Round 4 Award Recipients

Despite the important implications of the relationship between religious regulation and democratization, remarkably little information is known about most contemporary religious bureaucracies. Given this absence of information, it is difficult to accurately assess when and how religious bureaucracies create incentive structures that discourage religious elites from mobilizing. In other words, while it is clear that religious regulation plays a role in limiting democratization, an absence of data makes it difficult to assess the degree to which religious bureaucracies function as one of the mechanisms limiting religious mobilization. This project will contribute empirical information about two key cases through a comparison of the religious bureaucracies of the Middle East monarchies of Jordan and Morocco, as a first step toward a larger project mapping the structure of religious bureaucracies in Muslim-majority societies. By comparing across two authoritarian monarchies that draw their legitimacy in part from religious narratives, this project will hold constant regime type while examining the role of different mechanisms in discouraging elite mobilization.

This project explores patterns of similarity and difference in attitudes to self and other forgiveness among Muslims and Christians in Indonesia and the US, with the goal of fostering better understanding of forgiveness among members of these two religious groups. Despite much literature arguing it is virtually universal, forgiveness has culturally and religiously distinctive characteristics. For example, some individuals are more concerned about the impact of self or interpersonal violations on the larger community than are others, and some see forgiveness as more virtuous if one is merciful (i.e., compassionate while recognizing wrong-doing) rather than generous (i.e., forgiving without requiring reconciliation or recompense). This project will document attitudes to forgiveness, attempt to validate a social harmony scale to measure differences among individuals from cultures that have identified as collectivist and individualist, and expand the REACH Forgiveness curriculum, previously developed and used cross-culturally, by greater recognition and integration of elements of mercy, generosity, and social harmony into the training.

Our research project explores the intersection between intolerance and the public sphere in Nigeria and Brazil. Observation and interviews with community members, including priests, performers, and drummers, will provide important details for analysis of these issues. Our research focus includes questions such as: How often does religious intolerance involve opposition to public representations of Yoruba and African diaspora religiosity (i.e. festivals, statues and sacred groves) or ceremonial practices that are visible or audible in the public sphere (i.e. song and dance)? In what ways is that opposition expressed (i.e. vandalism, protest, rejection of festival norms)? What are the motives and effects of visits to Brazil by Nigerian religious leaders and, conversely, to Nigeria by devotees of Brazilian Candomblé? We envision this research project as an endeavor to understand the current flows of religious power across the Atlantic and intervene against religious intolerance in Nigeria and Brazil.