Religious Institutions and Authoritarian States: church–state relations in the Middle East

Fiona McCallum

Third World Quarterly, 2012, vol. 33, issue 1, 109-124

Abstract: The churches in the Middle East are generally perceived to be supportive of the authoritarian states in the region. The motivations for this strategy and its successes and limitations in the context of the authoritarian environment and the religious heritage of the region are explored. The article argues that the approaches pursued are determined by the structure of the community in relation to the majority and other Christian communities as well as by state policies towards the community. The overriding aim of church leaders of protecting their communities has led to a modern variation of the historical millet system, which provides them public status in exchange for their acquiescence in regime policies. This security guarantee, combined with wariness towards other potential political actors and the desire to protect their privileged position from communal challengers, has resulted in the hierarchies' preference for the authoritarian status quo rather than encouraging democracy promotion.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2012.627238 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:33:y:2012:i:1:p:109-124

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ctwq20

DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2012.627238

Access Statistics for this article

Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir

More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().