Monks Behaving Badly: Explaining Buddhist Violence in Asia

Abstract The dramatic rise in religious violence across the globe since the end of the Cold War has motivated scholars to try to explain violent religion-related extremism. Much of the attention to religious violence in the modern world focuses on Islam. Of the world's major faith traditions, Buddhism is most commonly and widely associated with peace, tolerance, and compassion. Yet Buddhism, like every other great religion, has a violent side. While scholars acknowledge violence within Buddhism, few have explored why Buddhism becomes violent in some places but not others. We develop a structural explanation for Buddhist violence. Our central claim is that Buddhist violence tends to occur in countries where Buddhism and the state are closely intertwined. We test this theory using both a statistical analysis of Buddhist violence in Buddhist-majority and Buddhist-plural countries and case studies of Buddhist violence (or lack thereof) in Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Our findings show that religion-state integration emboldens Buddhist vigilantes to attack religious minorities. Our analysis suggests that states can take specific actions to mitigate the risk of violent religious extremism.