(iPoster) Ideational Blockage and Religious Nationalism

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Public Opinion 1 & Diverse Perspectives on South Asian Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Diverse Perspectives on South Asian Politics

Abstract

What explains spatial variation in support for religious nationalist movements? I argue that religious nationalist movements arise and expand due to an intra-elite struggle. The variation in the expansion of religious nationalism is driven by the mobilization of intermediate elites, i.e., groups possessing either economic affluence or social recognition, but not both. Facing ideational blockage, or the exclusion of their values from the dominant conception of the nation, intermediate elites actively ’invest’ in their own associations to overcome
the cultural dominance imposed by dominant elites. Religious nationalism provides a particularly viable pathway for such associational activity, because it allows intermediate elites to circumvent the constraints imposed by dominant elites and insert their own visions into the national discourse. I examine this through the expansion of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in contemporary India. I empirically demonstrate that the organization’s support tends to be relatively stronger in areas where Hindu upper castes occupy an intermediate, rather than a dominant, elite status.

Author

• Unregistered Participant