark 1996). Sri Lankan fundamentalism is a peasant-led, protectionist, and state-centric movement. Alliances between fundamentalists and other interests do not have to be antiprogressive. In perhaps the most surprising conclusion in this volume, Bahramitash argues that Muslim fundamentalists and women’s groups acted in concert to overthrow a corrupt regime that endangered them both. Contrary to nearly every expectation, both sides continue to nurture that alliance. In Bahramitash’s view, women in Indonesia emerge better off under a fundamentalist regime than a secular modernizing one. In another

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controversial conclusion, she argues that the presence or absence of an Islamic state is not a good predictor of women’s empowerment via such indicators as women’s rates of employment, which follow regional trends independent of regime type. Fundamentalist movements may be understood as internally contradictory. They are social movements that stress their desire to hold to a set of morally superior principles. Religious communities have often chosen isolation as an alternative to having to sully themselves with the everyday practices of the unfaithful. Where such movements have mobilized to do battle with offending practices, they are dragged into an unforgiving political arena intolerant of high ethical standards. From this perspective, fundamentalism’s decline into the political realm is inherently contradictory and self-defeating. This position has some validity, but it also tends to ignore the essentially social nature of movements of religious resurgence. Their adherents may strive to follow the correct path, however defined, but they recognize that righteousness is an illusive goal to be pursued and not a set of pious shackles. Fundamentalist movements are, therefore, not significantly unlike other social movements, struggling for control over policy outcomes, and less concerned with the nature of the behaviors necessary to generate success.

What Role Does Violence Play in Fundamentalism? This volume is notable for its lack of focus on violence. This absence is in part a reflection of the belief that religious fundamentalism may be no more likely to generate violence than social movements dedicated to extreme right-wing, left-wing, or nationalist ideologies, not to mention simple pecuniary interests. Even so, these chapters do identify a few elements that lead to fundamentalist violence. Religious social movements create powerful in-group solidarity and vicious out-group characterizations. Gallaher notes the “othering” of women and people of color by Christian movements in the United States, including those that readily use violence against their opponents (see also Gallaher 2003). Biswas notes the rise of Hindu movements at the explicit expense and with attendant violence against the Muslim “other.” Pasha finds the same process in much of the rest of South Asia, whether among Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus. Where explicit “others” are less available, there is always the opportunity to define belief as the relevant difference and nonbelievers as the enemy. Violence is always easier against “others” and in defense of “us.” As is often the case, violence appears to be a cyclical phenomenon. This is most powerfully illustrated in Reuveny’s consideration of Israeli

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and Palestinian violence. Initiatives toward peace are met with fundamentalist violence explicitly designed to elicit counterviolence and upset the process. Among the victims we may also count the peace initiative. The final insight is that when there is an explicit disagreement over land, violence finds a focal point. In Israel, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka religious groups fight over the same land, and violence is often the result. This is not to suggest that the struggle for political power does not generate violence as well, both by insurgents and in the form of repression by dominant elements and the state. Illustrations here include the turmoil in Algeria and the harsh repression of various movements in China.

To What Extent May Fundamentalism Be Explained as a Reaction to Modernity or Globalization? Both modernity and globalization are highly contested concepts. Modernity as defined by Hegel is characterized by individualism, the right to be critical, autonomy of action, and the right to know oneself without reliance on explanations grounded in otherworldly doctrines (Oberoi 1995: 102). It can easily be seen as explicitly antireligious, and we might reasonably expect some form of backlash. Globalization is conceived of in several ways. It may be seen in a material sense as the result of the increasing speed of transportation and communication such that time and space appear to shrink. It may also be understood as the acquisition of a global awareness that pushes individuals, products, and ideas that used to be far away more directly into focus. The closer we get to others, with their different practices and beliefs, the more likely we are to seek some stability within the confines of our own community. Once again, some elements of religious backlash might reasonably be expected. While both modernity and globalization have been identified as the phenomena that fundamentalism reacts against, fundamentalisms may also be viewed as essentially modern or globalized movements. Pasha’s insightful critique suggests that religious resurgence, especially when tied to nationalist movements, is an explicitly modernist response to the failures of modernization. The various elements of globalization are likewise implicated in the genesis and organization of fundamentalism, from the negative response to interaction with and economic competition from “others” discussed by Gallaher, to the repudiation of the ideas and values of “others” represented by forms of dress, TV styles, and the corruption of cultural practices discussed by Dillman, Frank, and Biswas. If modernity and globalization may both generate and sustain fundamentalist movements, it would be better to break these social complexes down and consider the implications for fundamentalism of their various parts, particularly as they

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concern the global political economy. Extracting and discussing specific elements from such thoroughly integrated concepts may seem a bit like turning penicillin back into bread mold. It is not. This is a volume in the International Political Economy Yearbook series because many of the processes relevant to fundamentalism are familiar to students of the global political economy. We hope they might pay more attention to facets of their work relevant to religious resurgence once these have been rendered more explicit. The elements of modernity and globalization I consider include neoliberalism, economic rise and decline, class relations, and urbanization/migration. Neoliberalism Fundamentalism, as noted above, is a typical response to rapid social change. Though change alone may be sufficient for generating such movements, the change we see in the last part of the twentieth and the first part of the twenty-first centuries has been neoliberal in nature, and three elements of this particular ideology generate fundamentalist responses. First, the neoliberal economy rewards global-level economic efficiency above all else. Second, the status of science is raised as it is further harnessed to the service of the economy. Third, the operant ideology regarding the underdeveloped world in the second half of the twentieth century was modernization, which proposed specific policies for the periphery that ended up generating fundamentalist responses both where they appeared to succeed and where they failed. Global Economic Efficiency Neoliberalism is not the bogeyman against which fundamentalism must always react. Biswas explains that in India, middle and upper classes see themselves as being held back economically by overzealous state regulation and politically by the growth of special-interest political strategies. Neoliberalism is the alternative project, born of the failure of state centralplanning strategies and offering transparency and freedom. Openness is certainly not to be accepted instantaneously. Introducing such policies all at once to an economy long accustomed to central planning is understood to be tantamount to national suicide. Instead there is a focus on timing (internal deregulation first) and some protection (the swadeshi system discussed above). Global neoliberalism is said to have forced India to come to terms with its sclerotic internal system, and the response has been for the Hinducentric BJP to grasp the reform platform and move it forward. India is not the only place where neoliberal tenets have been popular. Dillman notes that the honesty and transparency alleged to be part of the liberal

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order are viewed as a welcome change from the corruption and cronyism prevalent in Algeria, especially after the decline in petroleum prices in the 1980s. The new market-centric system may also help give rise to a global demand for repackaged cultural goods. In China, neoliberalism provides the market opportunities that breathe new life into old cultural artifacts. Most of the time, however, neoliberalism is the enemy. Much of Gallaher’s analysis revolves around the threats to individual well-being that enhanced competition, especially among the working class, generates. Her case study of the Eagle Forum is replete with examples of the generation of popular support for sovereignty and the kind of thinly veiled racism that keeps others, whether they be women at home or people of color abroad, from being viewed as legitimate competitors. Support for capitalism is unquestioned, but it ought to be capitalism of a national variety. Algerian fundamentalist parties were given a major boost by the quickened pace of price alterations. Falling petroleum prices served to highlight state shortcomings and calls for change. Structural adjustment policies, another facet of the neoliberal order, placed the military in a superior position and allowed for an increase in repression, driving more people to the fundamentalist standard. Pasha notes that neoliberal policies quicken the pace of state decline and simultaneously widen the gulf between elites and masses. Both processes lead to fundamentalist responses. Bahramitash identifies neoliberal policies that led to both structural adjustment and crisis in her review of Indonesia. The Status of Science The rationalism that the neoliberal order ordains raises the status of science to new heights. This facet of fundamentalism is not broadly represented in these chapters, though Pasha identifies science as one of modernity’s major pillars and modernity in this sense as the foundation for (not the antithesis of) religious resurgence. This insight runs contrary to experiences elsewhere. Frank notes the manner in which the Chinese state appropriates science to help delegitimize traditional/cultural health movements like Falun Gong. Both might well have also mentioned the more traditional view that science brings with it a very different orientation to knowledge, one that may be viewed as antithetical to religious insight. In the West, science has encountered serious resistance from religious authorities and created noteworthy debates across a range of issues. The most famous concerned evolution, in a debate spanning more than a century. Both evolution and science were challenged by arguments over the validity of Charles Darwin’s experience in the South Atlantic (by the pious captain of his ship), through the 1925 Scopes monkey trial over the teaching of biology in Tennessee. The United States suffered its most serious fundamentalist backlash against evolution as a result of policies adopted during the Cold War. This

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is especially ironic, given the traditional hatred of communism that, as Gallaher notes, many Protestant fundamentalists happily vocalize. The Scopes monkey trial, though a technical legal victory, was a great public relations loss for the fundamentalists. Public opinion turned against them. But the victory did not signal the teaching of modern science in public schools. Local school boards and officials were still vulnerable to political retribution, and funds for science education were scarce. It was not until 1957, in response to the launching of the Soviet space satellite Sputnik, that the National Science Foundation devoted significant resources to science teaching and curricular reforms. This included biology and, therefore, the study of evolution. Religious fundamentalists who oppose the teaching of evolution remobilized in the early 1960s (Eve and Harrold 1992: 103). The battle over evolution is one of the signature family issues that both Gallaher and Buss identify as generative of major contemporary U.S. fundamentalist movements. Modernization The official development strategy forwarded by the West toward the periphery was modernization, and its spectacular failure is everywhere implicated in the rise of fundamentalism. The perverse outcomes of modernization strategies, the delegitimization of the peripheral state, its identification with foreign or decadent interests, and growing social crisis are pervasive in discussions of Algeria, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Modernization is seen as the failure against which (e.g., Bahramitash and Biswas), as well as the foundation upon which (e.g., Pasha), fundamentalism is built. The various complex treatments defy simple summary and suggest that in this conclusion it makes sense to turn to more specific questions of how declining (and rising) economic fortunes are related to religious resurgence. Economic Rise and Decline Gallaher notes that one of the earliest debates over the genesis of fundamentalism concerns the role of economic decline. There are two facets to this. The first establishes the focus of blame. Where secular authority is implicated in the downturn, the door for new political projects is opened. Calls for rebuilding society in a manner consistent with some set of religious principles provide nearly immediate legitimacy, an organizational structure, leadership, and large numbers of supporters among the traditionally faithful. The oft-cited reasons for economic decline, including corruption of all sorts, are particularly vulnerable to attack from this moral high ground. The second facet concerns the needs that are created in the context of

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economic decline. States may lose the capacity to deliver social services, and areas that have never had state-sponsored services may find hardships increasing beyond the capacity of traditional means to cope. One of the ubiquitous themes in this volume concerns the role of religious groups— fundamentalists prominent among them—in the provision of social services. The process is straightforward and pervasive in the cases of Algeria, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. In Iran, the provision of key social services was turned over to fundamentalist groups when they were endowed with the considerable wealth appropriated from the royal family and its supporters. In the United States, according to Gallaher, the provision of actual social services seems less crucial than the provision of a coherent community from within which to face hardships. One of the most interesting processes regarding social service provision is discussed by Reuveny. Fundamentalist movements were but one of several contending for leadership of the Palestinians. As violence prompted retaliation, economic conditions continued to deteriorate both in general and in terms of what services government agencies could or would provide. The social services provided by fundamentalist groups became all the more important, and their popularity was enhanced. Violence, often led by fundamentalist movements, created conditions under which the need for social services increased, enhancing the legitimacy of the fundamentalists. This self-sustaining process is mirrored in Israel as well. Socioeconomic crisis increases violence against Israelis. Jewish fundamentalist calls for either retributory or preemptive violence appear all the more legitimate. The result is a cycle of violence that is both self-reinforcing and profoundly destructive. Increased economic well-being is also implicated in religious resurgence. Increasing fortunes that put disposable income in the hands of conservatives allow for a significant enhancement in fundraising, and the building of organizations, and also affect the degree to which more established political movements may alter their own agendas to court support. Pasha and Biswas note this for south Asia, and Gallaher traces a similar process in the United States. Gallaher also notes that a booming economy may usher in a period of urban expansion that literally engulfs the countryside, a shock that leads rural populations to both fundamentalist movements and political mobilization. A number of chapters note the important role that an infusion of external funds plays in raising fundamentalist movements. Money for specific parties, religious schools, and social services in Algeria and among Palestinians helps fundamentalist movements grow. Iran provides funds from its charitable foundations for exactly those purposes. Frank concludes that a growing market among a disapora population for traditional cultural goods can also sustain fundamentalist movements both in their country of origin and abroad.

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Class Relations Religion, Marx famously declared, is the opium of the masses. It dulls their pain—but at the cost of their ability to perceive class interests and enemies clearly. Class relations are considered in this volume in contradictory ways. Individuals who view themselves as being repressed as a class may grasp the mantle of fundamentalism or ally with fundamentalist movements. In Algeria, Dillman notes this process with regard to the poor, whereas Biswas notes this in India for the middle and upper classes. Reuveny warns that a confluence of race and class with repression is particularly difficult to cope with. For Gallaher, however, fundamentalist movements are specifically designed to blind the lower classes to their plight. She argues that fundamentalist religious movements in the United States seek specifically to gather a large following behind policies that are not in their interests. The discourse gymnastics of the Eagle Forum that Gallaher reveals are particularly illustrative of such efforts. This volume lacks a chapter on Latin America, where some of the most interesting fundamentalist/class interactions are found. Some scholars (see Dodson 1992) suggest that three decades of modernization led to huge increases in inequality, declining food production, and malnutrition. By 1980, some two-thirds of the rural population of Central America lived below the poverty line, with just under half in absolute poverty. The longdominant Catholic Church stood by. Only slowly (and quite controversially) did a liberation theology emerge. As a result, a space was opened for new Protestant fundamentalist movements. The number of their adherents increased dramatically, rising in Guatemala alone from about 2 percent to about 33 percent of the population in just over thirty years. Latin American evangelical Protestantism preaches a fiery mix of personal responsibility and self-help. Its popularity is based partly on its own merits and partly on links to class politics. As changes in the economic system increased inequality and further impoverished Latin America’s workers and peasants, already vulnerable communities were destroyed, and traditional relationships were undermined. Some revolutionary movements emerged and were viciously repressed. The fundamentalists entered with their traditional offers of restoring lost community values and bolstering the faithful. This incursion was fully supported by the dominant classes in places like Guatemala and Chile, and the U.S. government supported Protestant fundamentalism as part of its covert assistance to right-wing regimes (Dodson 1992: 124; Deiros 1991: 175–179; Almond, Sivan, and Appleby 1995: 464). Pentecostals preached the rejection of materialism and counseled a form of empowerment based on the acceptance of personal responsibility. No protests against dictatorship, poverty, or inequality could ever be justified from this perspective (Wuthnow and Lawson 1994: 32).

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The demobilization of potential uprisings was an important goal, as was the delegitimization of any challenge to U.S.-backed regimes. Some Pentecostal movements were locally labeled “Reagan cults” because of their extreme pro-U.S. positions. The founding of the United States was suggested to be the “single most important event” since the birth of Jesus, and much of the missionary work in places like Chile was aimed at members of the military. The point was to “undermine any challenge to North American hegemony as the work of the devil” (Deiros 1991: 175, 178). Urbanization/Migration The final set of processes related to modernity and globalization that are identified in this volume as playing a role in the creation of fundamentalist movements are urbanization and migration: mostly rural-to-urban, but sometimes international as well. I have already noted Gallaher’s argument about fundamentalism arising where urban growth encroaches on a rural population, as well as the special role that Dillman gave to the lack of housing in Algeria caused in great part as a result of the rush to the cities. Pasha also implicates urbanization as generating new aspirations and new anxieties that lead to fundamentalist responses. Urbanization is also implicated by a number of other scholars in the rise of fundamentalist movements, from the great revival meetings of early industrial U.S. history (Ammerman 1991: 18) to the more recent movements in places like Nigeria described by Ousmane Kane (1994: 494). In a broad historical survey, William McNeill (1993: 562) suggests: Mere survival in their new urban environment requires regular participation in market exchanges and frequent dealings with strangers. Rampant selfishness and ruthless disregard for traditional ties with others may flourish under such circumstances. An alternative response is to strive to invent new social contexts within which mutuality and justice of the oldfashioned sort may still prevail. This is where religious groups come into play, for they affirm truth, morality, and justice amid the corruptions of an urbanized world, bring like-minded people together so they may support one another, and may even aspire to punish unrighteousness and reform society as a whole.

Just as rural-to-urban migration creates fundamentalist propensities, so, too, does international migration. In this case fundamentalism may be the response of either the new immigrant or the established population. An underclass of migrants leads to the drawing of deeper distinctions between workers and owners, conflating their religious and their economic positions. The greater the degree to which economic status and religion co-vary,

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the greater the degree of solidarity likely to be expressed in religious terms. The length of time that others have been in residence matters little. India’s Muslims are “othered” by Hindus (Biswas), and Sri Lanka’s Hindus are “othered” by Buddhists (Denemark 1996). In an extreme case, Reuveny notes the violence that new immigrants may use in the face of ongoing disputes. It was a recent U.S. immigrant to Israel who perpetrated one of its most politically damaging massacres, at a mosque in Hebron, and another fundamentalist who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in part as a result of the violence that followed that massacre. An expatriate population with access to hard currency may lead to other kinds of fundamentalist responses. Frank notes the financial backing that China’s expatriate population provides to Falun Gong, and Biswas traces the economic and political pressures that India’s equally far-flung expatriate population placed on the government to support certain policies favored by the Hinducentric BJP. The interaction of various elements of modernity and globalization with fundamentalist movements is both complex and profound.

Conclusion The many areas of interaction between processes of the global political economy and the rise of religious fundamentalism that are illustrated here offer a dramatic range of relevant issues to students of both phenomena. Students of the global political economy, especially those who tend to focus on its material manifestations and formally rational processes, have much to learn from the fundamentalist response. The chance to attain greater wealth is neither consistently welcome nor consistently helpful. To force economic perspectives or practices on populations because they appear more efficient is doubly dangerous. Their failure is most likely to elicit a deadly response, as sometimes their success does as well. This is no excuse for fatalism, but it is reason for caution. Students of fundamentalism, particularly those most concerned with its ideational foundations and spiritual manifestations, can also learn something about the processes they study from this review of the broader global political economy, which provides the context within which fundamentalisms emerge. We hope this volume helps to begin a long and fruitful conversation.

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AFL-CIO AFP AIS AP BJP ccFIS CCP CEDAW C-Fam CIA CPI-M CPRS CQSRS CR CR/UN CWA DOP DPA ECOSOC EMP ERA EU FBIS FCC FFS FICCI FIDH FIS FLN

American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations Agence France-Presse Armée Islamique du Salut (Islamic Salvation Army) Associated Press Bharatiya Janata Party Coordination Council of the FIS Abroad Chinese Communist Party Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute Central Intelligence Agency Communist Party of India-Marxist Center for Palestine Research and Studies China Qigong Scientific Research Society Christian Right Christian Right politics at the United Nations Concerned Women for America Declaration of Principles Deutsche Presse-Agentur United Nations Economic and Social Council Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Equal Rights Amendment European Union Foreign Broadcast Information Service Federal Communications Commission Front des Forces Socialistes Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme Islamic Salvation Front National Liberation Front 283

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FMEP FT GATT GDP GIA GNP GSPC HCS HLI IDF ILO IMF INS IRNA JMCC KFC LDS/Mormon MEED MENA MJF MNC MSP NAFTA NGOs NIS NRB NYT OBCs PA PAC PLO PRC RCD RND RSS SAR SJM UFO UN UNFPA UNSCO

Foundation for Middle East Peace Financial Times General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade gross domestic product Armed Islamic Group gross national product Salafist Group for Preaching/Call and Combat High Council of State Human Life International Israeli Defense Forces International Labor Organization International Monetary Fund Immigration and Naturalization Service Islamic Republic News Agency Jerusalem Media & Communication Centre Kentucky Fried Chicken Latter Day Saints (Church of) Middle East Economic Digest Middle East and North Africa Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan (Foundation for Oppressed and War-wounded) multinational corporation Mouvement pour une Société de Paix North American Free Trade Agreement nongovernmental organizations new Israeli shekels National Religious Broadcasters New York Times other backward castes Palestinian Authority political action committee Palestinian Liberation Organization People’s Republic of China Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie Rassemblement National Démocratique Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh special administrative region Swadeshi Jagran Manch unidentified flying object United Nations United Nations Population Fund United Nations Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories

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VHP WCF WFP WFPC WHO WTO

Vishwa Hindu Parishad World Congress of Families World Food Program World Family Policy Center World Health Organization World Trade Organization

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Roksana Bahramitash has worked with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on Islamization and its impact on women in Indonesia. She is now at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University Women Studies Program, where she teaches about women in the Muslim world. She is author of Liberation from Liberalization: Gender and Globalization in Southeast Asia. Shampa Biswas is assistant professor of politics at Whitman College. Her research interests include issues of nationalism, globalization, global development, postcolonial theory, and South Asian politics. She has published articles on the global rise of religious nationalisms, race in international relations, and the nation-state in the context of globalization. Doris E. Buss is assistant professor in the Law Department, Carleton University. She is coauthor (with Didi Herman) of Globalizing Family Values: The International Politics of the Christian Right and coeditor (with Ambreena Manji) of International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches. She teaches and researches in the areas of international human rights law, women’s rights, and feminist theory. Robert A. Denemark is coeditor of Rethinking Global Political Economy and World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change. He is associate editor of the journal International Studies Perspectives and sits on several journal editorial boards. His work in the areas of international political economy, international relations theory, ethnic violence, and terror has appeared in journals and edited volumes. This is Denemark’s final volume as coeditor of the International Political Economy Yearbook. Bradford Dillman is an adjunct professor in the School of International Service at American University. His current research focuses on North African political economy. He is author of State and Private Sector in Algeria: The Politics of Rent-Seeking and Failed Development and has published articles in Middle East Policy, Democratization, The Middle East Journal, Government and Opposition, and The Journal of Modern African Studies. Dr. Dillman has extensive experience conducting research, teaching, and living in the Middle East and North Africa. 327

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Adam Frank is currently a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Texas–Austin. Carolyn Gallaher is a geographer by training and currently associate professor in the School of International Service at American University. Her research focuses on right-wing social movements and paramilitaries. Her work on the militia movement in the United States was recently published in a book entitled On the Fault Line: Race, Class, and the American Patriot Movement. Suzanne Maloney is Middle East adviser for ExxonMobil in Washington, D.C., where she is responsible for government relations and public affairs activities related to the Middle East. She is the author of Ayatollah Gorbachev: The Politics of Change in Khatami’s Iran, in addition to several articles and book chapters on Iran and the Gulf region. Mustapha Kamal Pasha is associate professor of international relations in the School of International Service at American University. He is coeditor (with Craig Murphy) of International Relations and the New Inequality and coauthor (with James Mittelman) of Out From Underdevelopment Revisited. He has published articles in several leading journals. Pasha is a recipient of several awards for outstanding teaching and scholarship at American University and a recent grantee of the United States Institute of Peace on a project on Civil Society and Islam. Rafael Reuveny is associate professor of political economy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. His research centers on relationships among political conflict, intra- and international economic processes, and the environment. His papers have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals. Mary Ann Tétreault is the Una Chapman Cox Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where she teaches courses in world politics, the Middle East, and feminist theory. Her current research interests include Kuwaiti politics and society; postmodern war and historical memory; and constructions of public and private space in the context of globalization. This is Tétreault’s final volume as coeditor of the International Political Economy Yearbook.

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Abdesselam, Belaid, 161 Abortion, 34, 53, 57, 63–65, 70, 76–77 Advani, L. K., 110–111, 115–117, 128, 130–131 Affirmative action programs, 109–111 Afghanistan (Afgan, Afganis), 15, 20, 77, 112, 147, 158, 191, 206, 217 AFL-CIO, 47 Africa, 70, 165, 227–228 African Americans, 55, 86, 101 Agriculture, 121, 124, 201, 215, 221–222, 228–229 Aid, 71, 120, 137, 147, 163–165, 180 AIS. See Armée Islamique du Salut Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarti Parishad, 123 al-Qaida, 157 Algeria, 30, 153–168, 170–189, 228, 269, 271, 274, 276–280 Allah, 86 Allon, Yigal, 89 Amir, Yigal, 93 Ammerman, Nancy, 268 Amnesty, 183, 185 Amnesty International, 249–250 Anti-family, 58, 63–64, 71 Apocalypse (apocalyptic), 14, 27–28, 33, 235, 243 Appleby, R. Scott, 28 al-Aqsa Mosque, 79 Arab, 23, 85, 89, 157, 162, 170–171, 187 Arabization, 155, 171 Arafat, Yasser, 91, 94–95, 97, 105 Arendt, Hannah, 7 Arizona, 35, 76 Armée Islamique du Salut (AIS), 157, 164, 173, 177, 181–185, 188 Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armée, GIA), 157,

163–164, 172–173, 177, 180, 182, 188–189 Armenia, 201 Arquilla, John, 21 Aryan, 113 Aryan Nation, 41 Asia, 129, 135, 137–138, 143–144, 149–150, 238, 250, 259; east, 129, 147, 165, 207, 264; south, 15, 135–138, 140, 142–144, 148–150, 272–273, 278; southeast, 180–181, 226–227 Asian, 120–121, 136–137, 140, 142, 148, 223, 248, 259–60, 262; tigers, 120; financial crisis, 121, 223, 228, 231 Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace, 250 Atherton, Dorian Ian, 65 Augustine, 8 Aum Shinrikyo, 2 Australia, 67, 74, 220, 236, 250 Authoritarian, authoritarianism, 14–15, 23–24, 26, 28, 103, 116, 147, 155, 167, 174, 180–181, 188, 202 Authority, 12–14, 19–20, 29, 35, 67, 79, 109, 128, 145, 186, 192–193, 195, 198, 200–202, 204–206, 209–211, 213–214, 244, 250, 277 Ayalon, Ami, 103 Ayodhya, 110–112 Azerbaijan, 206 al-Azmeh, Aziz, 27 Aztec society, state, 10, 29 Backlash masculinity, 32, 43, 51–52, 268 Bagehot, Walter, 29 Bangladesh, 116, 147, 201

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Bankruptcy, 207, 223 Barak, Ehud, 79, 83, 93, 105 Barcelona Process, 164, 180–181, 188 Barmé, Geremie, 260–261 Basu, Jyoti, 118 Batan, 222 Beijing, 236, 242, 250, 263 Beijing Conference on Women, 57, 62–64, 68 Beilin, Yossi, 93, 103, 105 Belhadj, Ali, 157, 167, 169–170, 181, 187 Bengal, 115 Benjedid, Chadli, 153, 159 Berbers, 155 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 107–118, 123–134, 146, 269, 275, 281 Bible, 24, 33, 260 bin-Laden, Osama, 20, 22, 69, 77 BJP. See Bharatiya Janata Party Bob Jones University, 55 Bodhisattva, 236, 263 Bollywood, 146 Bombing, 15, 173, 180, 189 Bonyad, 191–192, 195–198, 202–216 Bonyad Credit and Finance Association, 205 Bonyad-e Astan-e Qods-e Razavi, 197, 209, 215 Bonyad-e Panzdah-e Khordad , 205–206, 216 Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan, (MJF), 196, 199, 202–203, 205, 207, 211, 214–215 Bonyad-e Resalat, 198 Bonyad-e Shahid, 204, 106, 210 Bosnia, 201 Boumediene, Houari, 159, 167 Bourgeoisie, 11, 30, 169–170, 172, 179 Bourgeois society, 111, 139, 149, 164, 169–170, 172, 179, 186 Bourguiba, Habib, 229 Bouteflika, Abdelaziz, 164. 183, 189 Boxer Uprising (Boxers), 233, 239–242, 246–247, 254, 262–263 Brandt, Willy, 50 British Israelism, 55 Buchanan, Patrick, 40, 42–43 Buckley, William, 36 Buddha, 237 Buddhism, 139, 142, 243, 263–264, 272

Buddhist, 2, 29, 114, 234–235, 246–247, 260, 263–264, 272–273, 281 Bulgaria, 201 Bush, George W., 45, 55, 69, 73, 75, 77 Cairo Conference on Population and Development, 61–64, 75 California, 34, 36 Calvin, John, 13 Cameroons, 67 Camp David Summit, 79, 82, 93, 100, 106 Canada, 50, 74, 76, 236, 250, 272 Capital, 11, 32, 39, 52–53, 70, 100, 107–108, 118–125, 130, 148, 156, 159–160, 173, 194–195, 200, 206, 208, 212, 222, 225, 262; accumulation, 39, 198; flight, 120, 160, 223; foreign, 108, 118, 122–125, 130; intensive 121, 159, 221; markets, 17, 34; mobility, 168–169 Capitalism, 5, 16, 19, 23, 25–26, 30, 43, 118, 122, 129, 137, 139, 145, 148, 213, 244, 246, 269, 276; late, 107 Capitalist, 15–16, 18, 25, 45, 53, 122, 130, 214, 245, 260 Caribbean, 227 Carlson, Allan, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76 Carr, E. H., 16 Caste (class), 108–111, 113, 134, 138, 145–146 Castells, Manuel, 40, 58 Catholic Church, 13, 28, 75, 279 Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam), 60 Catholicism, 15, 37, 45, 55, 57–59, 67–69, 74–77, 178; anti-Catholic, 45, 55 CCP. See Chinese Communist Party Central America, 279 Central Intelligence Agency, 220 Cheek, Timothy, 244 Chen, Nancy, 247–248 Chidambaram, P., 120 Chile, 279–280 China, 29, 201, 227, 234–236, 238–252, 255, 257, 259–260, 262–264, 269, 274, 276, 282 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 234, 244, 258, 261, 263

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Christ, Jesus, 12, 28, 34, 55, 263 Christian (Christians), 1–2, 6, 9, 13, 24, 26, 28, 31, 33–34, 37, 60, 65, 67–69, 72, 74, 77, 116–117, 249, 263, 268–269, 271, 273; identity, 33, 55 Christianity, 55, 58–59, 77 Christian Right (CR), 28, 55, 57, 63, 68–69, 73 Christian Right/United Nations (CR/UN), 57–60, 62–77 Civil rights, 5, 11 Civil society, 21–22, 57–58, 60, 62, 74, 135–140, 143–146, 148–151, 155, 160, 171, 181, 196, 224 Civil war, 88, 91–93, 95, 98, 101, 147, 161, 164, 173 Class(es), 20, 31–32, 38–40, 42–43, 45–49, 51–55, 108–111, 115–118, 120, 122, 124–125, 127, 129, 131, 133–134, 136, 143, 145–147, 155–156, 160–161, 166, 168–172, 174, 194, 198, 271, 275, 279–280; difference, 31, 38, 45; middle, 38, 94, 109–111, 116, 124–125, 127, 129, 133–134, 136, 143, 145, 147, 155, 160–161, 166, 168, 172, 174, 186, 198, 220, 223, 259, 269, 272, 275, 279; politics, 107–112, 114–115, 117, 128–129, 133–134, 136, 140, 144–145, 147, 156–157, 169, 175–176, 180, 186; ruling, 10; working, 38–39, 45, 47–53, 55, 57, 223, 276 Clergy, 9, 13, 24, 191–194, 196, 210, 213, 216 Clinton, Bill, 43, 46–48, 51, 64, 75, 180, 250 Cold War, 45, 276 Colonialism, 39, 100, 123, 130, 157, 160, 220 Colonization, 18 140, 142; decolonization 100, 142 Commission on Global Governance (UN), 44, 50, 54, 65 Commodity: price shock, 15; chains, 19 Communal, 2, 4, 16, 19–20, 26, 49, 108, 110, 112, 124, 128, 138, 142, 146, 149–150, 169–170, 173, 176; riots, 146; violence, 12, 15, 23

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Communist Party of India–Marxist (CPI-M), 118 Communists, 31, 46, 168 Community, 2, 4–6, 10, 12–13, 15, 20, 22, 26, 46, 110, 113–115, 126–127, 132, 141–142, 144–146, 158, 172, 175, 178, 187, 191, 193, 195, 199, 207, 222, 255, 274, 278–279; blessed, 2, 13–14, 18 Concerned Women for America, 59–60, 65, 69, 71–72, 74–77 Confucius, 244 Congress Party (India), 108–110, 126, 143 Conquest, 15, 18, 86, 113 Conservatism, 34, 43, 157, 170, 172, 194, 272 Consumer(s), 122, 215, 259; goods, 195, 223 Consumerism, 19, 122–123, 132, 168, 260 Consumption, 118, 123, 145–146, 255, 269 Contraception, 53, 70 Corruption, 12, 60, 126, 163, 193, 200, 206, 208–209, 211, 220, 238, 269, 274, 276–277, 280 Cortez, Hernan, 29 Cosmology, 6, 257 Coup, 22, 153, 155, 163, 172, 176–177, 180, 187–189, 220–221, 271 CR. See Christian Right CR/UN. See Christian Right/United Nations Crisis, 10–11, 20, 22, 26–27, 42, 57, 65, 85, 114, 120–121, 143, 155, 159, 162, 165–166, 168, 172, 176, 179, 183, 186, 203, 213, 276–278; international financial, 15, 158, 162, 164, 223, 228, 232, 240; legitimacy, 11, 18, 114, 148, 150, 158, 164, 169, 179, 187–188. See also Asian, financial crisis Cult, 4–5, 55, 234, 243–244, 246, 248, 250–251, 257, 262, 280 Cultural, 191, 193, 196, 198, 209, 211, 214, 220, 235, 246, 259, 261, 267, 269, 274, 276, 278; imperialism, 128, 131 Cultural Revolution, 237, 244 Culture, 4–6, 9, 11, 14, 18–20, 28, 34,

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51, 65, 107–109, 112, 114, 116–117, 123, 128, 131–136, 139–146, 148–150, 156, 158, 164–166, 168, 170–173, 180, 211, 213, 217, 227, 238–239, 242, 259–260, 269; of violence, 172–173; wars, 53; Cycles, 94, 99; of violence, 80–82, 147, 278 Daoist, 234, 242, 246, 253, 265 Darwin, Charles (Darwinism, Social Darwinism), 1–2, 276 Debt (debtors), 53, 154–155, 159–161, 163–164, 179, 180, 193, 200 Decline, socio-economic, 32, 53, 80, 82–83, 85, 89, 94, 101, 122, 132, 151, 161, 164, 224, 269, 273, 275–278 Decolonization, 100, 142 Deficit on current account, 121, 159–160 Democracy(ies), 11, 16, 19, 22–23, 103, 109, 116, 149, 156, 173–175, 180, 186, 214, 249 Democratic deficit, 19 Democratic Party (U.S.), 34, 40, 64 Democratization, 64, 153–155, 165, 167, 174–175, 178, 181 Deng Xiaoping, 238, 249, 260 Dependency, 67, 130 Deregulation, 120, 125, 162, 164, 168, 275 Derrida, J., 41–42 Devaluation, 164, 223, 230 Development, 2, 15, 18, 61–62, 64, 68, 101, 129, 135, 137, 139, 143–150, 155, 158–162, 164, 166, 180, 187, 193, 196, 199, 201, 206, 212, 214–215, 260, 269, 272, 277; economic, 19, 31, 197, 207–208, 213–214, 216 Developmentalism, 147 Developmentalist state, 129 Dévoluy, Pierre, 175 Diaspora, 248; communities, 261 Discrimination, 15, 63 Diversity, 16, 22, 156, 241 Divorce, 132, 144, 146, 225–226 Diwan, Romesh, 131 Djaballah, Abdallah, 172, 179, 188

Djaza’aristes, 156, 175 Djeddi, Ali, 157, 184 Dole, Bob, 43, 48 Dome of the Rock Mosque, 85 Dread, 7–8, 22, 141 Duteil, Mireille, 175 Dutton, Michael, 260 Eagle Forum, 32, 43–51, 54–55, 59–60, 71–72, 75, 276, 279 Education (educational), 13, 22, 25, 44, 67, 70, 85, 110, 123, 148–149, 155, 157, 166–167, 169, 171, 181, 196, 198, 218, 222, 268, 271, 277 Egypt (Egyptian), 25, 85, 104, 157, 170–171, 180, 220, 228–230 Elections, 33, 35, 79, 84, 94–95, 109, 123, 127, 131, 148, 153, 155, 174–178, 180–188, 210, 216 Eliezer, Benjamin, 93 Empire, 21, 26, 92, 219–223, 225–231, 271–273 Employment, 11, 25, 89, 101, 125, 160, 165, 171, 206–207 English, 6, 29, 245, 252, 263–264 Enron, 126, 130 Entelis, John, 162, 174 Entrepreneur (entrepreneurship), 16, 158, 162, 207, 213, 238, 260 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 44, 75 Equity, 15, 121, 173 Eretz Israel (Greater Israel), 84 Ethnicity, 138, 145–146, 171 EU. See European Union Eurocentrism, 141, 270 Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, 164 Europe (European), 23, 39, 47, 87, 163–165, 178, 180–181, 187–189, 220–221, 238, 250–251, 263 European Parliament, 180, 251 European Union (EU), 83, 154, 163–165, 179–180, 182, 187, 188 Exchange, 11, 36, 71, 107, 120–121, 126, 128, 145–147, 162, 164, 170, 173, 179–180, 184, 212, 259, 280; foreign 120, 164, 179, 193, 207; rate, 121, 207 Expediency Council (Iran), 197, 204 Exploitation, 14, 18, 20, 70, 123, 160 Export(s), 82–83, 104, 203, 220–222,

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269; subsidies, 89, 120, 155, 159–160, 163, 165 Expropriation, 168, 194, 199 Evangelical(s), 1, 9, 28, 33–34, 36–38, 43, 55, 67, 279 Evil, 11, 180, 242, 246, 250, 262 Evolution (evolutionary), 22, 33, 44, 102, 144, 191, 211, 238, 270, 276–277 Factionalism, 156, 209 Faith, 1, 2, 12–13, 17, 25, 57–60, 66–70, 72–73, 76, 113, 116, 140, 142, 144, 157, 240–242, 263, 268–269, 277 Falun Gong, 2, 29, 233–265, 269, 281 Falwell, Jerry, 33, 37–38 Family, 7, 14, 43–44, 57–60, 63, 65, 67, 69–71, 74, 112, 114, 132, 141, 149, 155, 166, 192, 197, 199, 206, 220–222, 224–225, 258, 268, 271–272, 277–278; anti-family, 58, 63–64, 71; natural, 57–59, 65–70, 72–74, 162, 168, 174, 186, 268; values, 60, 68–69, 132 Family Status Code (Algeria), 166 Farabi Foundation, 198 Fatah, 94, 96–98, 103, 106 Fatwa, 205–206, 216 Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), 127 Female subordination, repression, 24–25 Feminism (feminist), 25, 34, 39, 41, 51–52, 54, 58–59, 62–66, 70–73, 75, 141, 224, 226; anti-feminist, 54 Fields, Echo, 34, 37 Finance, 18, 20, 83, 120–121, 127, 163, 179, 205, 207 Financial, 8, 49, 87, 158, 160, 162–164, 171, 182, 192, 194, 196, 200–201, 205–206, 211–212, 225–226, 228, 254, 281; markets, 17, 34, 36, 43, 101 FIS. See Islamic Salvation Front Fiscal conservatism, 34, 272 Fitzgerald, Francis, 37–38 FLN. See National Liberation Front Focus on the Family, 59, 63, 69, 75–77 Foucault, Michel, 21

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Foundation for Oppressed and Warwounded (MJF), 196, 199. See also Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan France, 112, 155, 157, 162, 163, 168, 171–172, 180–181, 183, 188–189, 251 Free market, 17, 43, 127, 129 Free trade, 49, 162, 165, 197, 222, 230 Freud, Sigmund, 20 Friedman, Tom, 22 Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), 172, 178, 181, 183, 188 Fundamentalism, 1–3, 12–13, 15, 23, 26–28, 52, 79–81, 83–85, 87, 90–103, 117, 135, 140, 147, 158, 191, 219, 227, 233, 243, 262, 267–270, 272–277, 279–281 Fundamentalist, 1–4, 12–17, 21, 23–28, 30, 33–34, 37, 43, 55, 81–82, 84–91, 93–103, 117, 153, 156–157, 191, 258, 267–269, 271–281 Fundamentalism Project, The, 13, 28 Gandhi, Indira, 109, 119 Gandhi, Mahatma, 118 Gandhi, Rajiv, 119 Gaza Strip, 79, 85–86, 89–90, 93, 97, 100, 104 GDP. See Gross domestic product Gellner, Ernest, 23–24 Gender, 14, 24, 29, 31–32, 51, 52, 62–63, 107, 146, 155, 171, 224, 227, 268 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 48–50, 132 General strike, 174–175 Geneva, 49, 66, 74, 184 Geneva Declaration, 67–68 Gerges, Fawaz, 156 Germany, 67, 163, 201, 251 al-Ghazali, Zeinab, 25 Ghosh, Jayati, 119 al-Ghozali, Sheik Mohammed, 170 Ghozali, Sid Ahmed, 161, 176 GIA. See Armed Islamic Group Giddens, Anthony, 7–8 Gingrich, Newt, 48 Girard, Rene, 10–12, 29 Global economy, 43, 129, 158–162, 231, 262. See also International

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political economy; Political economy Global governance. See Commission on Global Governance Global interfaith alliance, 68, 70 Globalization, 2, 3, 11–12, 15, 17–21, 23, 28, 30, 38–40, 43, 48, 50–53, 58, 64–65, 108, 118–119, 123–125, 128, 130–132, 135–136, 150–151, 153, 157–160, 170, 185, 187, 219, 243, 246, 258–259, 261, 267, 270, 274–275, 280–281 Globalized, 107, 118, 140–141, 164, 233, 268, 274 GNP. See Gross national product Golan Heights, 89 Goldstein, Baruch, 92–93, 106 Goldwater, Barry, 35, 45–46 Governance, 4, 10, 14, 19, 29, 124, 157, 195 Graham, Billy, 9 Gramsci (Gramscian), 4, 261 Greenspan, Alan, 46 Greider, William, 54 Gross domestic product (GDP), 82–83, 154, 166, 202 Gross national product (GNP), 82, 85, 121, 167, 222 Groupe Islamique Armée. See Armed Islamic Group Guatemala, 279 Gujarat, 118, 127 Gulf States, 86, 147, 158, 228–229 Gulf War, 15, 120, 158 Gush Emunim (Israel), 84, 92, 98, 104

Hegemony, 13, 52, 128, 138, 143, 177, 280 Henderson, Jeffrey, 40 Henry, Clement, 160 Heritage Foundation, 33, 36 Herut (Freedom) Party (Israel), 84 Hezbollah, 205 Hijab, 169 Hindu (Hindus, Hinduism), 2, 15, 21, 67–68, 76, 107–110, 113–115, 117, 128, 133–135, 139, 142, 144–146, 149–150, 269, 271–273, 275, 281 Hinducentric, 232, 275, 281 Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), 107, 111–112, 116, 133, 135, 139, 143, 145–146, 149–150 Hittistes, 169, 172, 186 HIV/AIDS, 69–70 Hobbes, Thomas, 9, 11–12 Holocaust, 93 Holy war (jihad, jihadists), 15, 23, 86, 105, 147, 158, 177 Homosexuality, 57, 70, 73 Hong Kong, 236, 238, 250, 252 Housing, 38, 61, 140, 165–166, 179, 199–200, 211, 268, 280 Howard Center, 59, 66, 74 Human Life International, 60, 74 Human rights, 14, 62, 158, 165, 180–182, 185–186, 189, 233, 239, 243, 249–250, 259, 261–263 Human Rights Institute, 59–60, 76 Human Rights Watch, 236, 238, 249–250, 259 Humphrey, Michael, 173 Hussein, Saddam, 15

Habermas, Jurgen, 11, 29 Hachani, Abdelkader, 157, 175, 181 Haddam, Anwar, 157, 178, 180–181, 184–185 Hamas, 80, 82–83, 86–87, 102, 172, 178, 188 Hamdani, Smail, 101 Hamrouche, Mouloud, 161, 167, 176, 183 Hardt, Michael, 21 Health care, 53, 123, 167, 200, 211, 263, 268, 271 Hebron, 85, 93, 98, 282 Hegel, G. F. W., 274

Identity, 41–42, 66, 100, 192, 248, 256; politics, 31, 38, 41; group, 1, 3–4, 21, 26, 30, 108, 111, 113–114, 129, 132, 139, 142–143, 145, 155, 157, 167–168, 171, 178, 189 Ideologies, 4–7, 23, 118, 170, 215, 261, 273 Ideology, 2, 6–7, 9–12, 16–17, 19, 23, 27, 35, 67, 86, 89, 96, 107, 112, 115, 129, 133, 141, 145–147, 153, 156–158, 168–172, 174, 186, 198, 220, 228, 241, 244, 251, 257, 261, 275 IDF. See Israeli Defense Forces

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Illinois, 45 Imam’s Relief Committee, 198, 215 IMF. See International Monetary Fund Imports, 82, 104, 120, 122, 263, 269 Income, 37–38, 53, 82, 121, 155, 159, 166, 192, 196–197, 201–202, 212, 219, 221, 223–225, 230, 278 Independence, 24, 32, 46, 85, 92, 100, 109–110, 114, 118, 129, 144, 147, 155, 157, 160, 168, 187–189, 196, 220 India, 15, 22–23, 67, 107–135, 138–139, 142–146, 149–150, 201, 268–269, 107–135, 138–139, 142–146, 149–150, 271, 274–275, 277–279, 281 Individualism, 18, 24, 66, 140, 145, 274 Indonesia, 219–221, 223–228, 231, 268–269, 272, 276–278 Industrial Development and Renovation Organization, 198 Industrialism (industrialization), 159–160, 191, 201, 205, 212, 221–222 Industry, 34, 38, 70, 119, 123–124, 127 Inequality, 26, 45, 62, 71, 121, 137, 155, 161, 166, 168, 279 Inflation, 121, 159, 166, 203, 213, 223, 230 Informal sector, 121, 162, 222 Injustice, 4, 12, 15, 150, 209 Inquisition, Roman Catholic, 10, 29 Integration (economic integration), 15, 20, 30, 39, 83, 107–108, 118, 121, 125, 128, 153–154, 157, 159–160, 165, 174, 181, 191, 205, 208, 270 International Labor Organization (ILO), 52 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 19, 52, 119, 120, 129, 159–160, 162–164, 223 International political economy, 154, 219, 275. See also Global economy; Political economy Internet, 8, 136, 236, 251 Intifada, 79–80, 82–83, 85–86, 90–91, 93, 95–96, 98–99, 102, 104, 106 Invented tradition, 235 Investment, 49, 118–126, 130–131, 159–160, 162, 164–165, 187, 193, 199–201, 213, 260; foreign, 18–19,

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25, 104, 120–121, 123, 125–126, 131, 164, 203, 208 Iran (Iranian), 16, 25, 30, 57, 68, 76, 87, 158, 180, 191–217, 219–221, 226, 228–230, 271–272, 277–278 Iraq (Iraqi), 15–16, 120, 160, 194, 198, 200, 219, 228–229, 231 Islam, 2, 6, 9, 23–26, 58, 69, 76–77, 86, 95, 116–117, 133, 142–143, 145, 147, 149, 156–158, 165, 167–172, 175, 179, 181, 188, 214, 220, 223, 226, 228–229, 231, 271 Islamic, 22, 24–25, 80, 82–86, 88, 90, 94–99, 104–105, 115–117, 135, 139, 145–149, 153, 161–162, 168, 170–174, 177, 183–186, 188, 191–200, 202, 209, 213–214, 219–220, 225–229, 232, 271, 273 Islamic charities, 105, 196, 223–224. See also Zakat Islamic law (sharia), 170, 173, 186, 194, 219, 224–226 Islamic Republic, 183, 191–193, 195, 198–199, 201, 214–215 Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), 153–159, 161–189, 271 Islamist(s), 6, 13, 15–16, 21, 24–26, 85–86, 97, 115, 139, 147–149, 153, 155–158, 161, 163, 165–169, 171–189, 220, 223–224, 229, 231, 271 “Islamo-nationalist” party, 157–158, 271 Israel (Israeli, Israelis), 15, 58, 79–106, 272, 274, 278, 281 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), 89, 91–92, 98, 105 Italy (Italian), 5, 163, 201, 251 Iyer, V. R. Krishna, 128 Jain, Girilal, 114 Jains, 114 James, Harold, 20 Janata Dal Party, 110 Japan, 9, 47, 163, 201, 220, 250 Japanese, 9–10, 207, 245, 250 Jerusalem, 79, 85, 89, 95, 97, 100– 101 Jesus movement, 3, 13 Jewish, 6, 12, 13, 21, 28, 29, 55, 58, 67–68, 76, 80, 82–84, 86, 88,

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91–94, 98–100, 102, 105–106, 271, 278 Jiang Zemin, 236, 246, 256, 260, 265 Jihad (jihadists). See Holy war Job security, 43, 45 Jordan, 89, 228 Jordan Valley, 102 Joseph’s Tomb, 96 Judiasm (Jews), 12, 21, 28, 55, 58, 84, 92, 106 Judicial authority, 10 Judiciary, 112, 209 Juergensmeyer, Mark, 6, 21 Justice, 12, 27, 29, 110, 116, 128, 150, 158, 168, 184, 192–194, 199, 224, 226, 280 Kach (Israel), 93, 105 Kane, Ousmane, 280 Karl, Terry Lynn, 160 Kashmir, 131, 147 Kaufman, James, 171 Kazakhstan, 201 Kébir, Rabah, 157, 163, 177–178, 181 Kenya, 67 Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali, 192, 197, 200, 206, 215 Khatami, Seyyed Mohammad, 195, 209–210, 216 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruholla, 191–194, 198–200, 205–206 Khorassan, 197, 215 Kidnapping, 155, 167, 173, 188 Koran. See Quran Korea, Republic of, 207, 227 Kosovo, 206 Ku Klux Klan, 41 Kuwait (Kuwaiti), 20, 25, 120, 201, 228 Kuznets, Simon, 17 Labor, 39, 42, 48–50, 70, 81–82, 85, 104, 105, 121, 124, 143, 145, 147, 160, 173, 175, 194, 199, 221–222, 225–230, 249, 269; unions, 49 Labor Party (Israel), 83, 89, 91–94, 98, 102, 105 Lamb, Henry, 54 Land reform, 194, 197 Latin America, 28, 155, 227, 279 Layachi, Azzedine, 174 Lebanon, 104, 157, 206, 228

Legitimacy, 6, 11, 14, 24, 26, 34, 40, 54, 114, 148, 150, 158, 164, 169, 179, 187–188, 192, 195, 232, 245, 251, 271, 277–278 Legitimation crisis, 11, 18, 34, 40, 54 Lewis, W. A., 17 Liberalization, 17, 22, 107–108, 118–134, 143, 162–164, 170, 179, 186, 197, 223, 269, 272 Liberation theology, 28, 279 Libya, 57, 160, 201, 228 Lifeworld, 34, 268 Li Hongzhi, 235–236, 241–243, 245–246, 248, 251–257, 259, 263–264 Likud Party (Israel), 83–84, 89–91, 105–106 Literacy, 22, 245 Lok Sabha, 127, 132 London Club, 163 Luke, Timothy, 43 Luther, Martin, 13 Lutheran, 67 Lynchburg, Virginia, 38 Macau, 252 Madani, Abassi, 157, 167, 169, 181, 187–188 Madrass, 22, 147 Maghreb, 162, 165, 228 Maharashtra, 118, 126–127 Mahdi, 12 Mahurkar, Uday, 127 Malari Riot, 221 Malaysia, 184, 189, 226–227, 236 Malek, Redha, 161 Manchester, 118 Mandal Commission, issue, 110–111 Marcos, Ferdinand, 49, 221 Marginalization, 4, 123, 129, 168, 178, 187 Market, the, 5, 7, 11, 15–17, 19, 34, 36, 43, 101, 122, 124, 128, 140, 145–146, 164, 170, 195, 203, 207–208, 214, 222, 229–230, 237–238, 259–260, 269, 272, 276, 278, 280; economy 140, 229; fundamentalism, 15–17, 19; society 5, 11–12 Marketization, 18 Martinez, Luis, 63, 173, 186

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Marty, Martin, 28 Martyrs, 97, 242 Marx, Karl, 279 Marxian (Marxist/Leninist), 16, 115, 118, 192 Massacres, 182, 188, 281 Mass communications: media, 18, 33, 112, 132, 136, 145–148, 195, 209, 219, 224, 233, 238–239, 241, 243–245, 251, 258, 269 McGirr, Lisa, 34, 38 McNeill, William, 280 Mediators, 14, 87, 203 Mediterranean, 154, 164–165, 188 Meese, Edwin, 33 Merchants, 111, 169–170 Mernissi, Fatima, 26 Messiah, 12 Mexico, 42, 49–50 Mexico City, 66 Meyer, David, 22 Mezrag, Madani, 177, 181, 185 Middle East, 15, 30, 70, 105, 147, 165, 179, 186, 227, 271 Migration (migrant, immigration, emigration), 18–19, 55, 86, 105, 120, 147, 180, 228, 259, 275, 280 Militarization, 139, 272 Military coup, 22, 271 Military power, 19, 51, 84 Militia Movement, 33, 54 Millenarian movements, 233, 241, 247, 262 Minority(ies), 4, 6, 37, 64, 109, 114–115, 117, 133, 143, 150, 151, 176, 186 MNCs. See Multinational corporations Modern, 1, 5–8, 10–11, 14, 17–18, 21, 23–24, 55, 107–108, 117–118, 124–125, 132–137, 139–144, 146, 148, 169, 174, 186, 191, 198–199, 221, 233, 235, 245, 258, 260, 272, 274, 277 Modernity, 2, 8, 14, 17, 19–20, 23, 25–28, 76, 115, 119, 124, 128, 132, 134–135, 137–143, 148–149, 243, 245, 267, 270, 274–276, 280–281 Modernization, 5, 14, 25, 108, 131–132, 135–136, 138–143, 145, 147, 149, 153–156, 165, 174, 179, 185, 193, 219, 221, 269, 274–275, 277, 279

337

Moghuls, 112 Mohammad, 12, 117 Montana, 33 Moral Majority, 31 Mormon, 55, 57, 59, 63, 66–67, 74 Morocco, 28, 164, 180, 189, 228 Mortimer, Robert, 155 Mosque(s), 85–86, 94, 157, 170–171, 192, 196–197, 200, 281 Mouvement pour la Société de Paix (MSP), 179, 181–183, 185, 188 Mubarak, Hosni, 230 Muhammadiah (Indonesia), 220, 223 Multinational corporations (MNCs), 48, 50, 123–126 Murder(s), 10, 93, 173, 182, 188, 189, 281 Murdoch, Rupert, 243, 261 Muslim(s), 1, 6, 12, 15–16, 21–22, 25–26, 58, 67–69, 73, 76–77, 85, 93, 108, 110–117, 133, 143–144, 147–150, 153, 156–158, 167, 170–171, 179, 186, 191, 196, 206, 216, 219–221, 223–229, 231, 271–273, 281 Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) movement, 85, 158, 170–171 NAFTA. See North American Free Trade Agreement Nahnah, Sheikh Mahfoud, 172, 178–179, 185, 188 Nation, 40, 42, 49, 51, 53, 58, 65, 81, 92, 107–108, 112–114, 117, 128, 130–133, 138, 142, 148, 150, 161, 174, 191, 200, 209, 224 National interest, 18, 40, 96, 128 National Iranian Industries Organization, 193 National Iranian Oil Company, 205 Nationalism, 32, 86, 99, 107–109, 111–112, 114, 116–118, 124, 128, 136, 139, 142–146, 148–150, 157–158, 269 Nationalist, 6, 16, 31, 40, 43, 80, 83, 85, 107, 109–116, 118, 121–123, 125–126, 128–129, 133–134, 143–145, 149–150, 156–158, 174–175, 181, 183–184, 186–187, 220, 273–274 National Liberation Front (FLN), 153,

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157, 161–162, 168–169, 174, 176, 178, 181, 183–185, 188–189 National reconciliation, 183, 185 National Science Foundation (U.S.), 277 National security, 44–45, 51, 55, 189 National Organization for Women (NOW), 44 National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), 36 Nayar, Baldve, 121 Negri, Antonio, 21, 47 Nehdatoll Ulama (Indonesia), 220, 223–224 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 114 Nehruvian, 60, 94, 112, 115–116, 118, 129, 143, 145 Neofundamentalism (neofundamentalist), 26, 158 Neoliberal, economic policy, 16, 40, 107, 136, 143, 149–151, 154, 158–159, 161–162, 165, 222–223, 229–233, 246, 258–259, 275–276 Network(s), 20–21, 23, 35–36, 74, 94, 109, 111, 157, 159, 162, 164, 170–171, 181, 199, 204–205, 208, 211, 216 New Age, 234, 251, 254, 259–261, 265 New Deal, 32, 35, 47, 271 New Delhi, 125, 127 New Right, 32–34, 36, 40 Nicaragua, 28 Nixon, Richard, 45 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 15, 42, 49–50 Norway, 201 Occupation, 85–86, 89, 91, 95, 100–101, 103 Occupied territories, 15 Oil, 120, 154, 159–161, 164, 166, 179, 187, 201, 205, 220–223, 228–231 Opportunism, 154, 158, 192 Oppression, 41, 157 Orange County, California, 34 Orientalist, 113, 117 Oslo process, 79–81, 87–88, 90–95, 98–100, 103 Ouyahia, Ahmed, 161, 164 Ownby, David, 235, 243, 247–248, 253

Pagels, Elaine, 8, 26, 30 Pahlavi Foundation, 199 Pakistan, 22, 67–68, 114, 116, 135, 138–139, 142, 144–150, 201, 268, 274, 277–278 Palestine (Palestinian), 15, 79–106, 274, 278 Palestinian Authority (PA), 79 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), 79, 85–86, 91, 94–95, 102, 106 Palestinian National Council, 95 Palmer, Susan, 48, 242 Pape, Robert, 16, 30 Paramilitary, 40, 112 Parawansa, Khofifah Indar, 224 Paris Club, 163 Parsonian structural-functionalism, 138 Partition, 90, 95, 101, 116 Patriarch (patriarchs, patriarchy), 7, 14, 41, 202, 236 Patronage, 109, 159–160, 162–164, 170, 172, 179, 199, 205, 210 Peace, 76, 79–81, 86–89, 91, 95, 98–99, 101–106, 133, 136, 150, 179, 184–185, 274 Peacekeeping, 62, 182 Pentagon, 1, 51 Pentecostal(s), 279–280 Peres, Shimon, 79, 92–93, 105 Peterson, Spike, 18 Petite bourgeoisie, 111, 169, 172, 179 Pharisees, 13 Philippines, 67, 221, 227 Planned Parenthood, 52 Platform of Rome, 178, 182–183 PLO. See Palestinian Liberation Organization Pluralism, 69, 76, 145, 155, 158, 173, 178, 185, 188 Polanyi, Karl, 5, 16–17, 30 Polarization, 111, 122, 177 Police, 32, 79, 112, 172, 236, 242 Political, 31–34, 36–37, 39–41, 44, 55, 57–59, 61–62, 65–74, 79, 81, 83, 86–88, 90–92, 94–96, 98, 100, 104–105; economy, 3, 7, 20, 23, 25, 27–28, 192, 213, 219, 221, 227, 267, 275, 281; entrepreneurs, 2, 3, 6, 16; Islam, 24, 26, 220, 223,

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228–229; mobilization, 3, 278; parties, 271 Political economy, 3, 7, 25, 27, 40, 73, 105, 107–108, 117, 136–137, 143, 148–149, 153–155, 158, 187, 267, 269, 275, 281. See also Global economy; International political economy Polygamy, 114, 225 Pomfret, John, 242–243 Pope, 7, 75 Population policy, 57, 61, 64–65 Populist, 94, 109, 148, 157, 186, 195–196, 198, 202, 215 Postmodern, 27, 140, 233 Poststructuralism, 40–41 Poverty, 82, 94, 99–100, 122, 166, 222–223, 231, 279 Power, 5–7, 9–10, 12–13, 16, 19, 28, 34–35, 40, 43, 47–49, 53–55, 66, 72, 75–77, 84, 89, 91, 94, 97–98, 103, 109, 111, 124, 126, 130–131, 133, 136, 141, 144–145, 148–150, 153, 156, 160, 162–165, 168, 170–171, 173–176, 178–179, 181, 185, 191–194, 198, 200–201, 204, 206, 210, 214, 216, 221, 224–225, 229, 231, 241, 244, 260–261, 271–272, 274 Powerless (powerlessness), 23, 26, 40, 98 Prague, 66 Prayer, 9–10, 29, 46, 210 Premodern, 8, 15 Presbyterians, 1, 13, 28 Privacy, 4, 25, 139 Private property, 193–194 Privatization, 5, 17, 25, 146, 155, 162–165, 203, 207, 211–213 Production, 5, 15, 17–18, 29, 39, 49, 83, 107, 118, 121, 123, 131, 154, 179, 201, 205, 215, 238, 279 Profit, 17, 23, 37, 44, 121, 146, 201–202, 206, 269 Property, 46–47, 49, 84, 121, 139, 149, 162, 172, 193–194, 196, 215, 225 Protectionist, 134, 162–163, 272 Protestant(s), 1, 3, 9, 13, 15, 24–26, 28, 33–34, 37, 39, 43, 45, 52, 55, 57, 277, 279 Protestant Reformation, 3

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Public Security Bureau (China), 235 Public sphere, 19, 135–136, 140, 145, 226 Punjab, 114 Putnam, Robert, 87 al-Qaida, 157 Qigong, 235, 237–239, 241–242, 245–249, 252–255, 257, 259–260, 263–264 Qom, 210 Queer Theory, 41 Quran (quranic, Koran), 22, 86, 157, 225 Rabin, Yitzhak, 92–93, 98, 105–106, 281 Radicalism, 175, 194 Rafiqdust, Mohsen, 201–202, 206, 210–211, 215–216 Raine, Louisiana, 42–43, 92, 97 Rama, 110 Ramadan, 169 Rao, Narasimha, 118, 120, 124, 130–131 Rape, 155, 167, 173, 188 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 111–113, 123–124 Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND), 181, 183, 185, 188 Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD), 172, 188 Rationality, 136, 142, 163, 272 Reagan, Ronald, 42 Reagan Cults, 280 Recession, economic, 42, 85, 223 Reforms, economic, 108, 118–119, 127, 134, 158–159, 161, 165, 203, 213–214, 238, 259, 277 Refugees, 95, 100, 147, 219, camps, 85–86 Rekhi, Shefali, 118 Religion, 1–5, 10, 12, 15–16, 21–29, 55, 58, 65–67, 73–74, 83, 86, 94, 105, 113, 115–117, 135–138, 140–142, 144–146, 148, 151, 157–158, 174, 219–220, 224, 228–229, 231, 242, 250, 257, 262, 279–280; Abrahamic, 2; mature, 267; normal, 23 Religious, 2–4, 13–17, 20, 111, 113,

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115–117, 135–141, 144–147, 150, 153, 156–157, 166, 170, 173, 182, 191–193, 196–202, 204–205, 213, 216, 219, 226–227, 231, 234–236, 249, 251, 258, 262, 267–274, 276–277, 279–281; chauvinism, 144, 146, 181; movements, 1, 3, 6, 16, 21–23, 167, 267, 272, 279; nationalism, 139, 144, 146, 148, 150, 269; resurgence, 4, 135–143, 145, 149, 267, 269, 273–277; right, 31–47, 49, 51, 53, 57; social movements, 1–3, 7, 10, 28, 267, 269, 273, 279 Rentier state, 159, 164, 193, 209, 214 Rent-seeking, 160, 195, 203, 208 Repression, 4, 25–26, 171, 173, 176, 179, 186–187, 259, 261, 274, 276, 279 Reproductive rights, 62–64, 268 Republican Party (GOP) (U.S.), 35–37, 42, 45 Reservations: affirmative action programs, 109–111 Restructuring, 101, 120–121, 134, 159–160, 195 Riots, 52, 92, 110, 146, 150, 153, 172, 174 Risk (risk management), 7–8, 22, 29, 44, 88, 95–97, 102, 130, 141, 156, 189 Rituals, 5–6, 8–11, 13, 241–242, 263 Ritual sacrifice, 10, 29 RND. See Rassemblement National Démocratique Roberts, Hugh, 154, 175 Ronfeldt, David, 21 Roy, Olivier, 16, 20–21, 24, 26, 30, 157, 191, 271 Roylance, Susan, 63 RSS. See Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Rubin, Gayle, 29 Rule of law, 158, 161, 172 Ruse, Austin, 65, 69–73 Rushdie, Salman, 205–206, 216 Russia, 67, 201 Rwanda, 227 Sacred, 13, 17, 19, 24, 86, 144; sacrificial crisis, 10–11

Sadat, Anwar, 229–230 Safavid Dynasty, 196 Salafistes, 156, 175 Salinas, Carlos, 49 Salt Lake City, Utah, 25 Sanctions, 19; legal, 20, 81; economic, 49, 83, 229 San Francisco, 35 Sangh Parivar, 112 Sanhedrin, 13 Sant’Egidio, 178, 180–182 Saudi(s), 15, 20, 30 Saudi Arabia, 86–87, 147, 184, 191, 201, 228 Scapegoats, 29, 51 Schlafly, Phyllis: The Phyllis Schlafly Report, 32, 35, 43–52, 55 Science, 1–2, 136, 235, 239, 243, 245–246, 248, 252, 255, 259, 275–277 Scopes, John: “monkey trial,” 33, 276–277 Scripture, 2, 12–13, 24–25, 30, 191, 253 Secular, 1, 6, 9, 22–23, 33, 73, 86, 94, 96, 108, 112, 115–117, 136, 140–145, 147–148, 162, 170, 172, 174, 176, 181, 186–187, 220, 229, 272, 277; humanists, 6, 31 Secularism, 60, 114–117, 142–145, 155, 186 Secularist, 2, 65, 71, 94, 112, 114–115, 144, 172, 188, 229 Secularization, 4–6, 65, 140 Settlements, 84, 88–95, 99–102, 105–106 Settlers, 84, 87, 89–93, 95, 97, 99–101, 105–106 Sexual division of labor: exploitation, 145 Shah of Iran, 16, 192–195, 197–199, 221, 272 Sharia (shari’a): Islamic law, 170, 173, 186, 194, 219, 224–226 Sharma, Mahesh, 124 Sharon, Ariel, 79, 83, 90–91, 93–94, 106 Shi’a (Shi’i, Shi’ism, Shiite), 76, 148, 192–193, 216 Shiv Sena, 112, 126–127 Shopkeepers, 111, 169 Sifi, Mokdad, 161

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Sikh(s), 21, 114, 117 Sinai Peninsula, 89, 92 Singapore, 227, 236, 252 Singh, Jaswant, 127 Singh, Manmohan, 120 Singh, Rajendra, 124 Singh, V. P., 110 Sinn Fein, 221 Smith, Adam, 17, 30 Social: change, 4, 22, 28, 36–37, 43, 45, 47, 54, 60–62, 65, 71, 73, 86–87, 97, 107–109, 112, 123, 131–132, 134–142, 144–148, 150–151, 153–158, 160, 165–173, 177, 179, 186–187, 267–269, 272; control, 3, 14, 177; disintegration, 153, 165; engineering, 58, 64, 66, 70, 76, 136, 138, 139, 269; inequality, 166, 168; justice, 158, 192–194, 199; services, 85, 166, 169, 230, 269, 272, 278 Socialism, 45, 50, 65, 122, 129, 170, 223, 238, 244–245, 260 Social movements, 31–32, 34, 38, 40–41, 135, 153, 160, 165, 186, 267, 269–270, 273; new, 21, 31 Society, 5–7, 9–10, 12–13, 18, 21–23, 26, 29, 34, 57–58, 60, 62–64, 67, 70, 74, 86, 94, 101, 103, 112–113, 121–122, 128, 133–146, 148–151, 155, 160, 163, 166–168, 170–171, 173, 179, 181, 186, 188–189, 196, 198, 200, 224, 235–236, 243, 246, 269, 277, 280 Somoza, Anastasio, 28 Song Dynasty, 247, 263 Southern Baptists, 25, 67 Sovereignty, 31–32, 40, 43–44, 46, 48–49, 51–55, 65, 128–130, 205, 276 Sovereignty International, 54 Soviet Union, 39, 58, 118, 220 Spain, 164 Springborg, Robert, 160 Stabilization, 120–121, 159 State(s), 3, 5–6, 9–11, 13–24, 26–27, 29, 33, 35, 37, 40, 42–44, 46–47, 49–50, 53, 57, 61–63, 65, 68–71, 73, 79–81, 86, 89–90, 100–101, 103–104, 106–107, 109, 111–112, 114–123, 125–127, 129, 132–133,

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135–140, 142–151, 154, 158–162, 164, 167, 169–170, 173–175, 177, 179, 181–182, 185–186, 188, 191–194, 196–197, 199, 202–205, 207–212, 215–216, 220–221, 223, 229–231, 238, 242, 245–248, 251, 258, 260–262, 268–278; nationstate, 17, 39, 65, 74, 112, 117, 136, 142, 145–146 Statehood, 95 State/society relations, 137, 160 Stiglitz, Joseph, 16 Sri Lanka, 139, 149, 272, 274, 281 Structural adjustment, 30, 154, 159, 161, 163, 165, 195, 276 Subsidies, 89, 120, 201, 209, 215, 230, 272 Sudan, 57, 68–69 Suharto, 219–224 Suicide bombings (attacks), 9, 16, 97 Sukarno, 220, 224 Sukarnoputri, Megawati, 224 Sunni Islam, 147 Supreme Court (U.S.), 35 Surveillance, 19, 185 Swadeshi, 117–119, 122–133, 269, 275 Swaggert, Jimmy, 1, 55 Symbolic power (symbolism), 11, 22, 29, 171 Tabasi, Ayatollah Abbas Va’ez, 197 Taiping Rebellion, 233, 239, 241–242, 244, 246–247, 254, 263 Tajikistan, 201, 206 Taleqani, Mahmud, 194 Taliban, 77, 147, 191, 219 Tamazigh, 155, 189 Taoism, 243 Technology, 21, 49, 123, 125, 132, 136, 207 Tehran, 200, 209, 215–217 Televangelists, 7, 37, 55 Television, 36, 132, 136, 145–146, 245, 252 Temple Mount, 85 Tennessee, 33, 276 Ter Haar, Barend, 247 Terrorist(s), 1, 16, 20–21, 26–27, 87, 96, 157, 177, 180, 182 Texas, 35, 75, 262 Thailand, 227

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Thapar, Romila, 113 Thatcher, Margaret, 17 Theocratic state (theocracy), 116–117, 144, 146, 202 Third world, 1, 47, 50, 52–53, 71, 129–130, 157, 174 Tiananmen Square, 238, 242 Tolerance, 23, 69, 117, 136–137, 142, 144, 150 Tong, James, 235, 237, 248, 254 Torture, 10, 173, 236 Tourism (tourist, tourists), 20, 70, 201, 222 Trade, 17–19, 25, 27, 40, 42–43, 47–49, 62, 70, 81–82, 111, 119, 121–122, 124, 127, 154, 161–162, 165, 169–170, 179, 194–195, 197, 201, 203, 208, 222, 226, 230, 259 Tradition (traditional, traditionalism), 2, 9, 11–16, 23–25, 27, 39–40, 42, 51–52, 59, 63, 66, 115, 117, 119, 124, 128, 136, 139–141, 143, 144, 146, 148–149, 157, 166, 168–170, 174, 191, 193–194, 196, 198–199, 204, 207, 216, 219, 225–226, 235–236, 238, 243–246, 253, 260–262, 268–269, 276–280 Trochman, John, 33 Tunisia, 180, 220, 226, 228–230 Turkey, 157, 220, 228–230 Turkmenistan, 201 Turks, 112 Two-level game, 87–88 Ulama (ulema), 24, 191, 271 Umma, 168, 186 Underdevelopment, 38, 84, 89–90, 101 Unemployment, 11, 26, 42, 82, 104, 125, 155, 159, 161, 166, 188, 213, 222–223 United Nations (UN), 40, 46, 50–54, 57–77, 104, 182, 258, 268, 271 United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 60, 75 United States, 15, 32, 42–43, 46, 48–50, 54–55, 63, 66–67, 69–70, 74–76, 85, 87, 96, 105, 127, 132, 147, 163–165, 178–180, 182–183, 187, 220–221, 232, 234, 236–239, 250–253, 256, 259, 262, 264, 268, 271, 276, 278–280

Upadhyaya, Deendayal, 122 Urban, 102, 108, 110–111, 116, 121–122, 124–125, 127, 129, 131, 133–134, 143, 146–147, 168–169, 172, 185–186, 203, 220, 222–223, 246, 278, 280; poor, 169, 223 Urbanizing, 145, 147, 150, 275, 280 U.S. State Department, 85, 96 Utility maximization, 17 Uttar Pradesh, 110–111 Vadodara, 123 Vajpayee, Atal Bihari, 109 Varshney, Ashutosh, 124 Vatican, 21, 63, 68, 75–76 Velayat-e-faqih, 7 Veterans, 173, 198, 200, 204, 206, 210–211 VHP. See Vishwa Hindu Parishad Victimization, 4, 12, 14, 20 Vietnam, 227 Violence (violent), 3, 10–12, 14–16, 18, 21–23, 26–29, 54, 62, 79–80, 82–83, 88, 91–94, 97, 99, 102–103, 106, 110, 112, 147–148, 150, 155, 158, 164, 167, 172–173, 175–180, 182, 186–189, 194, 205, 217, 234, 241–242, 244, 246, 261, 267, 273–274, 278, 281 Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), 110–112, 114 Wages, 82, 49, 121, 217, 222–223, 226, 230 Wahid, Abdurrahman, 224, 226 Wald, Kenneth, 39 War, 4, 10, 14–16, 18–20, 22–23, 26, 29, 72, 86, 88, 91–93, 95, 97–98, 101, 120, 147–148, 156, 158, 161, 163–164, 173, 179, 186–189, 194, 198, 200, 204, 206, 208, 215, 219, 231, 241, 276; of position, 4, 261; on terrorism, 187, 219, 231 War of 1948, 85 War of 1967, 83–84, 88 Washington Consensus, 16–17 Weapons, 182, 205, 210, 215, 255 Weberian sociology, 138 Welfare, 29, 37, 42, 65, 81, 94, 98, 115, 123–124, 137, 148–150, 165, 193, 204, 212, 222–224, 231

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West Bank, 79, 84–86, 89–90, 98, 100, 105 Westernization, 108, 128, 131–132, 149, 158, 168, 220 WFPC. See World Family Policy Center White Lotus, 235, 247, 263 Whiteness, 41–43 White supremacy, 41, 55 Women, 14, 24–25, 28, 34, 37, 41–42, 44, 51–52, 57–60, 62–66, 68–72, 74–77, 132, 155, 158, 166–167, 169, 177, 180–181, 185, 219–231, 256–257, 264–265, 272–273, 276 Workers, 21, 43, 47–50, 52–53, 81–82, 101, 104, 120, 125, 147, 217, 221–222, 227–228, 238, 279– 280 World Bank Group, 52, 71, 79, 83, 100, 104, 222 World Congress of Families, 59, 66–67, 74–76 World Family Policy Center (WFPC), 59–60, 66, 69, 72, 74 World Food Program (WFP), 52

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World Health Organization (WHO), 52, 75 World War II, 10 Wealth, 7, 17, 20, 50–51, 53, 71, 87, 168, 173, 199, 220, 268, 272, 278, 281 Wills, Gary, 1, 28 Wolf, Eric, 6–7, 10, 29 World Trade Organization (WTO), 25, 47–49, 122, 130, 154, 203, 215, 246, 259 Wright, Wendy, 60, 65, 75 WTO. See World Trade Organization Wuthnow, Robert, 35, 39, 74 Yadav, Mulayam Singh, 110 Yassin, Ahmed Sheikh, 103 Zakat, 224. See also Islamic charity Zaoui, Ahmed, 182, 184 Zapatista movement, 49 Zealotry, 92, 147 Zéroual, Liamine, 178 Zionism (Zionist), 84, 86, 103 Zoubir, Yahia, 167, 176

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About the Book

Is it accurate to equate “fundamentalism” with antimodernism? What explains the growing importance of religious activists in world politics? Guns, Gods, and Globalization explores the multifaceted phenomenon of religious resurgence, ranging from the Christian right in the United States to ethnonationalist movements across North Africa and Asia. The authors’ focus on the complex relationship between religious revivalism and globalization results in a nuanced study of religious political movements as they emerge in the context of rapid socioeconomic change. Mary Ann Tétreault is Una Chapman Cox Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Trinity University. She is author of Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait and coeditor of the two-volume Feminist Approaches to Social Movements, Community, and Power. Robert A. Denemark is associate professor of political science at the University of Delaware. His publications include Constituting International Political Economy and The Underdevelopment of Development, and he serves as associate editor of International Perspectives.

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