Illiberal Religion and Contestations of the Liberal Script: Logics of Confrontation and Dimensions of Tension

• Applicant: Dmitry Uzlaner, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Political Science ; Religious Studies and Jewish Studies ; Sociological Theory
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 563043788

The project is devoted to the study of the relations between religion and liberalism, interpreted in terms of the concept of the liberal script. I am interested in this topic from the perspective of the contestations of the liberal script and the role religion can play in these contestations. The main research question is: What kind of contestations of the liberal script can be called both substantial and religious, that is, involving both religion as religion and the liberal script as the liberal script on the basic or core / distinctive level of both? To address this, I explore several auxiliary questions: What is the core of the liberal script (as an ideal type) and its logics? What are the distinctive aspects of religion (as an ideal type) and their logics? What are the logics of confrontations between the two? And how can we conceptualize the dimensions of tension where the two come into conflict – and where religion becomes non-liberal and illiberal? I will use the example of Russian Orthodoxy over the past ten years as a case study to illustrate my arguments. Accordingly, the project has three basic research objectives. The first research objective and step 1: to analyze the core / distinctive principles and underlying logics of both the liberal script and religion (as ideal types). In this step, I highlight the characteristic logics for both the liberal script and religion. For the liberal script, these include the logic of self-determination, the logic of collective self-determination, the logic of individual self-determination. For religion, these include the logic of superhuman-determination, the logic of the sacred, the logic of salvation. The second research objective and step 2: to analyze the logics of confrontation and potential dimensions of tension between religion and the liberal script. I compare the logics that were previously identified and show how the logics of religion can come into conflict with the logics of the liberal script – this may transform religion into an illiberal (collective or individual) and non-liberal one. Finally, the third research objective and step 3: to examine whether one can trace these logics and dimensions of tension within a specific religious confession in a particular place and period. I focus on the case of the Russian Orthodoxy and its contestations of the liberal script (2010s – 2020s). Non-liberal dimension of the Russian Orthodoxy is explored through the ideas of Alexander Dugin (an influential figure at the intersection of Orthodoxy and occult traditionalism). Illiberal dimension of the Russian Orthodoxy (collective pole) is explored through the discourse of “traditional values” (on the example of the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarchal Commission on family matters, protection of motherhood and childhood). Illiberal dimension of the Russian Orthodoxy (individual pole) is explored on the example of the “Tsarebozhniki” community, led by Schema-Hegumen Sergiy.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position