BOOK REVIEWS 109
modernities project. Both emphasize the
cultural construction of the religious/
secular divide, while Meyer enhances this
with an appreciation of the multiple ways
that this divide becomes institutionalized.
Koenig then traces these themes through
each of the volumes case studies. He right-
ly identifies the volumes core problematic:
how to decenter sociologys overemphasis
on Western modernization while still re-
taining the secular as an analytic category.
As one might expect, these chapters
do not resolve this issue. Landau and van
Dijk, particularly, raise critical questions
about the whole idea of the religion/
secularity dyad. As a whole, however, the
volume demonstrates that everyones ways
of thinking about religion and about secu-
larism are shaped by history and culture.
The editors emphasis on multiple secular-
ities moves the discussion forward. It is
just not the last word.
James V. Spickard
University of Redlands
doi:10.1093/socrel/srw006
Advance Access Publication 16 February 2016
The Varieties of Religious Repression:
Why Governments Restrict Religion, by
ANI SARKISSIAN. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015, 264 pp.; $29.95
(cloth).
Ani Sarkissian contributes to the liter-
ature on nondemocratic regimes in her new
book investigating why governments repress
religion. Using 16 case studies of repression
as well as quantitative data comparing polit-
ical and religious competition and repres-
sion in over 100 nondemocratic regimes,
Sarkissian develops a theory of authoritarian
religious repression grounded in the rational
choice perspective. In this theory, the state
is the actor, and regimes develop mecha-
nisms to keep religious power in check.
Authorities in nondemocratic states often
monitor, co-opt, and intimidate political
opponents; when these tools are used to tar-
get religious groups, Sarkissian understands
these activities to be part of the state prac-
tice of religious repression.
The author observes that the 101 au-
thoritarian regimes identified for her quan-
titative analysis fall into one of four general
categories: either the state tends to repress
all religions equally, the state represses
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minority religions and favors one majority
religion, the state represses some religious
groups, or the state represses none. In
Sarkissians theory, the state is the unit of
analysis, interacting with and acting upon
formal and informal religious organizations,
nongovernmental organizations, political
parties, charities, and other cultural institu-
tions. Sarkissian observes a pattern con-
necting Pew data on religious conflict and
political competition to repression, and
case studies are selected equally from these
four categories of repression in order to in-
vestigate the countries in greater depth and
to conceptualize the different types of reli-
gious divisions that exist in society.
In nations that repress all religious
groups equally, political competition tends
to be relatively low. Sarkissian explains this
behavior using rational choice theory, argu-
ing that authoritarian states have an interest
in co-opting majority religions, monitoring
all religious activity, and targeting the polit-
ical activities of religious groups to prevent
them from becoming a threat to the political
authority of the state. Saudi Arabia and Iran
achieve this through state control of the ma-
jority religionsWahhabism and Shiism,
respectivelyand by controlling clerical ap-
pointments, religious law, religious speech,
and other related behaviors.
In states that repress all but one reli-
gion, like Russia and Indonesia, greater
(yet still limited) political competition is
found than in countries that repress all reli-
gions equally. The favoritism shown toward
the majority religion in these cases is attrib-
uted to strong ties to national identity, at
least for the majority population. States
use acts of favoritism toward the majority re-
ligion in order to maintain their political
110 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
power while discriminating against minority
religious groups.
In states repressing only some reli-
gions, like Bahrain and Nigeria, Sarkissian
observes yet higher levels of political com-
petition. In these cases, the author finds
that governments are likely to repress only
the groups they find most politically threat-
ening in order to retain state power. The
lack of universal repression Sarkissian finds
is attributed to societal religious divisions
within these nations, such as the deep
SunniChristian divide observed in Nigeria.
The author argues, in the final section,
that it is rational for countries with relatively
high levels of political competition to enga-
ge in low levels of religious repression when
there is a lack of perceived political threat
(161). Sarkissians analysis included post-
Soviet Albania as a unique example of a
post-Soviet state disinterested in religious
repression. She also includes Cambodia,
noting the violent antireligious legacy of
Pol Pot and how religious tolerance toward
Buddhism is seen as in the governments
best interest.
The author notes that, although her
work does not address religious repression
by democratic states, she does not wish to
imply that it does not exist (185). Future
work should expand on this area, raising
the fundamental question of how we define
democratic versus nondemocratic states.
If I were to offer one criticism of this
study, it would be to disagree with how re-
ligious repression has been categorized. By
defining repression against religious groups
as a key variable, the author neglects a large
group of the population that experiences
repression similar to the form described
namely, the nonreligious. Although state
atheism is discussed at length in the con-
text of Chinese and Russian state policy,
atheists and agnostics who suffer under
blasphemy laws, forced adherence, misedu-
cation, and violence are unrecognized
under Sarkissians coding structure. The au-
thor does recognize the ability to choose
ones religion (or to reject having a reli-
gion) as a central aspect of the concept
of religious freedom (32). However, those
who reject having a religion are not ex-
plicitly included in the data analysis. This
exclusion raises a methodological question:
in what context should nonreligious repres-
sion be studiedalongside religious repres-
sion, or separately from it?
Authoritarian reentrenchment appears
to be a growing phenomenon, and
Sarkissians approach from the angle of state
religious repression is an important contribu-
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tion to our understanding of how politics,
religion, and culture intersect in varying
structures of modern nondemocratic regimes.
Sarah Kaiser
University at Buffalo
doi:10.1093/socrel/srw006
Advance Access Publication 12 February 2016
Sacred Divorce: Religion, Therapeutic
Culture, and Ending Life Partnership,
by KATHLEEN E. JENKINS. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,
2014, 250 pp.; $27.95 ( paper).
Kathleen Jenkins is certainly not the
first person to study the tension between re-
ligious/family values and cultural indivi-
dualism. She may be, however, among the
first to demonstrate the tension in such a
profoundly personal way. Drawing on qua-
litative interviews with 75 divorced in-
dividuals, some of whom divorced quite
recently while for others, the dissolution
occurred decades ago, Jenkins provides a
narrative that allows the reader to navigate
the struggles, trials, and triumphs of indi-
viduals as they search to find meaning post-
divorce. Throughout Sacred Divorce, the
reader is introduced to the pervasive thera-
peutic culture that religion and commercial
enterprises provide and the way that thera-
py both enables and inhibits personal
growth. If I had to use a single word to
describe this book, authentic would likely
be it.