This page studies how governments use religion to legitimize power, discipline dissent, define national identity, and recast civil-rights disputes as sacred conflict. The frame is pluralist: protect religious freedom while resisting state capture of faith.
Research questions
LegitimacyHow do governments borrow sacred language to make authority feel inevitable, chosen, or immune from criticism?
Religious nationalismWhen does protection of a faith tradition become a state-backed hierarchy over other believers and nonbelievers?
Institutionalized grievanceHow can official victimhood narratives convert policy disagreement into existential threat?
PluralismHow can societies protect worship, conscience, and minority faiths without letting government appoint a favored theology?
Civic frame
Criticizing state use of religion is not hatred of religious people. The archive distinguishes believers, institutions, political projects, legal claims, and symbolic rhetoric.
