Politics and Religion in the United Kingdom

by Steve Bruce

Overview

This important new volume seeks to provide significant contribution to our understanding of religion and politics, demonstrating through comparisons with other countries the unusually complex nature of the interaction of religion and politics in the United Kingdom.

Bruce provides a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the field, covering key topics including:

• Religion and Violence in Northern Ireland
• A UK-US comparison of the relationship between the church and the nation state
• Links between Protestantism and the rise of modern democracy
• The relationship between Methodism and Socialism
• The impact that ethnic minority status and religious values have on political alignment

This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of religion, politics and religious sociology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781136590719
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/03/2013
Series:	Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	821 KB

About the Author

Steve Bruce was born in Edinburgh and educated at the Queen Victoria School, Dunblane, Perthshire. He studied sociology and religious studies at the University of Stirling. He taught at The Queen’s University, Belfast, from 1978 to 1991 when he became Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

He is the author of some 140 journal articles and essays in edited collections and 24 books including: God save Ulster: the religion and politics of Paisleyism (Oxford 1986); Religion in the Modern World: from cathedrals to cults (Oxford 1996); Conservative Protestant Politics (Oxford 1998); Choice and Religion: a critique of rational choice theory (Oxford 2000); Fundamentalism (Polity 2001); God is Dead: Secularization in the West (Blackwell 2002); Politics and Religion (Polity 2003); Paisley (Oxford 2007); and The Theory of Secularization (Oxford 2010).

Table of Contents

1. British Gods 2. The Politics of Religion 3. Religion and Violence in Northern Ireland 4. Sectarianism in Modern Scotland 5. Did Protestantism Create Democracy? 6. Methodism and Socialism 7. Opportunity Structures and Culture Wars 8. Christian Parties 9. Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus in British Politics 10. The Public Place of Religion

Editorial Reviews

"This is a book well worth reading. It offers robust analysis suggesting that claims of religious resurgence have more to do with 'academic novelty-seeking' than the realities of secular Britain." - John Anderson, LSE Review of Books, July 2012

From the Publisher - EBOOK COMMENTARY

"This is a book well worth reading. It offers robust analysis suggesting that claims of religious resurgence have more to do with 'academic novelty-seeking' than the realities of secular Britain." - John Anderson, LSE Review of Books, July 2012

From the Publisher