Coping With Defeat? A Roundtable Discussion on Islam and Catholicism in Modern States

How do religions that have grown accustomed to political rule cope with the loss of their political authority in modernity? And how might they learn to coexist, peacefully, with the modern state? In his latest book, Coping with Defeat, Clough Center Director Jonathan Laurence sheds new light on these questions by offering a comparative analysis of two religions not often treated together: Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam. Drawing on extensive original research in Vatican and Ottoman archives, and dozens of interviews with contemporary public officials, Laurence documents centuries of religious and political institution-building, right up to the present day. Strikingly, he argues, Catholicism and Sunni Islam have historically employed analogous strategies for responding to the loss of their political power. And for this reason, their comparison has much to teach contemporary democracies-and contemporary religious leaders-about how to combat religious extremism, preserve the spiritual authority of religious traditions, and promote civil peace in polarized societies.
Since its release in 2021, Coping with Defeat has already attracted attention in the academy and the public sphere. The Wall Street Journal called the book a “refreshing, provocative work,” and the Economist described it as a “closely argued, contrarian piece of scholarship.” In 2022, the American Political Science Association recognized it as the best book in religion and politics published within the last two years.