What is the nature of religion and regime relations in a globalized world? How have these patterns of interaction changed over time and space? Mehran Tamadonfar and Ted G. Jelen have assembled an impressive collection of essays to address these and other related questions. Religion and Regimes is diverse and historically anchored, with each chapter examining religion and state relations through an extended historical lens. The edited volume includes chapters on the United States (Rachel Blum and Clyde Wilcox), Brazil and Chile (Christine A. Gustafson), Russia (Christopher Marsh), Israel (Elizabeth A. Oldmixon and Rebekah Samaniego), France and Turkey (Ramazan Kilinc), India (Scott Hibbard), Portugal and Spain (Paul Christopher Manuel), Taiwan and Hong Kong (J. Christopher Soper and Joel S. Fetzer), Ireland (Michele Dillon), and Iran and Poland (Tamadonfar and Jelen). Taken together, this rich collection explores the public and political role of religion over time, and demonstrates when and where political and religious authorities cooperate and collide.

In lieu of an introductory theoretical chapter, the editors suggest three general patterns of religion–regime relations: support, separation, and opposition. Each of the empirical chapters then takes on the task of illustrating when, where, and how its case study aligns with these various patterns. The editors suggest that most states and societies are religiously plural and have a majority religion. This majority religion will seek advantages in the religious marketplace. This majority will also face opposition from religious and secular competitors, and the nature of opposition will help determine religion–regime relations as supportive, oppositional or separate.

Two common themes emerge from the collection. The first is that religion and regime relations are far from fixed. Indeed, most chapters reveal the fluidity and flexibility of these relations over time. A second theme is the importance of the religious marketplace. Here, attention is given to the role of religious competition. On this point, the editors’ central claim that religious competition matters is hardly new, but the case studies help illuminate the nuances of the market model and how the nature of competition among and within religious groups, and between religious and secular actors, shapes and constrains religion–regime relations over time.

Gustafson’s comparison of church–state relations in Chile and Brazil begins in the colonial period, carefully showing that competition over time may come not only from new religious groups, such as evangelical Christians, but also from within the dominant religious institution, in this case the Catholic Church. According to Gustafson, internal competition partly explains the different political orientations of the Brazilian and Chilean churches, and the strategies church leaders adopt to engage the state and society. Marsh’s chapter on Russia provides another lucid overview of the spectrum of religion and state relations and how these interactions come full circle. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) pursued strategies of accommodation with the state (rather than confrontation or separation) because of growing competition in the religious market. The resulting ROC–regime alliance has been politically advantageous for both sides. For the Kremlin, this has meant new sources of legitimacy, and for the ROC, it has meant the ability to informally shape the dynamics of the religious market and marginalize its main competitors. In particular, Marsh notes that Protestants have been depicted as religious outsiders hostile to Russian culture and, at the extremes, even part of a CIA conspiracy to undermine the country (pp. 66–67). Hibbard’s chapter on India offers another informative synthesis of the changing and inconsistent nature of religion–state relations. He traces the role of religion in state and society from the preindependence promotion of secular norms and identities to the rise of Hindu nationalism and sectarian violence. The chapter skillfully illustrates the nuances of this transformation and the competing and changing interests of the multiple actors involved. One important lesson that comes from the Indian case is the way in which the transformation of religion and regimes becomes increasingly complicated when religion aligns with ethnic identity and nation.

The intersection of religion and national identity is further advanced in a number of other essays, including Dillon’s chapter on the Catholic Church in Ireland, Oldmixon and Samaniego’s analysis of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and Tamadonfar and Jelen’s comparison of religion and regime change in Iran and Poland. These chapters, on the one hand, encourage us to think about the ways in which national religions can lend legitimacy to regime power holders. On the other hand, they also demonstrate how national religions become powerful forces for political change. However, the analyses are careful to suggest that the power and prestige of national religions is far from guaranteed. Whether through internal scandals as in the Irish case or “lazy monopolies” in Iran and Poland, religions that represent the nation can see their role diminished in the public square (p. 249).

Insofar as the volume may merit criticism, it is because the included cases represent many of the usual suspects in the politics-of-religion lineup, such as the United States, Turkey, France, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland. While these chapters are well written and important, the inclusion of cases from Africa and Southeast Asia could have significantly strengthened the work. Another concern is that the case studies tend to highlight monotheistic faiths over others. This distracts from the generalizability of the models of religion–state relations that the editors are suggesting in the concluding chapter. It also calls into question the volume’s ability to predict the public role of religion for more syncretic or polytheistic faiths. For instance, how might this loose framework explain religion–state patterns of interaction among popular religions or religious communities that operate in underground markets in Mainland China? What might this suggest about religion–regime relations in contemporary Egypt where religious majorities have been historically excluded from politics? How does it explain the political role of religion across a deeply divided Nigeria?

These criticisms should not minimize the value of the volume, however. The editors are up-front about these biases (p. 250) and do provide a few comparative chapters to help balance the global and religious perspectives. In particular, the comparative essays on Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as Iran and Poland, are welcome additions. These chapters show that even in diverse political settings and among different faiths, religious actors can play similar roles of political mobilization. They also underscore the fluidity of opposition, separation, and support.

As a whole, Religion and Regimes makes a useful companion to any upper-level undergraduate or graduate course on religion and politics. However, the value of any edited volume can also be measured by the sum of its parts. Here, the individual chapters are carefully crafted and would be a beneficial supplement to both area studies and more general courses on comparative politics.