The Masks of the Political God: Religion and Political Parties in Contemporary Democracies. Luca Ozzano. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: ECPR Press, Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. 276 p. $120.00 cloth

Abstract

The Masks of the Political God is a unique contribution by professor of political science Luca Ozzano to studies of religion in party politics. The added value of this important contribution resides in the combination of three aspects: its case selection covers main world religions; it relies analytically on five types of religiously oriented parties proposed by the author in his earlier publications; it studies comparatively religion-related political cleavages during four decades since 1980. No previous study has combined these three elements. Comparative studies with cases from world religions have focused on other themes (e.g. Mark Juergensmeyer ’ s books The New Cold War and Terror in the Mind of God on worldwide rise of religious nationalism and religious terrorism). Comparative studies on religion in party politics have been limited to selected geographic/cultural regions and have mostly used theoretical frameworks (e.g. populism, nationalism) that do not tackle the question of religion in party politics as straightforwardly and comprehensively as does this volume. The book starts with three theoretical chapters. After discussing the study of religion in party politics from perspectives of democracy (Chapter 1) and political cleavages (Chapter 2), it pre-sents the typology of religiously oriented parties (Chapter 3). The author has published widely and is an established expert not only on these themes but is a renowned scholar also of religious fundamentalism and religious populism, both of which constitute important dimensions in this study.