Radicalization and Religion

Catalog description

Cultural values, particularly religious ones, as well as emotions are underestimated in analyses that emphasize rational decision-making. Some of the deepest yearnings in human beings can be of critical importance in sustaining what are defined in the literature as "intractable" social conflicts. Strict cost-benefit calculations figure prominently in instrumental decision-making pertaining to goals with adjustments necessary should the costs be too high to achieve specific objectives. What analysts may term "culturally sacred" values is less sensitive to calculations of cost and benefit - a fact ignored in Realpolitik explanations. This course investigates the issues pertaining to religious values and the limits of rational choice querying the influence of culturally sacred values in support of political violence within Israel and in comparative perspective. This course is designed with extensive pedagogical guidance from Schusterman Center for Israel Studies faculty at Brandeis University to assess the potential over the medium to long term for protracted internal conflict in Israel while considering several concerns: 1) the growing divide between the Left and Right within Israeli politics as the intractable conflict with Palestine endures; 2) the deep gulfs among Jews on the country’s diverse religious landscape; as well as 3) the impact of settler violence in the West Bank on Israel’s relations with the United States and Germany. In terms of graduate candidate research, the course explores in a comparative manner the extent to which religious values sustain clashes between political cultures.