Drawing on two waves of public opinion surveys conducted in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, we investigate the rise in religiosity and orthodoxy among Central Asian Muslims. We confirm that a religious revival is underway, with nearly 100 percent of Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani Muslims self-identifying as such in 2012—up from 80 percent in Kazakhstan in 2007. If we dig a bit deeper, however, we observe cross-national variations. Religious practice, as measured by daily prayer and weekly mosque attendance, is up in Kyrgyzstan, but has fallen in Kazakhstan. While the share of those who express preferences associated with religious orthodoxy has grown in both, this group has more than doubled in Kazakhstan. We attribute these differences to political context, both in terms of cross-national political variation and, within each country, variation based on regional differences.
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Shirin Akiner, “The Politicisation of Islam in Postsoviet Central Asia,” Religion, State, and Society 3, no. 2 (2003): 97–122.
Mohammad Karim, “Globalization and Post-Soviet Revival of Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 25, no. 3 (2010): 439–448; International Crisis Group, “Is Radical Islam Inevitable in Central Asia?” (2003).
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Akiner, “The Politicisation of Islam in Postsoviet Central Asia”; Kathleen Collins and Erica Owen, “Islamic Religiosity and Regime Preferences: Explaining Support for Democracy and Political Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus,” Political Research Quarterly, 20, no. 10 (2012): 1–19; Emmanuel Karagiannis, “Political Islam and Social Movement Theory: The Case of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Kyrgyzstan,” Religion, State, and Society, 33, no. 2 (2005): 137–150; Karim, “Globalization and Post-Soviet Revival of Islam”; Adeeb Khalid, Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2007); Hann and Pelkmans, “Realigning Religion and Power in Central Asia”; McGlinchey, “Islamic Revivalism and State Failure in Kyrgyzstan”; Russell Zanca, “Believing in God at Your Own Risk: Religion and Terrorism in Uzbekistan,” Religion, State, and Society, 33, no. 1 (2005): 71–82.
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E.g., Akiner, “The Politicisation of Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia”; Hann and Pelkmans, “Realigning Religion and Power in Central Asia”; Scott Spehr and Nargis Kassanova, “Kazakhstan: Constructing Identity in a Post-Soviet Society,” Asian Ethnicity, 13, no. 2 (2012): 135–151; Yemelianova, “Islam, National Identity, and Politics in Contemporary Kazakhstan.”
R’oi and Wainer, “Muslim Identity and Islamic Practice,” 306.
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Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).
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Drawing on two waves of public opinion surveys conducted in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, we investigate the rise in religiosity and orthodoxy among Central Asian Muslims. We confirm that a religious revival is underway, with nearly 100 percent of Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani Muslims self-identifying as such in 2012—up from 80 percent in Kazakhstan in 2007. If we dig a bit deeper, however, we observe cross-national variations. Religious practice, as measured by daily prayer and weekly mosque attendance, is up in Kyrgyzstan, but has fallen in Kazakhstan. While the share of those who express preferences associated with religious orthodoxy has grown in both, this group has more than doubled in Kazakhstan. We attribute these differences to political context, both in terms of cross-national political variation and, within each country, variation based on regional differences.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 3383 | 325 | 35 |
Full Text Views | 300 | 5 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 152 | 16 | 0 |