CANCELLED: Book Talk: Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment

Thursday, April 23, 2020
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Pacific)

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room
Encina Hall E409, Fourth Floor, East Wing, E409
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

Speaker:

Ahmet Kuru

Abstract:

Ahmet T. Kuru will talk about his new book Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Why do Muslim-majority countries have high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic development in comparison to world averages? Kuru elaborates an argument about the ulema-state alliance as the cause of these problems in the Muslim world from the eleventh century to the present. Criticizing essentialist, post-colonialist, and new institutionalist alternative explanations, Kuru focuses on the relations between intellectual, economic, religious, and political classes in his own explanation.

Speaker Bio:

Ahmet T. Kuru is Professor of Political science at San Diego State University. Kuru received his PhD from the University of Washington and held a post doc position at Columbia University. He is the author of award-winning Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge University Press) and the co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (Columbia University Press). Kuru’s works have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, and Turkish.

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