Masking Hegemony: A Genealogy of Liberalism, Religion and the Private Sphere

‘Masking Hegemony’ presents a critical evaluation of the language used in liberal political thought, tracing liberalism’s use of two key binary concepts - public/private and religion/state - from the Protestant Reformation to the present. Whilst appearing to separate religion from state and public from private , this language actually masks the influence of religious institutions on state policies and the inevitable circulation of power from the private to the public sphere in a liberal democracy. ‘Masking Hegemony’ uses the work of Gramsci, Foucault and Bourdieu to offer a fresh approach to liberal ideology that will be of interest to students and scholars of both politics and religion.