Religious pluralism, democracy, and the Catholic Church in Latin America /

With this edited volume, Hagopian (Univ. of Notre Dame) breathes new life into the study of the political role of the Catholic Church in Latin America. Hagopian provides a nuanced overview of the Church's historical hegemony and illustrates how traditional theoretical paradigms (e.g., institutional, rational choice, and ideational) prove inadequate under historical scrutiny. Such shortcomings are magnified when these paradigms are applied to contemporary political developments, as they cannot account for the myriad ways that the Church has responded to the twin challenges of religious and political pluralism. Hagopian aims to develop a theoretical framework to understand the Church's contemporary political agenda, tackling three key questions: Why do the ideological, institutional, and policy responses of the Church vary by country? How have the Church's responses transformed the Church itself? In light of these changes, how does the Church shape democratic politics? Together with an impressive group of scholars, Hagopian engages these questions through in-depth case studies, country comparisons, and regional overviews. This work illuminates the ways that the Church engages civil society and the state under the new rules of democracy, as well as identifies important venues for future research. Summing Up: Recommended. All undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. M.-F. T. Malone University of New Hampshire