Skip to main content

Religion and the Politics of Development

  • Chapter
Religion and the Politics of Development

Part of the book series: International Political Economy Series ((IPES))

Abstract

We live in a world where extreme disparities challenge notions of basic morality and human rights — in Singapore today, the ultra rich can sip on $26,000 cocktails, while globally 18,000 people die every year of hunger and poverty-related causes; 1,020 million people are chronically undernourished; 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water; and 2,500 million lack access to basic sanitation. In his impassioned moral critique, Politics as Usual, Thomas Pogge (2010) cites these and other statistics to show that the toll of global poverty today far exceeds the total devastation of the Second World War. Indeed, 360 million people have died from hunger and remediable diseases since the end of the Cold War, amounting to a third of all deaths on the planet during that period (p. 11).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. London: Profile.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben, Giorgio (2005). The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben, Giorgio (2011). The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government. Translated by Lorenzo Chiesa and Matteo Mandarini. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ager, Alastair and Joey Ager (2011). “Faith and the Discourse of Secular Humanitarianism,” Journal of Refugee Studies 24(3): 456–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asad, Talal (1993). Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Asad, Talal (2003). Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Badiou, Alain (2003). Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, Michael and Janice Gross Stein (2012). Sacred Aid: Faith and Humanitarianism. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Benthall, Jonathan and Jerome Bellion-Jourdan (2009). The Charitable Crescent: Politics of Aid in the Muslim World. London: I. B. Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binder, Andrea, Claudia Meier, and Julia Streets (2010). “Humanitarian Assistance: Truly Universal? A Mapping Study of Non-Western Donors.” Research Paper 12. Berlin: Global Public Policy Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackburn, Anne M. (2001). Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bornstein, Erica (2012). Disquieting Gifts: Humanitarianism in New Delhi. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buehler, Michael (2013). “Subnational Islamization through Secular Parties: Comparing Shari‘a Politics in Two Indonesian Provinces,” Comparative Politics 46(1): 63–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bush, Robin (2009). Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power within Islam and Politics in Indonesia. Singapore: ISEAS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Candland, Christopher and Siti Nurjanah (2006). “Women’s Empowerment through Islamic Organizations: The role of the Nahdlatul Ulama in transforming the Government’s Birth Control Program into a Family Welfare Program.”In Wendy Tyndale (ed.) Visions of Development. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casanova, José (1994). Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavanaugh, William (2011). Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davey, Eleanor (2012). “New Players Through Old Lenses: Why History Matters in Engaging with Southern Actors.” Policy Brief 48. London: Overseas Development Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Nancy J. and Robert V. Robinson (2012). Claiming Society for God: Religious Movements and Social Welfare. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deneulin, Séverine and Masooda Bano (2009). Religion in Development: Rewriting the Secular Script. New York: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deneulin, Séverine and Carole Rakodi (2011). “Revisiting Religion: Development Studies Thirty Years On,” World Development 39(1) Uanuary): 45–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DFID (2010). The Politics of Poverty: Elites, Citizens and States: Findings from Ten Years of DFID-funded Research on Governance and Fragile States2001–2010. London: Department for International Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • DuBois, Thomas David, ed. (2009). Casting Faiths: Imperialism and the Transformation of Religion in East and Southeast Asia. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eagleton, Terry (2010). Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekbladh, David (2010). The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Escobar, Arturo (1995). Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton Studies in Culture/power/history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feener, R. Michael (2007). Muslim Legal Thought in Modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Feener, R. Michael (2013). Sharia and Social Engineering: The Implementation of Islamic Law in Contemporary Aceh, Indonesia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, James (1994). The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzgerald, Timothy (2003). The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzgerald, Timothy (2011). Religion and Politics in International Relations: The Modern Myth. London and New York: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fountain, Philip (2012). “Blurring Mission and Development in the Mennonite Central Committee.” In Mathew Clarke (ed.) Mission and Development: God’s Work or Good Works? London and New York: Continuum, pp. 143–166.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fountain, Philip (2013). “The Myth of Religious NGOs: Development Studies and the Return of Religion,” International Development Policy: Religion and Development 4: 9–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gombrich, Richard and Gananath Obeyesekere (1990). Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorski, Philip S., David Kyuman Kim, John Torpey, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, eds. (2012). The Post-Secular in Question: Religion in Contemporary Society. New York: NYU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grubbs, Larry (2009). Secular Missionaries: Americans and African Development in The 1960s. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haynes, Jeffrey (2007). Religion and Development: Conflict or Cooperation? Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Haynes, Jeffrey (2011). Religion, Politics and International Relations: Selected Essays. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haynes, Jeffrey (2013). “Faith-based Organisations, Development and the World Bank,” International Development Policy: Religion and Development 4: 49–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopgood, Stephen (2006). Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hovland, Ingie (2008). “Who’s Afraid of Religion? Tensions between ‘Mission’ and ‘Development’ in the Norwegian Mission Society.” In Gerard Clarke and Michael Jennings (eds) Development, Civil Society and Faith-Based Organizations: Bridging the Sacred and the Secular. Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 171–186.

    Google Scholar 

  • IRIN (2012a). “Analysis: A Faith-based Aid Revolution in the Muslim World?” IRINnews. 1 June. http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=95564

  • IRIN (2012b). “AID POLICY: Making Muslim Aid More Effective.” IRINnews. 1 June. http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=95567

  • Jones, Ben and Marie Juul Petersen (2011). “Instrumental, Narrow, Normative? Reviewing Recent Work on Religion and Development,” Third World Quarterly 32(7): 1291–1306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keane, Webb (2007). Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristeva, Julia (2009). This Incredible Need to Believe. trans. Beverley Bie Brahic. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lapthananon, Pinit (2012). Development Monks in Northeast Thailand. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leftwich, Adrian (1994). “Governance, the State and the Politics of Development,” Development and Change 25(2): 363–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leftwich, Adrian (1995). “Bringing Politics Back in: Towards a Model of the Developmental State,” Journal of Development Studies 31(3): 400–427.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leftwich, Adrian (2000). States of Development: On the Primacy of Politics in Development. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leftwich, Adrian (2005). “Politics in Command: Development Studies and the Rediscovery of Social Science,” New Political Economy 10(4): 573–607.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leftwich, Adrian (2010). “Beyond Institutions: Rethinking the Role of Leaders, Elites and Coalitions in the Institutional Formation of Developmental States and Strategies,” Forum for Development Studies 37(1): 93–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, Tania Murray (2007). The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Loimeier, Romain (2005). “Is There Something like ‘Protestant Islam’?” Die Welt des Islams 45(2): 216–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lynch, Cecelia (2011). “Religious Humanitarianism and the Global Politics of Secularism.” In Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (eds) Rethinking Secularism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 204–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malalgoda, Kitsiri (1976). Buddhism in Sinhalese Society: A Study of Religious Revival and Change. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Margolick, David (2003). “Blair’s Big Gamble,” Vanity Fair, 1 June. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2003/06/blair-200306

  • Marshall, Katherine (2001). “Development and Religion: A Different Lens on Development Debates,” Peabody Journal of Education 76(3 and 4): 339–375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, Katherine (2005). “Faith and Development: Rethinking Development Debates.” In World Bank. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/PARTNERS/EXTDEV DIALOGUE/0„contentMDK:20478626-menuPK:64192472-pagePK:64192523-piPK:64192458-theSitePK:537298,00.html

  • Marshall, Katherine and Lucy Keough (2004). Mind, Heart, and Soul: In the Fight Against Poverty. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, Katherine and Marisa Van Saanen (2007). Development and Faith: Where Mind, Heart, and Soul Work Together. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, David (2005). On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Masuzawa, Tomoko (2005). The Invention of World Religions, or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Meisburger, Tim (Nd). “Domestic Monitoring and Election Integrity: A Case Study of the 1999 National Election in Indonesia.” In ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, http://aceproject.org/main/english/ei/eiy_id01.htm [accessed 6 March 2014].

  • Milbank, John, Slavoj Žižek, and Creston Davis (2010). Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, Timothy (2002). The Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miyazaki, Hirokazu (2006). The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, Warwick E. and John Overton (2011a). “The Inverse Sovereignty Effect: Aid, Scale and Neostructuralism in Oceania,” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 52(3): 272–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, Warwick E. and John D. Overton (2011b). “Neoliberalism Is Dead, Long Live Neoliberalism? Neostructuralism and the International Aid Regime of the 2000s,” Progress in Development Studies 11(4) (1 July): 307–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Narayan, Deepa, with Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, and Sarah Koch-Schulte (2000). Can Anyone Hear Us? Voices of the Poor. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Obeyesekere, Gananath (1970). “Religious Symbolism and Political Change in Ceylon,” Modern Ceylon Studies 1: 43–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paras, Andrea (2012). “CIDA’s Secular Fiction and Canadian Faith-based Organisations,” Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue Canadienne D’études Du Développement 33(2): 231–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petersen, Marie Juul (2011). “For Humanity or for the Umma? Ideologies of Aid in Four Transnational Muslim NGOs.” PhD Thesis, Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pogge, Thomas W. (2010). Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, Elizabeth A. (2010). “Seriously, What Does ‘Taking Religion Seriously’ Mean?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78(4) (1 December): 1087–1111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rakodi, Carole (2007). “Understanding the Roles of Religions in Development: The Approach of the RaD Programme.” Working Paper 9. Religions and Development Research Programme. Birmingham: International Development Department, School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raman, Srilata (2013). “The Spaces In Between: Ramalinga Swamigal (1823–1874), Hunger, and Religion in Colonial India,” History of Religions 53(1): 1–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rees, John (2011). Religion in International Politics and Development: The World Bank and Faith Institutions. Cheltingham, UK: Edward Elgar.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Redfield, Peter (2012). “Secular Humanitarianism and the Value of Life.” In Courtney Bender and Ann Taves (eds) What Matters? Ethnographies of Value in a Not So Secular Age. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 144–178.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Riesebrodt, Martin (2010). The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, David and Charles Hirschkind, eds. (2006). Powers of the Secular Modem: Talal Asad and his Interlocutors. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Selinger, Leah (2004). “The Forgotten Factor: The Uneasy Relationship Between Religion and Development,” Social Compass 51(4): 523–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sen, Ronojoy (2010). Articles of Faith: Religion, Secularism, and the Indian Supreme Court. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Severino, Jean-Michel and Olivier Ray (2009). “The End of ODA: Death and Rebirth of a Global Public Policy.” Working Paper 167. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. http://www.cgdev.org/content/general/detail/1421419

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Jonathan Z. (1982). Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Jonathan Z. (2004). Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Kerry (2011). Non-DAC Donors and Humanitarian Aid: Shifting Structures, Changing Trends. Somerset, UK: Global Humanitarian Assistance.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Wilfred Cantwell (1978). The Meaning and End of Religion. London: SPCK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiglitz, Joseph (2012). The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sumner, Andy and Richard Mallett (2013). The Future of Foreign Aid: Development Cooperation and the New Geography of Global Poverty. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, Charles (2007). A Secular Age. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tayob, Abdulkader (2010). Religion in Modern Islamic Discourse. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, Scott (2005). The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-first Century. Culture and Religion in International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • van der Veer Peter, (2001). Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • van der Veer, Peter and Hartmut Lehmann (1999). Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ver Beek, Kurt Alan (2000). “Spirituality: A Development Taboo,” Development in Practice 10(1): 31–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, Richard S. (forthcoming) “Accounting for Religious Change: Ramalinga Adigal’s Transformation of Hindu Giving in Nineteenth-Century India,” History of Religions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodbury, Robert D. (2012). “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” American Political Science Review 106(2): 244–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhong Yijiang (2014). “Freedom, Religion and the Making of the Modern State in Japan,” Asian Studies Review 38(1): 53–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj (2003). The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj (2008). The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? 2nd ed. London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj and John Milbank (2009). The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? In Creston Davis (ed.) Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj, Eric L. Santner, and Kenneth Reinhard (2010). The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2015 Philip Fountain, Robin Bush, and R. Michael Feener

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Fountain, P., Bush, R., Feener, R.M. (2015). Religion and the Politics of Development. In: Fountain, P., Bush, R., Feener, R.M. (eds) Religion and the Politics of Development. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438577_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics