Religion, Resource and the State: Reflections on Renat Bekkin’s Book “‘People in Loyalty Reliable...’. Tatar Muftiyats and the State in Russia (18th-21st Centuries)”
economics of religion,
neo-Institutional economics,
Muftiyat,
Spiritual Administration of Muslims,
state-Islamic relations,
state-religious relations
Abstract
The review discusses the methodology issues related to the study of state-religion relations in Renat Bekkin’s recent monograph. The book looks at the institution of muftiyats and Muslim organizations as elements of the Russian state system, analyzed through the concepts of the economics of religion and neo-institutional economics. A critical analysis of this methodology demonstrates the value of its heuristic potential, which, however, cannot be admitted as universal and sufficient when applied to the sphere of religion. The limitations are connected with underestimating the interests and resources of both religious organizations and individual believers; a limited value of applying the market model to Russian state-religious interactions; and the lack of a general description of the political economy model in the book under review.
