Disciples of the State: Secularization and State Building in the Former Ottoman World, p. 7-25

There are two main parts to p. 7-25 of Fabbe's reading: an overview of how states carry out "social disciplining" through centralized law, education, and religion; and a critique of "secularization theory", in preparation for a thesis about how post-Ottoman states co-opted rather than rejected religion to build strength

Social disciplining

• It's costly to govern through force alone
• Past literature has focused mostly on the violent and economic roots of state formation, i.e. war and profit (the roving bandits reading, for example) -- but state is also ideological, pedagogical; mechanisms of "state penetration" of society merit further study
• Fabbe cites Gorski re: social disciplining
• Three ways Fabbe says social disciplining happens
• Centralized law and constitution -- wrests moral and governing power away from religious and traditional authorities
• Mass education -- legitimizes state control/morality and instills nationalism among the people
• Regulating and co-opting religion -- prevent opposition from religious moral authority by subsuming it within government bureaucracy
• Successful secularization/social disciplining happens when state has "routine control", or hegemonic/unquestioned power as usual, over law, state, and religion

Critique of secularization theory

• Secularization theory: modernization and secularization do/must happen in tandem
• Idea that science and technology are in conflict with religious doctrine and authority, so individuals in modern states lose religious faith
• Idea that religion chiefly serves social functions like community care and education, which expanding states are able to cover
• Christian exceptionalism, belief that Christianity allows for separation of Church and State while Islam doesn't
• Critique: secularization is complex and ill-defined
• Critique: religious figures play big role in modern state formation (Fabbe cites Tilly)