· - ZOiS REPORT - FAITH AND STATE: GOVERNING RELIGIOUS PLURALITY IN POST-SOVIET

Two periods of Azerbaijani state religious policies can be discerned: the 1990s, which were a period of relative freedom in religious activities; and the 2000s and 2010s, which saw the introduction of gradual restrictions and a centralised policy of control under the banner of top-down multiculturalism. [...] Created in 2014, the post of state counsellor for multiculturalism and interethnic and religious affairs attempts to promote a new image of Azerbaijan in the world as a centre of multiculturalism with a long and unique cultural history of cohabitation in the Caucasus. [...] According to Elshad Iskanderov, who chaired the State Com- mittee for Work with Religious Organisations from 2012 to 2014 and was presumably one of the architects of the multiculturalism policy, ‘tolerance The government is an integral part of the national identity of the Azerbaijani people’.13 started exporting an image of In light of this, the government started exporting an image of multicultur. [...] the syllabus of Baku Slavic University, ‘the Republic of Azerbaijan exports not only oil and natural gas to the world but also tolerance’.14 A key policy institution in the state-sponsored regulation of religious and ethnic plurality is the Department of Interethnic Relations, Multicultural- ism, and Religious Affairs, which was inaugurated in 2018 and reports to the president. [...] Registration is the state’s way not only of endorsing the existence of a reli- gious community and indicating its purity in the eyes of the authorities but also of validating the community’s presence in terms of physical space and visibility.