Populism and Religion

Abstract

Abstract Although the populism-religion relationship is increasingly recognized in the literature, the focus has predominantly been on Western cases. This article proposes analytical tools for global comparisons. First, drawing on the ideational, performative, and strategic approaches to populism, the authors articulate how populists deploy religion in each category. Existing works have not engaged with these dimensions conjointly. Second, the authors employ this tridimensional conception to operationalize the “covert” and “overt” modes of religious populism identified in the literature. They hold that a populist movement comes closer to the former (“sacralizing the political”) or the latter (“politicizing the sacred”) depending on the extent to which it mobilizes religions in its ideas, performances, and strategies. Third, the authors exemplify these ideal types via two pairs of case studies: France and Québec (covert), and India and Turkey (overt). Finally, the authors consider how religious populisms elsewhere stack up on this spectrum, and discuss future themes for comparative research.