https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7421-0727
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ABSTRACT
Despite calls for examining how authoritarian regimes employ state structures to prolong their rule and evidence that they regulate religion to shape the behaviour of religious elites, there has been little attention devoted to religious affairs ministries, which are key sites of interaction between religious actors and the state, and are often the primary institution through which regimes manage religion. This study identifies and describes eight core areas these ministries regulate that can be used as instruments for repression and co-optation of regime opponents, and state legitimation: prayer, appointments, education, religious advice and decisions, religious endowments, media, registration, and charity. In this analysis, we seek to bridge the gap between the literatures on religion, the Middle East, and authoritarianism by synthesizing recent research and analysing religious affairs ministries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. We argue that by fulfilling these functions, religion ministries are not benign bureaucracies but impactful institutions of political control. In highlighting key questions that remain unanswered, we outline a research agenda for continued advances towards theorizing how authoritarian regimes might make use of state resources to protect their rule.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Wiktorowicz, “Civil Society”; Jamal, Barriers to Democracy; Levitsky and Way, “The Rise of Competitive”; Lust-Okar and Jamal, “Rulers”; Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship; Gandhi and Lust-Okar, “Elections under Authoritarianism”; and Ginsburg and Simpser, Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes.
2 Slater and Fenner, “State Power,” 17. See also Forrat, “Shock Resistant” for another work that considers state structures as a resource to authoritarian regimes.
3 Hassan, Mattingly, and Nugent, “Political Control.”
4 Chaves and Cann, “Regulation,”; Chaves, Schraeder, and Sprindys, “State Regulation,”; and Fox and Tabory, “Contemporary.”
5 Sarkissian, “Religious Regulation,” 502. Bureaucracy’s role in sustaining non-democracy or facilitating transition has long been recognized. See Baker, Transitions; Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy; and Linz and Stepan, Problems.
6 Stepan and Robertson, “An Arab.”
7 Fox, Thou Shalt, 119.
8 Wainscott, Bureaucratizing Islam; Hefner, Civil Islam.
9 Kuru, Islam.
10 Exceptions include Antoun, “Fundamentalism”; Elischer, “Autocratic”; and Sezgin and Künkler, “Regulation.”
11 Brown, “Official Islam”; Laurence, Coping.
12 Robbins and Rubin, “The Ascendence.”
13 Cesari, The Awakening; Laurence, Coping. Those studies that do examine these ministries cross-nationally acknowledge that the immense growth of these institutions facilitated the depoliticization of religion but do not connect that development to authoritarian retrenchment. See also Cesari, We God’s People.
14 Religious actors can include clergy, educators involved in training religious personnel or providing religious training to lay people, those involved in providing services from religious charities, leaders and members of religiously-based political parties and civil society organizations, and government employees tasked with providing religious services.
15 As Vickie Langohr writes, a “third possibility” exists where “members of Islamist movements in their capacity as well-educated members of their societies have become employees of state bureaucracies,” Langhor, “Of Islamists,” 606. Bureaucracies therefore share the unique dynamic of being a meeting place for state and society and a means by which the former regulate the latter.
16 Wintrobe. The Political.
17 Sarkissian, The Varieties.
18 Gandhi and Przeworski, “Authoritarian Institutions”; Magaloni, Voting; and Schedler, “The Menu.” Erica Frantz defines co-optation as, “the intentional extension of benefits to potential challengers in exchange for their loyalty … the purpose of co-optation is to persuade other key actors not to exercise their ‘power to obstruct,’” Frantz, Authoritarianism, 111.
19 Kailitz and Stockemer, “Regime.”
20 Gill, The Political; Koesel, Religion; Sarkissian, The Varieties.
21 Ibid.
22 Gerschewski, “The Three Pillars”; Gerschewski, “Legitimacy.”
23 Gill, Rendering, 52.
24 Koesel, Religion.
25 Ayubi, Over-Stating.
26 Van Bruinessen, “The Governance,” 2.
27 Wiktorowicz, “Civil Society,” 43.
28 Scott, Seeing.
29 Fabbe, Disciples.
30 Brown, “Official Islam.”
31 Antoun, “Fundamentalism,” 369.
32 Lacroix, Awakening.
33 Grzymala-Busse, Nations.
34 Fox, “The Religion and State Dataset.”
35 Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Dataset”; Pemstein et al., “The V-Dem Measurement Model.”
36 Maoz and Henderson, “The World Religion Dataset.”
37 The authors collected information on offices devoted to religion outside of a religion ministry from multiple years of the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Reports (https://www.state.gov/international-religious-freedom-reports/) and confirmed using government websites to identify the structure of state ministries in individual countries.
38 Stepan and Robertson, “An Arab.”
39 William Booth and Taylor Luck. “Jordan’s ‘Ground Forces against Extremists’: Imams,” Washington Post, November 9, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/to-counter-rise-of-the-islamic-state-jordan-imposes-rules-on-muslim-clerics/2014/11/09/4d5fce22-5937-11e4-bd61-346aee66ba29_story.html.
40 U.S. Department of State. “2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Tunisia.” Accessed May 29, 2023. https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/tunisia.
41 “Egypt: Al-Azhar Ignores Al-Qaradawi’s Death While Saudi and UAE Media Attack Him,” Middle East Monitor, September 28, 2022. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220928-egypt-al-azhar-ignores-al-qaradawis-death-while-saudi-and-uae-media-attack-him/; “Yusuf al-Qaradawi: His Death Provokes Official and Popular Arab and Islamic Reactions Online,” BBC Arabic, September 27, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/arabic/trending-63051428.
42 “Yusuf al-Qaradawi: Hamas and Qatar Officials Attend Funeral of Islamic Cleric in Doha,” Middle East Eye, September 27, 2022. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/qatar-qaradawi-hamas-attend-funeral-egypt-cleric-doha.
43 Sheline, “Constructing.”
44 U.S. Department of State, “2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Morocco.” June 2, 2022. https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religious-freedom/morocco/.
45 Baher al-Kady, “Egypt Removes All Mosque Restrictions Amid Brotherhood Criticism.” Al-Monitor, May 18, 2022. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/05/egypt-removes-all-mosque-restrictions-amid-brotherhood-criticism.
46 Henne, “Government Interference.”
47 Wehrey, “Libya’s Factional,” 83.
48 “Quran Reciter Denounces His Appointment as Advisor in Mercenary Government.” Yemen News Agency (SABA), February 5, 2023. https://www.saba.ye/en/news3222635.htm.
49 “Syrian Law – Recent Legislation,” Syrian Law Journal. Accessed May 29, 2023. https://www.syria.law/index.php/recent-legislation/. It should be noted that law 16 of the same year which had granted the Ministry of Awqaf further reaching powers than law 31 was rejected by Parliament.
50 Azzam al-Kassir, “Formalizing Regime Control Over Syrian Religious Affairs,” Sada Middle East Analysis, November 14, 2018. https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/77712.
51 Elischer, “Autocratic”; Laurence, Coping.
52 Wiktorowicz, The Management.
53 Madanat, Framing.
54 Van Bruinessen, “The Governance.”
55 Ibid.
56 Zeghal, “Public Institutions.” Starrett, Putting Islam.
57 Wainscott, Bureaucratizing Islam, Chapter 7.
58 Donker, Hidde, and Netterstrøm, “The Tunisian Revolution,” 141.
59 Pierret and Alrefaii, “Religious Governance,” 55.
60 Fabbe, Disciples; Charrad, States.
61 Hallaq, An Introduction.
62 Wainscott, Bureaucratizing.
63 Christopher Boucek, “Saudi Fatwa Restrictions and the State-Clerical Relationship,” Sada Middle East Analysis, October 27, 2010. https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/41824.
64 Wainscott, Bureaucratizing Islam.
65 Madanat, Framing, 61.
66 Makdisi, The Rise.
67 Moustafa, “Conflict.”
68 U.S. Department of State. “2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Morocco.” May 12, 2021. https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/morocco/.
69 Dalia Ghanem, “State-Owned Islam in Algeria Faces Stiff Competition,” Carnegie Middle East Center, March 13, 2018. https://carnegie-mec.org/2018/03/13/state-owned-islam-in-algeria-faces-stiff-competition-pub-75770.
70 Brown, “Post-Revolutionary,” 9.
71 Algeria, “Powers of the Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments,” Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments (in Arabic), accessed June 23, 2023, https://www.marw.dz/index.php/ والأوقاف-الدينية-الشؤون-وزير-صلاحيات .
72 Wainscott, “Hassan II.”
73 Scott, Seeing.
74 U.S. Department of State. “2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Morocco.” May 12, 2021. https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/morocco/.
75 U.S. Department of State. “2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Tunisia.” Accessed May 29, 2023. https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/tunisia.
76 Sarkissian, “Religious Reestablishment.”
77 Dressler, Writing Religion, 272–273.
78 U.S. Department of State. “2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Lebanon.” June 2, 2022. https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religious-freedom/lebanon/.
79 Mahmoud Hemadi, “Lebanon No Longer the Country of Religious Freedoms … The Reality of Unrecognized Sects,” Raseef, January 30, 2020. https://raseef22.net/english/article/1088592-lebanon-no-longer-the-country-of-religioous-freedoms-the-reality-of-unrecognized.
80 In 2014, the RAS dataset identified these countries as Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
81 Gallien et al., “Between God,” 10.
82 The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, “Maqasid Hospital,” Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs (in Arabic), accessed November 11, 2021, https://www.awqaf.gov.jo/AR/Pages/ مستشفى __ المقاصد .
83 May, “Political Piety,” 158.
84 “Egypt’s El-Sisi orders formation of ‘Zakat’ charity fund,” Ahram Online, September 10, 2014. https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/110430/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-ElSisi-orders-formation-of-Zakat-charity-fu.aspx.
85 Ibid.
86 Gallien et al., “Between God.”
87 Yusuf, “Forward,” x.
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Notes on contributors
Ani Sarkissian
Ani Sarkissian is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. Her research interests include democratization, authoritarianism, and religion and politics.
Ann Marie Wainscott
Ann Marie Wainscott is the Karen and Adeed Dawisha Associate Professor of Political Science at Miami University. Her research interests include authoritarianism, religious authority and social media in contemporary Shi’ism, and the politics of knowledge production.