Haustein, J and Tomalin, E orcid.org/0000-0001-7722-1192 (2021) Religion, populism, and the politics of the Sustainable Development Goals. Social Policy and Society, 20 (2). pp. 296-309. ISSN 1474-7464
Abstract
This article examines the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework as a political project in tension with its universal and multilateral aspirations to serve as a counterbalance to narrow populist visions increasingly dominating global politics. Building upon Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of populism and their notion of ‘radical democracy’, we conceptualise the SDGs as a struggle for hegemony and in competition with other styles of politics, over what counts as ‘development’. This hegemonial struggle plays out in the attempts to form political constituencies behind developmental slogans, and it is here that religious actors come to the fore, given their already established role in organising communities, expressing values and aspirations, and articulating visions of the future. Examining how the SDG process has engaged with faith actors in India and Ethiopia, as well as how the Indian and Ethiopian states have engaged with religion in defining development, we argue that a ‘radical democracy’ of sustainable development requires a more intentional effort at integrating religious actors in the implementation of the SDGs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Religion; populism; Sustainable Development Goals; Ethiopia; India |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > Theology and Religious Studies (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) AH/P006418/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Oct 2020 14:47 |
Last Modified: | 20 Mar 2021 19:09 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/S147474642000072X |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:166951 |
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