Populism and Religion: Comparative Historical Approaches (ASA2020)

How do populists utilize religion as an identity marker and mobilization tool? And how do religious leaders and communities deploy populism?

This session, which took place on 10 August 2020 at the American Sociological Association (ASA) annual meeting, explores these and other questions to shed light on the populism-religion nexus. (Co-organized by the ASA’s Comparative-Historical Sociology and Sociology of Religion Sections).

Organizers: Efe Peker, University of Ottawa & Gulay Turkmen, University of Goettingen

Presenters: • Religion and Gender in the European Populist Right – Ayse Serdar, Instanbul Technical University; Ebru Öztürk, Mid Sweden University; Katarina Giritli Nygren, Mid Sweden University

• Religion, Populism, and Nationalism in Nine Eastern European States Pamela Irving Jackson, Rhode Island College; Peter E. Doerschler, Bloomsburg University

• Religious Populism in America and the Possibility for Democratic Politics Rhys H. Williams, Loyola University-Chicago Discussant: Shai M. Dromi, Harvard University