In his lecture Ahmet Kuru will speak about the premises of his book Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment, which will be published in Dutch with the title Bloeiperiode en hedendaagse crisis in de moslimwereld (Ertsberg) in May 2023. Kuru will elaborate an argument about the ulema-state alliance as the cause of authoritarianism and underdevelopment in the Muslim world from the eleventh century to the present. Criticizing essentialist, post-colonialist, and new institutionalist explanations, Kuru focuses on the relations between intellectual, economic, religious, and political classes in this annual lecture.

About the speaker

Ahmet T. Kuru is the director of Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and a professor of Political Science at San Diego State University. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Columbia University. Kuru is the author of Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 2009). He is also the co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (Columbia University Press, 2012). Kuru’s articles appeared in various journals including World Politics, Comparative Politics, and Political Science Quarterly.

This lecture is organized in collaboration with the Amsterdam School for Regional, Transnational and European Studies

Registration through the website of Spui25: Islam, Democracy and Development - SPUI25