Eric Kaufmann
Eric Kaufmann
Eric Kaufmann, Latest Publication

Eric recently completed an ESRC project, Diversity and the White Working Class in England, with Dr. Gareth Harris (also of Birkbeck, University of London’s Politics department). The project involves a partnership with the think tank Demos, and its Politics of Demography project. The work uses quantitative data and focus groups to examine whether the white British ethnic majority, especially its working-class component, is responding to increasing diversity though a) ‘exit’, i.e. residentially withdrawing through white flight or avoidance; b) ‘voice’ – opposition to immigration and voting for anti-immigration parties; or c) ‘accommodation’ – increased intermarriage, toleration of change and residential mixing.

Eric’s recent books have focused on political demography – the politics of population change. He  has a continuing interest in national identity and questions of dominant-group ethnic identity, as well as religious fundamentalism. His most recent trade press book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth, is pictured above. Based on a wealth of demographic research, Kaufmann shows that the more religious people are, regardless of income, faith tradition or education, the more children they have. Religious countries have faster population growth than secular ones which is why immigrants are typically much more religious than their secular host societies. The cumulative effect of immigration and religious fertility is to slow or reverse the secularisation process in the West.

Within faiths, those who are fundamentalist – rather than traditional or liberal – in their beliefs have the largest families and tend to lose the fewest members to nonreligion. Among Jews, the Ultra-Orthodox may achieve majority status over their liberal counterparts by mid-century. Evangelical and neo-traditional Christians are eclipsing mainline Christianity in the United States and Europe. Islamist Muslims have won the culture war in much of the Muslim world, even as the Arab Spring has reconfigured power in the region.

Drawing on extensive demographic research, and considering questions of multiculturalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises – and what this means for the future of western modernity. A number of the most prominent recorded events for the book are featured below.

View talk at American Enterprise Institute, Washington, May 20, 2011

View talk at New America Foundation, Washington, May 18, 2011

View talk from Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House, Oct 3, 2010

Hear the interview with John Cleary on Australian Broadcasting Corporation ‘Sunday Nights’on the book

See youtube video of Eric’s talk at the RSA on April 15

 

 

Upcoming 

  • ‘Celebrating Differences in our Commonality.’ Address to All-Party Parliamentary Group on Integration, 4 July, House of Commons link
  • Political Marketing and Climate Change, Birkbeck College, 28 June slides

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