Catholic and Muslim Politics in Comparative Perspective

The contemporary global discourse on Islam as a fundamentalist antimodern and undemocratic religion shows striking similarities with the old discourse on Catholicism that predominated in Anglo-Protestant societies, particularly in the United States, from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. The essay draws some comparisons between old Catholic and current Muslim politics at three different levels: (1) at the level of the transnational structures of Catholicism and Islam as world religions; (2) at the level of religious political parties and movements in national politics; and (3) at related issues of immigrant incorporation of Catholics in Anglo-Protestant societies in the past and of Muslims in ”secular-Christian” Western societies today.