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Accepted Paper:
Statecraft and the politics of culture: Lao Buddhist political theology under late socialism
Patrice Ladwig
(Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity )
Paper long abstract:
Laos is one of the few remaining socialist countries and officially endorses a secular political line. However, with Buddhist institutions being firmly integrated into the Party State, Buddhism and the language, moral values and lifestyles associated with it, are now again promoted as 'civilisational markers' crucial for defining national culture under late socialism. Moreover, Buddhism and its ethics are presented as an antidote to the 'decadent' influences of a globalised capitalist modernity and Buddhification is seen as a potential means for countering the increasing Christian missionary activity among 'animist' minorities. With reference to Charles Taylor's ideas of the secular and Carl Schmitt's work on political theology, this paper wants to investigate to what extent modern Lao state socialism is still imbued with prerevolutionary patterns of Buddhist statecraft and develop an approach for thinking about a 'Buddhist political theology'.