Democratization and Religious Nationalist Mobilization Against a Small Minority: Evidence From Myanmar

Abstract

Under what conditions does democratization motivate the core national group’s religious clergy to propagate religious nationalist hatred against a small and unarmed minority? While we understand that political elites often incite nationalist violence against ethnic minorities during democratization to retain political power, we know less about when and why this nationalist violence takes on a religious tone? I contend that the prior autocratic regime’s cooptation of the majority religious clergy for legitimacy incentivizes these coopted clergy to incite hatred against a small religious minority during democratization to protect the dominance of a religious national identity. This hate campaign, however, is not motivated by the threat posed by the targeted minority to the religious majority, but rather, the threat posed by mobilized secular co-religionist leaders to the status of demobilized religious clergy in national identity during democratization. I use a mixed-methods approach to demonstrate the plausibility of my argument in the case of Myanmar.