Lecture – Putinism, Trumpism and Religious Sources of Ideology
You are
cordially invited to join the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics for a public lecture by Professor Cyril Hovorun, Sankt Ignatios College, on the topic “Putinism, Trumpism & Religious Sources of Ideology” on 29 March 2025 in Parliament Hall on campus.
The lecture by Dr Cyril Hovorun, Professor in Ecclesiology, International Relations and Ecumenism at Sankt Ignatios College, analyses and compares two emerging ideological schemes: Putinism and Trumpism. We will explore these ideologies in terms of civil and political religion, as well as neoconservatism and postliberalism.
By comparing them with the classical ideologies of the interwar period, we will identify their commonalities and differences. Both feature messianism, exceptionalism and dualism, and are underpinned by corresponding religious traditions, Orthodoxy in Russia and Calvinism in America.
Putinism and Trumpism both gain momentum from ‘culture wars’, albeit in different ways. Russia’s war against Ukraine is an extremely violent form of a culture war, which Putin frames as a fight against Western liberalism and identity politics. The intrinsic affinity between Trumpism and Putinism explains why the former supports the latter, as well as recent shifts in American foreign policy.