Fundamentalism and Globalization
Fundamentalism and Globalization
- Gamze EvcimenGamze EvcimenAnthropology and Sociology, Kalamazoo College
- , and Robert A. DenemarkRobert A. DenemarkDepartment of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware
Summary
The relationship between fundamentalism and globalization and the agency of social groups in weaving this relationship has generated a significant body of work. This growing body of literature has addressed which political-economic and sociocultural processes are associated with these processes; the manner in which this connection relates to modernity and colonialism; how paradigmatic shifts such as postcolonialism and neoliberalism brought about ruptures and reinforced continuities; and what roles new social actors and political constellations play. Related literature focuses on a broad range of processes, from global socioeconomic changes and urbanization to political constellations, global geoeconomic competition, and international migration. It includes authors who approach such multifaceted processes of fundamentalism and globalization from various perspectives. Recent scholarship also considers connections between fundamentalism and globalization and the rise of authoritarian politics in early 21st century.
This dynamic relationship between fundamentalism and globalization presents a series of challenges for both social actors and scholars. How do postmodern deconstruction and reconstruction of modernity affect both ruptures and continuities in this relationship? In what ways does the rise of right-wing politics in early 21st century relate to phenomena such as Christian nationalism and Islamophobia as new forms of fundamentalism? How do the rise of the middle classes and new political-economic constellations relate to similar processes in the Global South? What kind of religious discourses and practices enable the sacralization of neoliberalism? Fundamentalism and globalization should be considered as inextricably embedded in social processes and practices that are both shaped by and actively shaping existing power relations.
Keywords
Subjects
- Development
- Identity
- Political Economy
- Political Sociology
Updated in this version
Updated references, enhanced discussions of neoliberalism and socioeconomic change
Introduction
The terms fundamentalism and globalization are difficult to define. Fundamentalism is a popular term that has come to represent a given set of religious beliefs and practices. The comingling of far-right and fundamentalist politics in various societies in early 21st century further reflects the rising significance of fundamentalism as a focus of analysis (Posner, 2020). Globalization offers a similar challenge; the term was popularized by business interests as embodying the free movement of goods, services, and people. Recent studies develop
critical perspectives by emphasizing how the neoliberal form of globalization in early 21st century exacerbates political-economic inequalities and sociocultural tensions between and within countries (Golash-Boza, 2015).
Since these terms reflect dynamic processes and practices, the relationship between them must also shape their definitions and analysis. Their relationship is byzantine, as fundamentalism and globalization can both defy or strengthen one another, sometimes simultaneously, as the case of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) illustrates. Paying attention to this complexity helps reveal not only the ruptures but also the continuities between modern and postmodern eras as fundamentalist movements relate to both the deconstruction and reconstruction of modernity. Religion, globalization, and their relationship are generated not only by macrostructural processes but also by the agency of social actors (Bornstein, 2003; Rudnyckyj, 2010). Fundamentalism and globalization are inextricably embedded in social processes and practices that are both shaped by and actively shaping existing power relations.
Focusing on the assemblages between fundamentalism and globalization and on the practices of related social forces is crucial to an understanding of the changing facets of both processes. The article first offers brief definitions of fundamentalism and globalization then turns to focus on the relationship between fundamentalism and globalization and on the agency of social groups in weaving this relationship.
Defining Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is a term derived from the title of a collection of more than 60 essays published between 1910 and 1915. The Fundamentals constituted an “orthodox manifesto” designed to circumscribe true Christian beliefs. Fundamentalism may predate the term, includes movements outside Christianity, and may be defined by four traits: (a) the search for an authentic past, derived from a golden age, but actually a fusion of past and present; (b) a scriptural orientation, with adherents seeking solace and guidance from sacred texts; (c) the development of a self-image that expresses anger toward nonbelievers and a sense of calm regarding one’s place in an imperfect world, and that establishes the boundaries of the relevant community; and (d) a reaction against the current state of affairs.
Re-creation of (the Relevant Elements of) an Authentic Past
Many treatments of fundamentalism accuse its proponents of seeking to return to an earlier period. Cole, one of the first historians of fundamentalism, speaks of a desire to resurrect “the regulations of a mediaeval Christianity in church and society” (1931, pp. 51–52). Fundamentalists seek an acceptable model of social interaction from their sense of the authentic past, which is conceived of as a golden age of belief, compliance, and community. Members of the community were unencumbered in their attempts to organize their lives around relevant practices and enjoyed freedom from the encroachments of a world of nonbelievers. They were free to reproduce their lifestyles in the treatment, education, and prospects of their children (Bruce, 2000, p. 65).
However, fundamentalists are not backward oriented. Their vision of the past is an idealized and not wholly authentic reproduction of history. Instead, fundamentalists want to selectively retrieve from the past that which allows them to recreate elements of the lifestyle they believe are important. Early fundamentalists bemoaned the loss of tightly knit communities but cheered the actions of groups such as the Flying Fundamentalists as they crisscrossed the United States to spread the good word (Furniss, 1954, p. 67). The golden age was golden because of the role that faith played, not because it lacked modern conveniences.
The role of science in raising questions about revelation is crucial in the history of Anglo-American fundamentalism, but it is evident in other contexts as well. Geography (and the debate over the age of the earth), astronomy (and the debate over the organization of the universe), and anthropology (and the debate over evolution) are all subject to criticism (Cole, 1931; Furniss, 1954; Marsden, 2006, pp. 57–62; Shipley, 1927). Each time debates arose they were dealt with, mostly by noting that science and religion asked different kinds of questions, and their conclusions were not as contradictory as they might initially appear. This is the message of both “Science and Christian Faith” by James D. Orr (n.d.), the penultimate chapter in Volume 4 of The Fundamentals, and “emotional and spiritual quotient” trainings that claim the Prophet Muhammad knew about the big bang (Rudnyckyj, 2010). But the debate always reemerges, and with increasing vitriol.
Other instances also illustrate the intricate relationship between fundamentalism and science. In what is perhaps the greatest contradiction of fundamentalist movements, the ontological and epistemological foundations of modern science are vilified while its military fruits are viewed as crucial to the defense of the faithful.
Efforts at delegitimation are also present. Christian nationalists, whose exclusionary understanding of faith is growing in the United States, express skepticism toward the moral authority of science, particularly opposing those aspects that they perceive as challenging their understanding of acceptable policy positions on issues such as vaccinations (Baker et al., 2020a).
Fundamentalists do not reject technological change but choose to be “selectively modern” and seek to “control acculturation” (Antoun, 2001, p. 118). Contemporary Christian fundamentalists have adopted slick television formats for their evangelizing and fundraising in the United States and Latin America (Randall, 1999, p. 54). Hindu nationalist leaders in India broadcast their messages and symbols to nationwide audiences via state-run television (Rajagopal, 2001). Muslims sidestepped repression by disseminating religious sermons on audio tape during the Iranian Revolution (Randall, 1999, p. 55), and in the Soviet Union they adopted organizational modes that they could argue promoted “a conception of a ‘purified’ Islam which was consonant with modern social and economic development” (Saroyan, 1994, p. 514). Al Qaeda uses the internet and social media websites to radicalize Muslims in Western diasporas (Rudner, 2017), as does ISIS’s online propaganda magazine Dabiq (Toguslu, 2019). In a controversial analysis, Thompson (2007a, 2007b) argues that militant fundamentalists use the internet so much that they have come to lead an essentially virtual existence and suggests that states may need to reterritorialize (deglobalize?) to contain the threat. Reitan (2006) questions such strategies.
In terms of contemporary organizational techniques, the popular “youth group” model was adopted when state authorities controlled all other means of socialization by Catholics in Communist Poland (Mucha & Zaba, 1992, pp. 57–65) and Pentecostals in Malawi (Van Dijk, 1999, pp. 180–181). It is worth noting as well the digitization of the 47,000 questions and answers about how one applies Jewish law in the diaspora (Antoun, 2001, p. 122). Orthodox Jews who hesitate to interact outside their community take advanced degrees in subjects useful to the community through special distance learning or video-based instructional systems (Antoun, 2001, p. 123). Elements of the present, whether scientific or technological, that can be of help to support the faith are often adopted (Piscatori, 1994, pp. 363–365).
Scripturalism
Most definitions of fundamentalism assume that adherents accept scripture as divinely ordained, inerrant, and literally true. The fundamentalist movement in the United States adopted “five points that were to become the sine qua non of fundamentalism,” the first of which was the infallibility of the Bible (Furniss, 1954, p. 13). For Sunni fundamentalists, “an exclusivist and literalist interpretation of the fundamentals of Islam” is lauded (Voll, 1991, p. 347). While such literalism often appears to rest at the heart of fundamentalisms, there exists more room for debate than is apparent.
The lead essay in Volume 3 of The Fundamentals by John Gray (n.d.) identifies the bible as having been inspired by a supreme being. Inspiration (when a deity speaks through humans) is not revelation (when a deity speaks directly into human consciousness), and so colloquialisms and contextually specific language, are expected along with errors and mistakes by translators, copyists, and printers. By 1923, fundamentalist preachers in the United States were themselves divided over the need for interpretation and metaphorical reasoning (Carpenter, 1988). Islamic intellectuals evidence the same early disagreements, as well as a broad range of interpretations about contemporary international relations and strategy (Esposito & Voll, 2000). Fundamentalisms are not tied to literality as much as they are to the ineffable inspiration of scripture.
Scripture is to play three crucial roles in everyday life. First, scripture exists to inspire, comfort, and transform its readers (Antoun, 2001, p. 39). Adherents come to realize that there are powerful forces in the universe that they may become a part of. Scripture explains life’s issues and provides solace to those facing adversity. Prayer is a calming and cleansing act. It is designed to put things in perspective, make one’s challenges part of a plan or cycle, and render them more manageable.
Scripture helps adherents deal with the disconcerting consequences of political-economic shifts, such as neoliberalism, on individuals and communities. Neo-Pentecostalism promotes community formation on the basis of faith against the deprivation created by neoliberalism (Adeboye, 2004, pp. 149–150; Barker, 2007, p. 427; Dilger, 2007, p. 72; Robbins, 2004, p. 131). Scripturalist views in Islam perform a similar role, as in the case of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which encourages the poor to rationalize their suffering by seeing “poverty as a blessing and a test” (Tuğal, 2009, pp. 218, 224) while preaching morality and supporting traditional family structures as responses to dispossession.
Scripture is also a guide to action. It explains how to introduce preferred behaviors into one’s daily routine. Drawing from Asad (1993) and Weber (1990), Rudnyckyj (2010) points to “the deployment of a set of ascetic practices designed to make humans into specific types of beings” (p. 134). Antoun (2001, p. 41) suggests this traditioning plays several roles. Believers are urged to follow scriptural guidelines and accept learned interpreters as their leaders. Just as scripture is relevant to daily life, daily life becomes relevant to scripture. Individual behavior matters. Faced with innumerable problems, one is not asked to do the impossible but only to translate scriptural injunctions, whatever they may be and however one can, into action.
Prosperity gospel and theology in Latin America and Africa serve as the new spirit of capitalism by providing a moral framework for neoliberalism and motivating new behaviors such as entrepreneurial ambition, hard work, desire for wealth, self-control, and time management while also legitimating these behaviors as sacred (Comaroff, 2012, p. 52; Freeman, 2012, p. 20; Van Dijk, 2012, p. 96). Neo-Pentecostalism also promotes survival entrepreneurship and penny capitalism or informal economic activities for the losers of global neoliberalism (B. Martin, 1995, p. 111; D. Martin, 1990, p. 206; Maxwell, 1998, p. 355).
Finally, scripture is a guide to the long-term future. Fundamentalisms may be characterized as social movements that envision an end state for individuals (as in Buddhism) or an end of days (as in messianic traditions). Scripture holds the key to understanding that future. Along the road to that end state are signs that are by necessity open to interpretation. Their interpretation, or proof-texting, is an important process. Hence, World War I was crucial for North American fundamentalists who saw the Germans as evil not because of any expansionist interests or bellicosity, but because German scholars were in the forefront of the higher criticism that challenged the Bible’s divine nature (Ammerman, 1991, p. 22). Afrikaners saw their Great Trek across South Africa reflected in the book of Exodus and defined themselves as a chosen people (Antoun, 2001, p. 64). Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War was claimed to be a divine message. The decline of communism was taken as an important sign for several faiths (Simpson, 1992, p. 22). Quranic references to the evils of political parties are used to explain the weakness of various West Asian states and extol the virtues of a different kind of political system (Antoun, 2001, p. 56). Fundamentalists conflate stories of their golden eras with existing conditions, providing proof of the relevance of their past and offering guidance for the challenges of their present and assurances regarding the future.
Fundamentalist Identity and Behavior Set
Scripturalism is an orientation to the world that provides specific insights and duties. The result is a fundamentalist identity that takes two parts. First, fundamentalisms are orientations to the world. Marty and Appleby (1993) suggest that fundamentalism “manifests itself as a strategy, or set of strategies, by which beleaguered believers attempt to preserve their distinctive identity as a people or group” (p. 3). Antoun (2001) adds a specific flavor to that strategy by defining fundamentalism as “a movement of protest and outrage …” (p. xii). Fundamentalists are angry, as were various prophets, sages, and saints.
Second, fundamentalists see themselves in the same light as the prophet: righteous, chosen, on the path, enlightened, saved, or born again. They bring unfortunate news to a corrupt world, they do not usually deliver their messages softly, and they are often unwelcome. This self-image, in contradistinction to simple protest and outrage, is particularly edifying. Fundamentalists “no longer perceive themselves as reeling under the corrosive effects of secular life. On the contrary, they perceive themselves as fighting back, and doing so rather successfully” (Marty & Appleby, 1991, p. ix, following Heilman & Friedman, 1991). This efficacy tempers their anger and yields a self-image characterized by a sense of purpose and ability, an excellent if volatile palliative to anomie.
Fundamentalists manifest behaviors that separate them from the majority of the population. For the fundamentalist, the world is a place of good and evil, not shades of gray. Their community constitutes the good. Boundaries must be constructed (Ammerman, 1991, p. 55). Behavioral differentiation may appear in four mutually exclusive contexts (Almond et al., 1995a, 1995b, pp. 425–429; Heilman, 1994, pp. 175, 192–193). These behaviors are often ordained by religious authority and include various levels of engagement between the community of the faithful and outsiders.
Fundamentalists may retreat, renouncing the world around them. Ultra-Orthodox Jews living in enclaves in the United States or Israel guard their communities proactively, taking direct action against those who ignore their rules when traversing their territory (Heilman & Friedman, 1991, pp. 234–242). Fundamentalists who more readily engage the world may create their own enclave, seeking to attract others by virtue of their example. Others may seek to transform existing society by altering its laws and orientations. Finally, there are those who would conquer their opponents, eliminating them by controlling society and defining nonbelievers out of the system.
Differentiation strategies may be subtle and include variations in the nature of dress or speech, free-time activities, or charitable practices. Fundamentalists may also choose to accentuate exactly those passages of scripture and behavioral traits that are most likely to “astonish, disturb, scandalize and often outrage …” (Antoun, 2001, p. 46). The destruction of offensive art, self-immolation, public proclamations regarding literal interpretations of biblical stories, or full-page ads celebrating the imminent coming of the messiah are used specifically to shock the secular population and draw a boundary around the faithful. Physical attacks against nonbelievers can be designed for similar effect (Juergensmeyer, 2000, p. 60).
Maintenance of the boundary that is created around the fundamentalist faithful may garner equally extreme positions. Under such circumstances, leadership becomes hierarchical. By the time the battle to define the community against outsiders (or worse yet, misguided insiders) ends, the result is usually an organization with a strict hierarchy.
Fundamentalist behavior opens a series of contradictions as well. As fundamentalists approach the world, they alter their strategies in order to advance. Williams (1994) suggests that “[f]undamentalism is formed by, even as it attempts to reform, the modern world” (p. 823). Marty and Appleby (1994, p. 5) propose that there is something ironic about the fluidity with which movements fight in the name of timeless truths.
Reaction Against the Existing State of Affairs
Fundamentalism is a reaction. It is not a set of pristine beliefs or behaviors, but an explicit response to change. The change in question is often defined as a move to a more modern social order, though the term modern may denote no more than patterns of social interaction that have been altered. These new patterns may include a turning away from old behavioral norms and beliefs, or an inability to sustain past practices given new circumstances. They often include the breakdown of traditional community and the inability to pass along beliefs or norms to the next generation. Hence, relations among family members (generational and gender divisions, reproductive issues, educational norms, or childrearing techniques) are particularly sensitive subjects. Economic changes may be relevant as well. Interactions that defy traditional forms or are concluded on the basis of a logic that defies ethical or communal relations may prove disaffecting. The inability to preserve one’s status in the face of socioeconomic change is one of the earliest arguments about why fundamentalism arises (Gustfield, 1963).
Destabilizing change elicits a desire for a return to a more just, righteous, or authentic community. This is in no way new. McNeill (1993) suggests that such explicitly reactive movements have been present “since the dawn of prophecy during the first millennium before the Christian era …” (p. 559). More specifically, “since about 7000 bce, in urban and civilized societies, where inequitable social relations were always present to offend tender consciences, energetic groups of reformers have persistently and perpetually sought to remake the world along juster, religiously sanctioned lines” (McNeill, 1993, p. 561). Eisenstadt (1995, pp. 260–263) draws parallels between pre-Axial Age and Axial Age (500 bce to 100 ce) fundamentalist movements in this regard.
In the modern period, fundamentalism has been framed as a reaction to modernity. Oberoi credits Hegel with a four-part characterization of what has come to be called as modernity: (a) individualism, (b) the right to subject everything to rational cross-examination, (c) autonomy of action, and (d) the right to know oneself without having to rely on explanations grounded in the supernatural realm (Oberoi, 1995, p. 102). Modernity gives birth to atomistic individuals who are not defined by their membership in a community and raises the right of everyone to question all aspects of their environment to the level of a responsibility. It also provides the framework for that interrogation. Rationality, not faith and obedience, must rest at the center of such review. Individuals are responsible for their own actions and ought not define themselves in light of, as a reflection of, or in the shadow of any religio-mythical framework.
Hegel’s final element of modernity is the withdrawal of humanity from the shadow of supernatural forces. This is a direct threat to the foundation of nearly every religious system. Cole (1931, p. 16) sees secularism as the challenge that generates fundamentalism. Religion’s public face is delegitimized (Bruce, 2000, p. 33). There is an attempt to push religion out of the public space and into private arenas. Religious leaders decry the removal of faith from the public sphere and blame the rise of social problems on that absence. Despite its promises, modernity also strips lives of meaning, creating anomie and normlessness. Religious authorities are uniquely positioned to offer a superior social model, legitimized by the past and sanctioned by deities, however defined.
Giddens considers modernity to be a Western project, and one that favored a social system that is distinctly antireligious (Oberoi, 1995, p. 113). Yet the relationship between modernity and fundamentalism can be inherently contradictory. Religion was a crucial part of modernity’s colonization processes. European countries used religion as a tool of dominance and control over their colonies. In a similar vein, the United States was established on the basis of religious freedom and yet prioritized processes such as converting Native Americans and enslaved Africans to Christianity. These instances illustrate how modernity simultaneously entailed religion and secularism, reflecting the entanglement of modernity and coloniality (Quijano, 2000).
Peripheral and semi-peripheral (hereafter “(semi-)peripheral”) countries underwent similar processes of modernization and secularism during the postcolonial era. Most of these countries adopted state-led modernization and secularism, and fundamentalisms later arose as a reaction to these policies and processes. In Turkey and Egypt, policies and processes of modernization and secularization reinforced one another as cultural change was viewed as indispensable for economic development. These instances demonstrate the contradictory relationship between modernity and fundamentalism since state-led modernization promoted nationalism as a modern ideology, while “modern” national identity often entailed religion. Modernization processes in the Global North and South emerged in an intricate relationship with fundamentalism, both hindering and facilitating fundamentalists’ responses to modernity-coloniality and secularism.
Some fundamentalist movements in the Global South also played a role in decolonization processes by resisting Western notions of modernity and secularism. The 1888 and 1926 revolts in Indonesia against colonial rule (Kartodirdjo, 1966; Williams, 1990) and the 1925 Sheikh Said Rebellion in Turkey against the nationalism and secularization of the modern Turkish Republic (Özsoy, 2013) exemplify such processes. Pasha and Samatar note that the politicization of Islam is based on a double alienation: “being subjected to the logic of the modern world system but not being of modernity …” and “being located in the domestic context where both civil associations and the state are in some form of decomposition” (1997, p. 188).
The rise of fundamentalist movements has also coincided with the collapse of Soviet Union and the emergence of identity politics. The postrevolutionary state in Iran forms policies against Western cultural invasion but is still affected by material and discursive global processes (Shahrokni, 2014). The rise of fundamentalism after the 1980s illustrates an intricate connection between globalized notions of modern society and fundamentalism, along with a tense and yet mutually constitutive relationship between local and national processes and global flows.
The postmodern opening of a space for beliefs that do not fit modernity’s rational mode also opens a political space for the most totalizing of all metanarratives and may justify the attempts of various groups to impose the dictates of what they see as a divine will upon everyone else (Juergensmeyer, 2000). In other words, “as post-modernists deconstruct modernism and leave nothing in its wake but anomie and nihilism, a space for fundamentalism is opened” (Eve & Harrold, 1992, p. 108).
These phenomena also illustrate the postmodern reconstruction of modernity as fundamentalist movements also thrive in the light of global processes such as the end of the Cold War, the cooptation of 1960s leftist movements, oppositional class politics in both Global North and South, and the neoliberal shift as a middle-class consensus that facilitated identity politics at the expense of socioeconomic inequalities. This is why the definition and processes of fundamentalism are deeply embedded in existing power relations and imbalances that are inextricably shaped by globalization.
Defining Globalization
Although globalization is a relatively recent term compared with fundamentalism, its generative processes emerge early in the history of western Asia and Europe (Chase-Dunn & Inoue, 2021; Wilkinson, 2006). The Columbian exchange, or the transfer of ideas, goods, plants, animals, and diseases between the Old and the New Worlds, marked an early phase of modernity-coloniality (Quijano, 2000; Quijano & Wallerstein, 1992). The Triangular Trade connecting Africa, the Americas, and Europe enabled the emergence of industrial capitalism and modernization (Williams, 1944) while also causing the underdevelopment of Africa and Latin America due to the theft of resources and peoples (Frank, 1966; Rodney, 1982). The colonizers imported cheap raw materials such as cotton and exported more expensive manufactured goods such as clothing. In this way, colonialism provided the material means for industrialization, the growth of capitalism, and the economic development and growth of colonizers at the expense of the colonized.
Aiming to create consent for their interests and practices, business elites denounced this difficult legacy and developed their own notion of globalization. Starting from the 1980s, the term globalization has been popularized as the free and universally beneficial movement of goods, services, and people. This definition created the illusion of a borderless world. Against this illusion, scholars developed critical perspectives by emphasizing how the capitalist globalization from the 1970s to the 21st century offers freedom for the powerful countries and privileged social sectors at the expense of marginalized societies and dispossessed peoples.
Emphasizing how economic globalization has enabled the emergence of global commodity chains, Gereffi et al. (1994) point to the production of a single commodity spanning many different countries. Even products such as mugs are designed in the Global North and produced in the Global South, reproducing global inequalities in line with former colonial relations. In this sense, globalization denotes not only the free movement of goods, services, and people but also the reproduction of political-economic inequalities between and within countries as well as the emergence of new sociocultural tensions between global flows and local practices.
Globalization’s political-economic processes generated structural and agential changes in the core countries through the shift from Keynesianism to economic neoliberalism. In the Global North, the shift of production overseas caused a decline in manufacturing jobs with decent pay, job security, and benefits along with an increase in precarious employment, particularly in the service sector. This process resulted in a two-tiered labor market, offering well-paying secure jobs for highly educated sectors and temporary part-time jobs that employ the rest of society in precarious conditions and hinder social mobility.
The Global South has also experienced a political-economic shift from state-led developmentalism to privatization and deregulation, with similar labor market outcomes. On the one hand, foreign investment and the opening of branches of multinational firms enabled the growth of the private-sector, professional middle class in (semi-)peripheral societies. On the other hand, the proliferation of manufacturing plants exacerbated detrimental conditions for workers. Globalization has brought about new processes of accumulation and dispossession along with the formation of new social forces in the Global North and South.
The concept of neoliberalism is a crucial element in critical perspectives on globalization. Harvey (2005) defines neoliberalism as “a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites” (p. 19). Starting with the 1973 coup in Chile, the premiership of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, and the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States, neoliberal ideas and policies have shaped global capitalism from the late 1970s onwards. Three main aspects of neoliberalism are the retrenchment of social welfare provisions; the restructuring of the state to promote the market economy; and the cultural prioritization of individual responsibility, competition, and entrepreneurialism (Golash-Boza, 2015, p. 11).
Wacquant (2010) includes the expansion of an intrusive and proactive penal apparatus as a fourth aspect, and Golash-Boza (2015) emphasizes the racialization of social control in both national and global spheres, particularly through mass incarceration and mass deportation. According to Golash-Boza (2015), the neoliberal form of global capitalism exacerbates existing hierarchies and sharpens inequalities as economic and political elites join forces to enable the movement of capital, goods, and services across national boundaries while controlling the movement of peoples and labor. These ideas and policies connect global capitalism of 21st century with the racial legacies of modernity-coloniality.
Globalization can also be defined as “a set of concrete practices” (Rudnyckyj, 2010, p. 5) that social actors engage in for balancing the tensions they encounter between local and national processes and global flows. Pointing to the disjunctures between commercial flows, movement of images, national politics, and consumer fantasies, Appadurai (2003) proposes that the globalization of culture can expand new imaginations for alternative ways of living and being. This perspective emphasizes the significance of the sociocultural and agential processes of globalization in addition to structural and political-economic factors.
Core and (semi-)peripheral societies also experience sociocultural shifts and tensions with globalization. Sociocultural patterns in the Global North reflect continuities with the Keynesian era in terms of consumerism along with changes in social conduct away from collectives such as unions, political parties, and social movements toward individualism, particularly through a focus on homo economicus in employment and social life. Critical views may regard these patterns as the cultural dominance of the core through concepts such as “cocacolonization” and “McDonaldization.” These sociocultural shifts have brought about alienation in both (semi)peripheral and core countries, as reflected in the emergence of various forms of resistance in the early 21st century.
The Relationship(s) Between Fundamentalism and Globalization
Fundamentalism cannot be defined in isolation from globalization and vice versa; indeed, these phenomena exist in a mutually constitutive relationship as both reinforce and challenge each other. Five aspects of this relationship will be considered. Each entails global processes as well as local and national practices that coalesce and affect the manifestations of both phenomena. Moreover, social actors play a crucial role in balancing tensions between the global and the local and in connecting fundamentalism and globalization.
Global Socioeconomic Changes and Fundamentalism
Regardless of direction, the advent of rapid socioeconomic change, often brought on by or related to globalization, is associated with countermobilization movements that offer unchanging traditional social foundations. Ammerman (1991) suggests that “[i]n chaotic times and places … the certainty and clarity of fundamentalism often seems appealing” (p. 55). She argues that fundamentalism rises when a rapid alteration in the nature of the social order creates moral ambiguities as society seeks to come to terms with new sets of pressures or organizational forms (Ammerman, 1994, p. 155).
This claim is bolstered by Eisenstadt (1995), who speaks to the consistency with which “fundamentalist movements arise in periods of rapid social and cultural change” (p. 272) in his comparison of Axial Age and contemporary movements. Such changes push fundamentalists (as well as other groups) to make policy demands in response. Roberts (1994, p. 434) adds that rapid change breaks down social structures more quickly than it allows for new ones to be created. The resulting gap is disorienting.
Although secularism was expected to accompany modernity and modernization processes, both core and (semi-)peripheral countries have indeed been experiencing continuities in the permeation of religion into social life. Other works also illustrate the ways in which secularization has been implemented by the state and emerged in the form of state control over religion (Turner & Zengin Arslan, 2013).
Science has also played a crucial role in these socioeconomic shifts, bringing with it a very different orientation to knowledge, one that made it possible expand technology, explore new regions, and conquer foreign lands. In the West, science would encounter serious resistance from religious authority and create famous debates across a range of issues, from the position of the earth in the heavens, to its age, to evolution (Armstrong, 2000, pp. 176–177).
Industrialization, science, and the accompanying processes of rationalization brought about alienation. As Durkheim (1995[1915]) argues, such rapid changes result in anomie or lack of norms, which open room for the rise of fundamentalist movements. Religious leaders would find a ready-made audience for the great revivals in the urban areas that emerged, for example, in the early industrial United States (Ammerman, 1991, p. 18), and this no doubt contributed to Marx’s dictum regarding religion’s role as an addictive social sedative. Marx (Tucker, 1978, p. 54) regarded religion as “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions,” illustrating that religious fundamentalism operates not only through top-down processes but also through grassroots mobilization.
Paralleling the concept of the “white man’s burden,” the modernization paradigm directed the Global South to follow the socioeconomic and political policies of the colonial countries. Religion was suggested to be a myth that would disappear as countries “modernized” or “developed” (Misztal & Shupe, 1992, p. 5), all the while ignoring that advanced industrial powers had never really adopted the liberal policies they offered, nor had their populations lost their religious proclivities. Berger (1997) states plainly that the secularization hypotheses were “basically wrong” (p. 974). The history of strife born of imperialism, skewed internal production structures, oligopolistic international markets, and Cold War intervention ensured that the promises of modernization would not emerge in any event (Tibi, 1998, pp. 89–93).
As political and economic elites adopted postindustrial modes of production and neoliberal policies, the global system gave rise to a new set of disconcerting alterations. The flexibilization of production increased the speed of the dislocations that the global order was capable of. Flexibilization brought about the network society that transcended traditional boundaries, increasing the speed of change in labor networks, production networks, and personal networks. Religious networks strengthened as well (Vasquez & Marquardt, 2003, pp. 37–45.)
Religion has been resurgent across the world in the era of global neoliberalism. Haynes (1999), citing a variety of authors, argues that in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, the return to religion is a consequence of “inconclusive or unsatisfactory modernization, disillusionment with secular nationalism, problems of state legitimacy, political oppression, incomplete national identity, widespread socio-economic grievances and perceived – and unwelcome – erosion of traditional morality and values” (p. 242). In Latin America, Dodson (1992, p. 112) suggests that “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, and just under half lived in absolute poverty. As the traditional church did nothing, a space was opened for new movements to emerge. Fundamentalist adherents increased dramatically, rising from about 2% of the population in Guatemala to about 33% in just over 30 years, an increase mirrored throughout the region (Dodson, 1992).
The neocharismatic movement in Africa also rose as a product of the neoliberal turn and relates to structural adjustment and worsening economic conditions (Adeboye, 2004, pp. 141, 143; Bornstein, 2003, pp. 16–17; Freeman, 2012, pp. 4, 10, 24; Hackett, 2003, p. 205; Hasu, 2012, p. 69). The rise of the “prosperity gospel” in Africa corresponds to both the Durkheimian notion of anomie as well as to Marx’s emphasis on religion as the heart of a heartless world. Religion also facilitates the creation of an informal community to protect against neoliberal catastrophes.
Similarly, neoliberalism and Hindu nationalism rose in India as cultural projects that are indispensably linked to neoliberal globalization (Chatterjee, 2010, p. 628; Gopalakrishnan, 2006; Rajagopal, 2001, p. 42; Teltumbde, 2006). The rise of political Islam in Turkey also occurred as the AKP utilized religion as a politico-ideological instrument to legitimize its neoliberal economic policies while undermining or coopting the opposition (Bozkurt, 2013; Yalman, 2012). McNeill (1993) concludes:
Formulas for economic development, which constitute the U.S. government’s official answer to Third World problems, simply do not address the felt needs of Third World peoples. Arguments about the advantages of free markets and exhortations to enrich oneself by shrewd exploitation of market opportunities ring hollow for nearly all who are caught in the toils of Third World urbanization. They need stronger medicine for body and soul. (pp. 565–566)
Thomas adds that resurgent religious movements “may represent many different ‘mansions’ … but they are being built on the ruins of secular nationalism in the third world, materialistic capitalism in the developed world, and of communism in Europe” (1999, p. 28). These processes reflect not only ruptures and postmodern deconstruction of modernity but also continuities and postmodern reconstruction of modernity-coloniality. For instance, the rise of religion and political Islam coalesced in Turkey through the policies of a state that was claimed to be the bastion of secular nationalism (Turner & Zengin Arslan, 2013). Materialistic capitalism in the United States transformed into televangelism with the coalescence of materialistic capitalism and religion (Schultze, 1991), and in early 21st century into Christian nationalism with the rise of far-right politics (Baker et al., 2020b). Religious movements not only rose at the ruins of communism in Europe but in some cases also created these very ruins, as in the case of Poland’s Solidarity movement, which employed Catholic culture and symbolism to oppose communism (Kubik, 2010). These instances illustrate that new fundamentalist movements rise not only from the ruins of previous orders but also, and at times even more so, in continuity with previous regimes and in a mutually constitutive relationship with socioeconomic changes.
Urbanization and Fundamentalism
Industrialization and modernization brought widespread urbanization in both core and (semi)peripheral societies. As industrial jobs in the cities proliferated, and enclosures of various sorts deprived rural inhabitants of their livelihoods, individuals migrated to escape hard times or seek new opportunities. While fundamentalism has long been considered a backward, rural phenomenon (e.g., Toynbee, 1934–1961, Vol. 3, p. 137), fundamentalist movements are more often creations of an urban, or more accurately an urbanized lower class. They are inextricably linked with modernity and urbanization processes.
Migration to urban areas strips people of their traditional social environment. Though often stultifying, Ruritania offers a range of communal support mechanisms. In the city, modes of living and types of employment are found that can prove disturbing (Ammerman, 1991, p. 18).
In the Global South, the effects of the shift in orientation between the rural and the urban world may be magnified. As McNeill 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 old-fashioned 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. (1993, p. 562)
Roberts (1994, p. 434) notes the critical role that rural-to-urban migration played in the fundamentalist upheavals of Algeria, while Kane (1994, p. 494) suggests much the same about northern Nigeria.
In a similar vein, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hassan al-Banna to fight British colonialism; al-Banna was born in a rural town northwest of Cairo and went on to work as a primary school teacher and an imam in the city of Ismailia. This Islamic organization continued to attract support from the urban, educated, and underemployed youth (Wickham, 2002). Islamists in Turkey also mobilized the urban poor, particularly rural-to-urban migrants, to gain their support for the AKP’s neoliberal agenda (Tuğal, 2009). Likewise, the postrevolutionary state in Iran coopts global urban discourses such as “right to the city” to frame and justify gender segregation policies in women-only parks for physical exercise as a citizenship right (Shahrokni, 2014). To McNeill this is no surprise. He views Islam as an urban religious system. “Meticulous obedience to the precepts of Islam is difficult to reconcile with rural routines but fits smoothly into an urban existence … conscientious conformity to traditional religious rules can indeed provide newcomers to city life with a workable guide to personal and public behavior” (1993, p. 571). Perhaps this helps to explain Antoun’s observation that the urban activists he interviewed complained about the lack of Islamic fervor among the rural population (2001, chap. 7). And Riesebrodt, in his insightful comparison of fundamentalisms in the United States and Iran, finds newly urbanized individuals to be particularly well represented among both the leadership cadres and the general adherents to fundamentalist doctrines (1993, pp. 186–188).
These instances also illustrate that the assemblages between urbanization and fundamentalism take shape in relation to both domestic political alliances and global discourses.
Social Mobility, Political-Economic Constellations, and Fundamentalism
Early analyses identified fundamentalism as a social movement particularly advantageous to the wealthy. Siegfried (1927) suggests that fundamentalists count among their supporters “two hundred of the most bigoted millionaires in New England” who would like to keep religious concerns focused on spiritual issues, and away from the problems of society. Furniss (1954) cites a variety of authors who see fundamentalists as guarding against criticism of society at home, or toleration of radical movements from abroad. He concludes, “[t]he Fundamentalists’ opposition to the Social Gospel would have satisfied any captain of industry desiring to avoid an investigation of his method” (1954, p. 27). E. P. Thompson traces the rise of more strident religious messages in The Making of the English Working Class. As Anglicanism’s message became overexposed, Methodism and other offshoots took on the role of social pacification (Thompson, 1963, p. 362).
Other analyses offer greater specificity. Changing fortunes, such as the economic decline or rise of social actors, may facilitate the emergence of new social forces in support of fundamentalism. Such forces can form or support new political-economic constellations that reinforce fundamentalist movements.
Almond et al. (1995b) warn that “[s]hort-run social structural shocks resulting from recession and unemployment, labor conflicts or strikes, the introduction of foreign workers, or ethnic clashes may produce or sharpen grievances in particular sectors of society, rendering them susceptible to protest movements including fundamentalism” (p. 434). Reuveny (2004) notes the process by which fundamentalist movements are strengthened by economic downturns in Israel. Decline may be blamed on any other, strengthening resolve to fight on the part of both parties and leading to further upheaval.
Another group of scholars suggest that rising economic fortunes may also foster fundamentalism. Bruce (2000, pp. 20–21) argues that the shift to industrialization and economic differentiation increases income for some but still takes much of the meaning out of life. While anger is a useful building block, real financial resources are also necessary to mount a social movement (Bruce, 2000, p. 70). Kane (1994, p. 493) traces the rise of fundamentalist Islam in northern Nigeria and gives pride of place to funding from Saudi Arabia for things such as books, schools, and teachers. In Sri Lanka, Hindu groups receive funds from the overseas community to support separatist violence. Sri Lankan Buddhists have proved violent as well, especially while being supported by government largesse (Denemark, 1996). In the United States, Wuthnow and Lawson (1994, p. 28) argue that fundamentalism emerges with increasing heterogeneity, unstable conditions, and enhanced resources, as one might imagine would be available during periods of growth.
While these works indicate that both socioeconomically privileged and oppressed social actors can develop fundamentalist responses, the rising middle classes in (semi-)peripheral societies may also play a crucial role in such religious movements, particularly in instances that marry religion and neoliberalism in early 2st century. For instance, a combination of religious actors, faith-based organizations, and nongovernmental groups in Egypt bring together Islamic piety and charity with neoliberal values and promote activities such as financial investment, entrepreneurship, self-improvement, and productivity as constituents of a pious identity and as crucial elements of both material and spiritual success (Atia, 2012). Similarly, Indonesia’s corporate, state, and religious actors “sought to enact a set of neoliberal practices by creating a new type of subject, a worshipping worker for whom labor was a matter of religious duty” (Rudnyckyj, 2010, p. 107). In their discourses, norms such as efficiency, productivity, accountability, and transparency coalesce with Islam for redefining work and labor as practices of religious worship (Rudnyckyj, 2010).
Other (semi-)peripheral societies also experience new political-economic constellations and alliances that merge the discourses and practices of religion and neoliberalism. In Turkey, the rise of an Islamic bourgeoisie went hand in hand with support for political Islam, culminating in the rise of the JDP, which marries Islam and neoliberalism (Atasoy, 2009). At the same time, Homo Islamicus arises as a new economic actor who blends entrepreneurialism and economic activities with religion and morality by embodying Islamic ethical values and norms (Adaş, 2006). India’s Hinducentric Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) speaks of a reduction in government control and oversight, and an opening up of the economy to facilitate competition both domestically and globally (Biswas, 2004; Lal, 1993). India’s upper caste middle classes, the main beneficiaries of neoliberal reforms, constitute the backbone of rising Hindutva and support for the BJP, both of which articulate a discourse that promotes their class interests (Nanda, 2012, p. 65).
Fiscal conservatives who want to reduce the range of state activity have always been of particular interest to fundamentalists who find state programs in health, education, or welfare to be intrusive. Support generally comes from middle-class elements concerned with taxes. In the United States, following the failure of Democratic and “born again” U.S. President Jimmy Carter to generate Christian and capital-friendly policies, the movement turned to Republican candidates. Wuthnow and Lawson suggest that “[f]undamentalist 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” (1994, p. 32). They suggest the same process has been at work in the United Kingdom and Canada. Israel, among others, may be added to that list.
These processes also require the formation of hegemonic blocs that bring together different social forces in terms of both cross-class coalitions and cross-sector alliances. They illustrate customized messages for winners and losers. Discourses of entrepreneurialism that promote religion for both material success (Adaş, 2006; Comaroff, 2012; Nanda, 2012) and legitimizing wealth (Atia, 2012; Gopalakrishnan, 2006; Kaya, 2015; Maxwell, 1998) appeal to socioeconomically privileged sectors. For the losers, discourses of morality counter feelings of breakdown (Freeman, 2012; Tuğal, 2009; Van Dijk, 2012) and community formation acts as an informal response to deprivation (Adeboye, 2004; Barker, 2007; Dilger, 2007; Robbins, 2004).
Such messages persuade people to believe they are individually responsible for their wealth and well-being. At the same time, they promote a sense of community with practices such as charity for the privileged and care and support networks for the dispossessed. Such discourses both sacralize neoliberal policies and neoliberalize religious practices.
Indeed, the formation of the fiscally hyperconservative U.S. Tea Party movement (Crehan, 2016, chap. 6) illustrates an instance of such an alliance and relates also to the contemporary rise of right-wing politics. This rise illustrates not only a top-down process designed by political and economic elites but also bottom-up mobilizations, particularly by white middle and working classes that experience the reality or threat of downward social mobility due to global neoliberalism (Brown, 2017; Pied, 2019). Christian nationalism (Baker et al., 2020b) and the religious right’s indispensable support for the Trump presidency (Harris et al., 2017) indicate the increasing sociopolitical significance of religion for the reorganization of neoliberalism after the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Fundamentalist actors ally with right-wing nationalist and racist politics to form countermovements against the rise of progressive politics such as the Black Lives Matter, Anti-fascist, and Occupy movements.
Various countries have been experiencing a similar process with increasing support for far-right politics. Evangelicalism has been on the rise against liberation theology in Brazil and played an essential role in the election of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro (Antonopoulos et al., 2021). In Poland, conservative agendas against the LGBT community and the right to abortion reflect the rise of right-wing populism in complicity with the Catholic Church (Żuk & Żuk, 2020). These instances accompany the strengthening of existing religious hegemonies such as Turkey’s AKP regime (Mutluer, 2019) and India’s BJP rule (Bhatty & Sundar, 2020).
There are divergences as well as parallels in the far right’s religious discourses and practices in the United States and Europe. The religious right and their social-conservative discourses seem more visible in the former than the latter, especially since right-wing parties in most European countries use the language of secularism to situate themselves against the religious freedoms of Muslim citizens and immigrants, contributing to the rise of Islamophobia. Rogers Brubaker (2017) elaborates on how contemporary European far-right politics deploys Christianity as a civilizational identity:
Christianity is embraced not as a religion but as a civilizational identity understood in antithetical opposition to Islam. Secularism is embraced as a way of minimizing the visibility of Islam in the public sphere. Liberalism – specifically, philosetimism [sic], gender equality, gay rights, and freedom of speech – is selectively embraced as a characterization of “our” way of life in constitutive opposition to the illiberalism that is represented as inherent in Islam. (p. 1194)
The rise of right-wing politics in various societies reflects an indispensably global phenomenon as social mobility and domestic-national political-economic alliances constitute and are constituted by global discourses and politics. This rise of right-wing and far-right politics is inextricably linked to religion as well as to other aspects of the relationship between fundamentalism and globalization such as global geoeconomic competition and international migration.
Global Geoeconomic Competition and Fundamentalism
The global economic struggles of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries come in four basic forms, all of which remain relevant. Imperialism emerged far earlier but flourished during the 19th century. Its alter ego, anticolonialism, is one of fundamentalism’s richest recruiting grounds. Second, the main protagonists in the Cold War elicited some fundamentalist responses in their own societies. Third, the fighting of the Cold War led to the sponsorship of some fundamentalist movements. Finally, while the contemporary emergence of a multipolar world order, particularly with the rise of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), points to departures from the bipolar system of Cold War, the so-called War on Terror and U.S. interventions in the Middle East also reflect continuities in terms of modernity-coloniality and imperialism.
The fights against Western imperialism illustrated the intricate relationship between the global dominance of modernity and religious fundamentalism. The (Western-named) Boxer Rebellion of 1900 in China featured a fanatical blend of religious fervor, nationalism, and xenophobia that included the belief that adherents would be immune to Western weapons (Schwartz, 1973, p. 71). As science and rationality were the tools of the oppressor, there was an attempt to delegitimize them in the anticolonial struggle, often through the resurrection of an indigenous religion promising a return to a precolonial golden age. Not surprisingly, religion emerged right after World War I as a potent anticolonial tool (Haynes, 1999, p. 243).
As imperialism changed shape, religious legitimacy remained a latent force in the deconstruction and reconstruction of modernity-coloniality. Economic failure and regime changes in places such as Algeria created ample room for the revival of fundamentalism, albeit long after independence (Dillman, 2004). Electoral platforms of Islamic political parties in many Muslim majority societies supported jihad between 1970 and 1975; however, their use of jihad referred to historical anticolonial movements rather than violence against their own state (Kurzman & Türkoğlu, 2015, pp. 104–105). In societies such as Iran that did not suffer direct colonial domination, regime change still brought charges of “Westoxification” (Antoun, 2001, p. 16) and proved problematic enough to resurrect the very controversial question of whether Shi’ites have a responsibility to take up arms against tyranny (Sachedina, 1991, pp. 420–421). Such debates permeate fundamentalist movements (Armstrong, 2000). Geopolitical strategies adopted during the Cold War featured attempts to foster discord between Sunnis and Shi’ites so as to turn their anger inward. Almond et al. (1995b) conclude that to this day “[w]e cannot overestimate the importance of Western imperialism in the explanation of fundamentalism in the Third World” (p. 437),
During the Cold War, the United States itself suffered a serious fundamentalist backlash. This is especially ironic given the traditional hatred of communism that most Protestant fundamentalists were happy to vocalize. In 1925, fundamentalists lost a great legal battle against the teaching of evolution in the schools in the Scopes Trial. Public opinion turned against them, as journalists helped characterize fundamentalists as backward hicks. Though the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Scopes’s local conviction (on a technicality), and Southern fundamentalism proved unpopular in the court of public opinion, these victories did not signal the adoption of modern science teaching. Local school boards were vulnerable to electoral retribution, and funds for science education were not plentiful.
It was not until 1957, in response to the launching of a Soviet space satellite, that the National Science Foundation focused efforts on science teaching and curricular reforms in the United States. This included biology, which helps explain why those opposed to the teaching of evolution on religious grounds (usually called “creationists” though also found hiding behind the term “intelligent design”) remobilized in the 1960s (Eve & Harrold, 1992, p. 103). A series of legal and legislative battles followed, along with the targeting of local school boards throughout the country. The battle over teaching evolution is one of the signature issues of U.S. fundamentalist movements, while educational issues tend to animate fundamentalist movements everywhere.
The final battleground in the debate over who should own the means of production was played out in the third world. Competition led to the support, covert or otherwise, of a variety of movements. Perhaps most interesting is the case of Pentecostalism in Central America. It is not surprising that the established Catholic Church, long a foundation for the landed elite, offered little help to the people. Only slowly did liberation theology emerge (Jules-Rosette, 1985; Robertson, 1985), and while it was suppressed by the Church both locally and centrally (Antonopoulos et al., 2021), its popularity increased. As a result, U.S. support for Pentecostalism grew (Almond et al., 1995c, p. 464; Deiros, 1991, pp. 175–179; Dodson, 1992, p. 124). Its popularity is based partly on local conditions, but also on the benefits that it offered women as it delegitimized the culture of “machismo” with its drinking and promiscuity (Brink & Mencher, 1997; Maldonado, 1993). As the impoverishment of Central America destroyed communities and undermined traditional relationships, fundamentalists entered with their traditional offers of restoring lost community and bolstering the faithful. Pentecostals preached the rejection of materialism and the acceptance of personal responsibility, hence delegitimizing protests against poverty or inequality (Wuthnow & Lawson, 1994, p. 32).
The demobilization of potential uprisings in Central America was an important goal, as was the delegitimization of leftist challenges to the U.S.-backed regimes (Vasquez & Marquardt, 2003, pp. 204–210). Deiros reports that some Pentecostal organizations were called “Reagan Cults” because of their well-known pro-U.S. positions. The founding of the United States was suggested to be the “single most important event” since the birth of Jesus, much of the missionary work was aimed at members of the military, and its liturgical messages were designed to “undermine any challenge to North American hegemony as the work of the devil” (Deiros, 1991, pp. 175, 178).
These instances illustrate the significance of transnational support for local and national fundamentalisms. For instance, Kane (1994) discusses Saudi support for Nigerian Muslims. Additions to this list include the support of the Chinese diaspora for movements such as Falun Gong (Frank, 2004), along with relevant expatriate community support for Sikhs and Tamils (Haynes, 1999, p. 4).
The post-Cold War era reflects both changes and continuities in relation to earlier global economic struggles. The end of the Cold War’s bipolar order enabled the emergence of multipolarity, with the rise of new regional and global powers such as the East Asian tigers and BRICS (Öniş & Kutlay, 2013). Some of these new powers, as in the case of India, are directly implicated in the rise of fundamentalism (Leidig, 2020).
The so-called War on Terror and associated U.S. interventions in the Middle East (Rockmore, 2004) illustrate continuities in terms of modernity-coloniality and imperialism. While the U.S. occupation of Iraq brought about the expansion of neoliberal policies and financialization (Zabci, 2009), the power vacuum left by Saddam Hussein’s fall also opened room for the rise of ISIS. As during the Cold War, geopolitical strategies featured attempts to foster discord between Sunnis and Shi’ites. The short-term gains to such strategies are usually outweighed by the costs of longer-term hatreds and violence, as in Afghanistan. They also fuel further reactions, such as Iran’s policies against Western cultural invasion (Shahrokni, 2014).
Moreover, the War on Terror and the ensuing stereotyping of Muslims in Western societies brought about the rise of Islamophobia as a crucial aspect of rising Christian fundamentalism and nationalist politics. Immigration issues constitute a crucial part of Islamophobia in Europe, which operates as cultural racism through securitizing and stigmatizing immigrants (Kaya, 2014). U.S. support for Israel is linked to the racialization of Muslims and to the rise of Islamophobia in the United States after 9/11 (Cainkar, 2006). Religious fundamentalism in Israel also intersects with exclusionism and xenophobia (Bermanis et al., 2004).
International Migration and Fundamentalism
International migration creates tensions that lead to fundamentalist upheavals. Fundamentalism may be the response of both the new and the old populations. Such instances illustrate the political-economic and sociocultural inequalities associated with capitalism and class conflict and also racism, illustrating the continuities of racial capitalism born from modernity-coloniality.
An underclass of migrants may lead to the drawing of deeper distinctions between workers and owners, not to mention enhanced physical segregation. The greater the degree to which socioeconomic status and religion covary, the greater the degree of solidarity expressed in religious terms (Bruce, 2000, p. 28). The religious response of the underclass, historically or in the contemporary world, is not difficult to understand.
The same conditions may lead to a fundamentalist response by the dominant classes as well. Antoun (2001, p. 17) notes the tendency of majorities to panic in the face of large-scale inward migration by those of different religions, and Armstrong traces the rise of a variety of hardline Protestant resurgences in the United States to a fear of new migrants:
By 1890, four out of every five New Yorkers were either new immigrants or children of new immigrants. At the time of the Revolution, the United States had been an overwhelmingly Protestant nation. Now the WASP identity seemed about to be obliterated by the “Papist” flood. Unfortunately, the quest for a distinct identity often goes hand-in-hand with the development of a terror of the stereotyped “other” against whom people measure themselves.
(Armstrong, 2000, pp. 145–146)
By the end of the decade, Protestant resurgent movements and anti-Catholic leagues in the United States numbered members in the millions. The Fundamentals was published 15 years later. In Europe, only 30 more years passed before fascists began making similar claims against different others, with devastating consequences.
Fundamentalism rises as an (identitarian) response to international immigration, particularly in the Global North. The racist identitarian movement in Europe exemplifies such an instance in which anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant discourses rose as a reaction to refugee flows after the Syrian war. The identitarians regard globalization, migration, and Islam as attacks against Europe’s identity, integrity, and distinctiveness (Zúquete, 2018). Similar beliefs were strong predictors of support for Trump (Baker et al., 2020a).
Fundamentalisms developed by the new and the old populations operate in mutually constitutive and reinforcing ways. Analyzing internet search data, Bail et al. (2018) illustrate that “anti-Muslim searches are strongly associated with pro-ISIS searches—particularly in communities with high levels of poverty and ethnic homogeneity” (p. 1). Their study suggests that “minority groups may be more susceptible to radicalization if they experience discrimination in settings where they are isolated and therefore highly visible—or in communities where they compete with majority groups for limited financial resources” (Bail et al., 2018, p. 1).
Kaya (2022) underlines how the sociopolitical environment of early 21st century pushes the socially, economically, and politically deprived sectors of European societies to the extremes of either becoming more nativist and Islamophobist or more Muslimized and Islamicized, illustrating that the growth of right-wing populism in Europe and the AKP’s Islamization of diaspora politics have simultaneously contributed to the Muslimization of Euro-Turks. These intersections of international migration and fundamentalism exacerbate right-wing extremism, affecting both host societies and migrants themselves.
Future Considerations
Most of the forces that the literature identifies as having helped give rise to fundamentalism are implicated in various notions of globalization. Four areas of possible further study are discussed here. Some of these areas are already developed, though they have not fully considered the relationship between globalization and fundamentalism. Others are relatively unknown.
The role of fundamentalism in the contemporary rise of right-wing politics requires critical attention. Religious nationalism in the Global North escalated in the wake of the 2007–2008 financial crisis as an alliance of conservative political-economic elites and nativist middle and lower classes intensified mobilization against globalization, migrants, and Islam, particularly with the influx of Syrian refugees. Future studies can investigate Islamophobia as a form of fundamentalism and a crucial aspect of Christian nationalism, paying particular attention to the relationships between Christian nationalism and right-wing extremism. This focus would go beyond the dominant dichotomist view that regards far-right politics as based on either material/class or cultural/racial factors. It would also facilitate the study of the rise of right-wing politics as a global phenomenon.
In a similar vein, the rise of authoritarian, nationalist, and majoritarian politics in the Global South reflects an alliance between newly rising conservative elites and the middle and lower classes. Political rule in countries such as Turkey, India, Brazil, and the Philippines illustrate such alliances and constitute a significant part of the global rise of right-wing politics. These regimes build their legitimacy on simultaneously creating the illusion of standing against the dominance of core countries while at the same time forming alliances with, and accepting financial support from, the European Union to constrain the mobility of Syrian refugees (Babül, 2017). Such cases illustrate how the tensions between local and global dynamics influence the mutually constitutive relationship between fundamentalism and globalization.
The agency of social forces arises as another crucial topic at the intersection of fundamentalism and globalization. The rise of the middle classes and the exacerbation of socioeconomic inequalities in the Global South enabled the emergence of a prosperity gospel and pious neoliberalism. Paying attention to such processes helps explore the simultaneous sacralization of neoliberalism and the neoliberalization of religion while also opening room for studying the different implementations of neoliberalism and its internalization by different social groups. The relationship between fundamentalism and globalization reflects not only political-economic but also sociocultural processes and practices. Future studies can particularly focus on how global neoliberalism is reproduced in the Global South through the role of religious discourses and practices in different spheres of life, such as consumption (Gopalakrishnan, 2006, p. 2807; Maxwell, 1998, p. 363; Nanda, 2012, pp. 104–105), work (Rudnyckyj, 2010), and family (Kaya, 2015).
Last but not least, the ways in which religion might play a role in the formation of opposition and resistance to both fundamentalism and global capitalism requires critical attention. For instance, Latin American liberation theology offers an alternative interpretation of religion and morality that resists social and global inequalities (Jules-Rosette, 1985; Robertson, 1985). Political Islam also plays a role in antisystemic religious movements by posing “a challenge to the central values that describe the dominant neo-liberal world order, particularly those values that legitimate the global political economy” (Evans, 2011, p. 1751). Such movements employ “Islam as a ‘revolutionary’ ideology to attack, criticize, and de-legitimize the ruling elites and the power structure on which their authority and legitimacy is based” (Butko, 2004, p. 41). An example is Turkey’s anticapitalist Muslims, who offer an alternative, leftist reading of Islamic texts and rituals against the government’s discourses that legitimize neoliberal capitalism through religious interpretations and practices (Evcimen, 2017; Uestebay, 2019). Such a focus would allow a study of the way religious discourses and practices can facilitate active agency in progressive movements in the Global South and North alike.
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