Introduction
‘The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, caught the United States and the West by surprise’.
- Jonathan Fox, 2004 Religion, Civilization and Civil Wari
“[R]eligion’s place in political science scholarship is vastly underproportioned to its place in headlines around the globe”
- Daniel Philpott, 2009 “Has the Study of Global Politics Found Religion?”ii
It has been ten years since Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked passenger aeroplanes and flew them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. The effect of the attacks on global politics and International Relations has been mixed, with some scholars arguing that the world changed irrevocably after 9/11 (Ikenberry 2001: 19; Statham Jr 2003: 221; Benvenisti 2004: 695; Johnstone 2004: 829), while others claimed the world was no different (Cox 2003: 3; Gray 2002: 226; Waltz 2002: 350-352)
One of the most enduring effects of the 9/11 attacks has been the questions it raised about the role of religion. What the Al-Qaeda attacks emphasized, perhaps more than any other event in recent history, was that religion continues to be a powerful force in global politics (Philpott 2002), yet one whose influence is only partially understood by scholars and practitioners alike.
The inability of any International Relations theory to predict that an event like the 9/11 attacks was even possible, coupled with the surprise and shock of scholars, policymakers and the general public in the West in response to the attacks, signalled that something was amiss in the way that International Relations scholars approached global politics in general and the question of religion in particular (Philpott 2002). Since then, there has been growing recognition amongst International Relations scholars of the existence of a “secularist bias” within the field (and, arguably, in public and political discourses within the West more generally). This bias in many ways explains why, for much of the history of International Relations, scholars failed to even consider the place of religion within global politics (Fox 2001). Other more recent works have emphasized how this bias contributes to inaccurate and incomplete
understandings of the role religion plays in a variety of political contexts, including in the so-called “secular West” (Hurd 2008; Leustean and Madeley 2009). These critiques have highlighted important shortcomings of the secularist model of analysis dominant within International Relations and have contributed to expanding approaches to the question of religion and its influence on politics.
Yet despite their significant contribution to the study of religion in International Relations, problems persist amongst the majority of efforts to critique secularism and engage with the question of religion and politics. Many of these shortcomings stem from the fact that, until the last decade or so, most attempts to discuss religion within International Relations paid little attention to the role of religion in the politics of Western states and its impact on their policies and actions in global politics. Given the dominance of a number of Western states in global politics, coupled with the historical emergence of the international states-system out of the European states-system (Wight 1977: 47, 119), ignoring or overlooking religion in the politics of Western states arguably hindered efforts to understand the role of religion in International Relations and global politics more generally. As such recent efforts to explore the role of religion in Western politics are timely (see, for example, Hurd 2008 as well as recent issues of Social Research (Vol. 76, Issue 4 2009) and Religion, State and Society (Vol. 37, Issue 1 2009)).
Notwithstanding the importance of these studies that examine religion and politics in the West, four main shortcomings remain. Firstly, many studies of religion and politics in the West display a lack of critical self-reflection. Their focus is often on the increasing importance of Islam in European states (Aneschi, Camilleri and Petito 2009; Challand 2009; Hurd 2008) or on the role of religion in US politics, which is presented as somewhat of an anomaly in comparison to the rest of the West (Beeson 2006; Berger 1997; Paul 2002; for an alternate view see Madeley 2009). There are few scholars who consider that perhaps religion may be a significant component of dominant contemporary Western culture and politics, in spite of (or perhaps because of) its nominal secularism. In part this predominant lack of critical self-reflection is a remnant from the heyday of secularization theory, when religion was considered to be dying out and not relevant for understanding politics in developed, secularized states such as those in the West. Yet equally, this lack of critical self-reflection is part of a broader second shortcoming evident in many critiques of secularism within International Relations. The prevailing focus of these critiques is on
contemporary political contexts and actors. The role of history and historical memory in the West, of “collectively held subconscious ideas” (Galtung 1996: 211) or deeply embedded assumptions about the nature of political reality and the influence of religion on these collectively held subconscious ideas are rarely identified and problematized. Further, critiques of secularism and forays into religion and politics within International Relations seem plagued by a third additional shortcomings, a narrow, limited definition of religion that seems to focus heavily on its institutional, individual and irrational dimensions, giving an incomplete picture of the different ways in which religion can and does influence politics and public life. This limited definition, I suggest, is a result of dualistic thinking inherent in secularism. A final weakness of many of the critiques of secularism and studies of religion and politics in International Relations is that they do not offer an alternate understanding of religion that moves beyond secularism’s limited view.
The critique of the secularist bias has served to highlight that secularism within International Relations and global politics is primarily a product of the Western experience, both in terms of the emergence of a secular states-system at the global level and the very nature of secularism itself (Hurd 2008; Jones 2004). Yet while the Western origins of this secularist bias have been noted, they have rarely been problematized. How did the secularist bias emerge in the West to begin with? What impact has this bias had on how we understand religion in the context of the West? What are the implications of this understanding for our appreciation of religion’s influence on Western and global politics more broadly? How can we address the limitations of the secularist bias and move towards a more nuanced, comprehensive understanding of religion and politics in the West and globally? These are the questions that drive this book.
Having destabilized the seemingly natural logic of secularism within International Relations, as recent critiques of secularism have so ably done, there is a need to present and suggest “other ways of talking about and enacting the relations between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’” (Pellegrini 2009: 1345). It is not enough simply to note that a bias exists, that religion has been excluded and subordinated in enquiries about global politics. This performs the important task of highlighting what International Relations does not do, but does not provide a way forward. The critique of secularism says that our understanding of
religion has been obscured by the secularist bias, but it offers little with regard to how religion might be reconceptualized so that its influence on global politics might be better perceived.
This book offers one possible way of rethinking religion in order to move beyond the secularist bias that exists within International Relations. Building on the important and sophisticated critiques of secularism that have been produced in the decade since 9/11, this book suggests that dominant understandings of religion in International Relations have been restricted by dualistic thinking that rests at the very heart of the secular worldview. The book argues that dominant conceptions of secularism have catalysed the emergence of an understanding of religion based on three dichotomies –institutional/ideational, individual/communal and irrational/rational. Through the influence of secular dualism, one element of each dichotomy is subordinated to the other. This process has resulted in a definition of religion as institutional, individual and irrational which dominates much International Relations scholarship, but especially research focused on the West. Further, the book suggests that the dualism inherent in mainstream secularism contributes to limiting understanding of religion’s relationship with politics as well as the definition of religion itself. I offer an alternative framework for understanding religion and its relationship with politics that attempts to overcome the limiting effects of mainstream secularism’s dualistic logic.
Although the problem of the secularist bias is widespread within International Relations, I focus particularly on the effect that this bias has had on perceptions of religion’s role within the politics and societies of Western states. Secularism itself is a very “Western” phenomenon (Hurd 2008). While significant effort has gone into developing a more nuanced understanding of the role religion plays in the politics of non-Western states, attempts to explore religion’s impact on politics in the West continue to be hindered by assumptions of secularism and a limited understanding of religion itself. Definitions of the West are highly contested within International Relations, being influenced by a variety of factors and emphasizing different, sometimes contradictory experiences (Ifversen 2008). While frequently spoken of as a holistic singular cultural unit, the West is not homogenous (Kuru 2007: 574-5). The West is highly complex, incorporating numerous cultures and states that are often in conflict with one another. It is as much (and perhaps more) a rhetorical invention as it is a geographic and political entity (GoGwilt 1995).
Often defined as a civilization (Ifversen 2008; Galtung 1996; Huntington 1993), the West also consists of a social imaginary or collective subconscious. The collective subconscious informs the way individuals and groups within the West think and act, influencing what is considered “normal” and “natural”, legitimate and acceptable, though again, often with significant variations across communities and nationstates within the West. I focus specifically on the definition of the West as “secular” and the historical, cultural, economic (insofar as the “West” is generally considered “developed”) and political contexts in which this definition has emerged. My understanding of the West therefore encompasses Europe, Great Britain, former British colonies, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and the United States of America. It is the Western experience of secularism that has been most influential on International Relations approaches to the question of religion (Fox 2001: 57), thus the focus on the West is historically pertinent as well as relevant to current political contexts. In turn, the Western experience of secularism is intimately connected with the Judeo-Christian tradition. As such, Judeo-Christianity forms the primary reference point for understanding religion in International Relations and is the main religion of focus for this book.
Within this broader historical, cultural and political context, the book explores how dualistic thinking within secularism has contributed to the prominence of a limited understanding of religion in International Relations as primarily institutional, individual and irrational. Combined with the dualistic division of society into public and private realms, defining religion by these three characteristics serves to position religion within the private realm, permanently separated from politics (Hallward 2008: 3) and thus of little relevance to International Relations analysis, particularly with regard to “secular” Western states.
The dominance of this definition in International Relations has meant that analysis of religion has often focused on the role of religious institutions, the beliefs of individuals in key positions of power, the decline in practice of religion by individuals within society as an indication of secularization, and religion’s influence on conflict and violence. Influence of religious ideas and doctrines, imagery and narratives, religion’s role in shaping community identities and an acknowledgement of religion’s more
rational components, particularly in Western contexts, have generally been overlooked or downplayed within International Relations scholarship.
The limited definition of religion also ignores the historical relationship that exists between religion and politics, particularly within the context of the West. Religious ideas, actors and events had important influence on the development of concepts and norms that underpin modern Western and international politics, including the rule of law, sovereignty, democracy, freedom and secularism itself. Drawing on sociological and political critiques of secularism as well as insights from reflectivist theories of International Relations, such as constructivism, historical sociology and feminism, I suggest that religion is not static and is not permanently separated from politics through the public/private divide, as is generally assumed, implicitly or explicitly, in much International Relations scholarship. Rather, religion exists in a dynamic, fluid relational dialogue with various aspects of politics. This view of religion calls into question ideas of a decline and resurgence of religion. Rather, using insights from these reflectivist theories suggests that religion has always been present in politics and the public realm, but its influence has manifested and been interpreted in different ways. Conceiving religion’s relationship with politics in this way requires moving beyond the dualistic division of society into public and private realms, instead viewing all aspects of society as constantly interacting, influencing and shaping one another.
In order to address the influence of dualism on International Relations approaches to religion, the book proposes an alternative framework that circumvents the mainstream secularist bias. Combining insights from Julia Kristeva’s (1986) dialogism and Raia Prokhovnik’s (2003) relational critique of dualism, I develop a framework based on what I refer to as relational dialogism. This framework offers one way for overcoming many of the limitations placed on religion by secular dualism. It also provides one model of analysis that can be applied to questions regarding religion and global politics. The framework focuses particularly on drawing out the influence of religious ideas, imagery, values and narratives around community and identity, as these elements have been traditionally excluded by the dominant approach of secular dualism to religion. The framework is then applied to a case study of one of the states that forms the cultural, historical and political context of the West – the USA. The case study shows the unique insights to be gained from moving passed the secular dualist bias and employing a
relational dialogic understanding of religion. Throughout the book, I emphasize that religion influences politics in multiple ways through values, norms, identity and narratives told about the USA and the West more broadly, as well as stories told about other states and the international community as a whole. Further, the analysis highlights that religion and politics are not separated by the public/private divide but interact and influence one another. In these ways, the book both contributes to the important work of questioning the dominance of secular logic in International Relations, as well as offering one possible way of reconceptualizing religion in order to subvert the secularist bias and gain a more nuanced, comprehensive appraisal of the role of religion in global politics.
Religion, Civilization, Collective Subconscious and International Relations Theory
As I have worked on this book, many people have talked with me about it, and asked about its main focus, argument, and overall purpose. A common response when I say that the book is looking at religion and politics in the West and globally is “Oh, I think religion was much more influential under Bush than it is under Obama”, for example, or “John Howard’s religious beliefs influenced his politics a lot more than Kevin Rudd’s beliefs did”. These responses are interesting in themselves, since they reflect a seemingly widespread view, not restricted to International Relations and the social sciences, which equates religion with personal beliefs and values, a view that I question throughout this book. It also reflects a conception that “politics” is primarily concerned with the day-to-day democratic process, not with more historical and philosophical questions about the development of the norms and values that underpin these political processes. However, what these responses have emphasized for me is that I should make clear from the outset what this book is not concerned with. I do not focus on how much influence religion has appeared to have on politics under certain political leaders in specific national contexts at particular points in history, although each of these variables is important to consider. The overall focus of this book, however, is not these quite specific - one might say obvious - religious influences, nor is it primarily on the day-to-day workings of domestic politics and the actions of politicians, though both of these aspects are present and significant. Instead, this book is ultimately concerned with developing an understanding of religion that enables us to recognize its influence on
narratives and assumptions about the nature of the world and reality that are deeply embedded within Western societies, and which have to an extent permeated global political frameworks, alongside the more traditionally acknowledged influences from religious institutions and individuals. These implicit assumptions and narratives exist within what has been variously termed the “cosmology”, “collective subconscious” (Galtung 1996: 211) or “social imaginary” (Taylor 2007: 171-3) of the West. These assumptions both allow and enable political elites to utilize religious imagery and beliefs as legitimate ways to represent particular situations and events and to justify certain policy responses to those situations and events. Yet, without the influence of religion on these deeply embedded shared assumptions and narratives, political elites would be less able to draw on religion as a justificatory tool. Current approaches to religion in International Relations do not enable recognition of this embedded influence from religion, particularly in the West. The approach I suggest in this book offers one possible means for recognizing and understanding these embedded religious influences.
Despite the predominant neglect of religion, particularly its presence in embedded cultural assumptions, existing International Relations scholarship does offer some useful theoretical insights from which to begin the process of reconceptualizing religion. In particular, the English School and social constructivist theoretical traditions within International Relations offer insights on the role of culture, identity and ideas in world politics that can be used as a starting point for exploring religion in greater depth.
English School scholars challenge dominant realist, particularly neo-realist, assumptions that history, culture and religion are marginal to understandings of international politics. Authors in the English School, such as Martin Wight and Herbert Butterfield, emphasized the role of religion, especially Christianity, in shaping the modern West and the modern international states system, an insight that has, until recently, been obscured in dominant debates and discourses in International Relations. However, the English School stops short of suggesting that religion continues to influence politics today. Rather, English School scholars suggest the West is a post-Christian civilization. While remnants of Christianity exist in liberal thought and institutions, religion does not have a direct impact on politics in the West or at a global level (Wight 1948).
While the English School perspective alters the dominant narrative of secularists somewhat, paying homage to the formative role religion played in the development of the modern Western state and states-system, it still largely reinforces the secularist bias. Religion was important in global politics, but is not any more. The English School approach does not offer any explanation regarding the continued presence of religious imagery, metaphors, narratives and actors in the politics of the West and in global politics more generally. Examples of this continued influence include the controversy in France surrounding the wearing of religious symbols, in particular the hijab (Jones 2004: 154-155, Jones 2003), the rising political influence of religious lobby groups and political parties with links to religious denominations in Western states, such as Australia and the United States of America (USA) (Warhurst 2007; Smith and Marden 2008), and the growing number of Western politicians ready to publicly profess their faith and use religious language in the service of their political agenda.iii
Accepting the insights from the English School concerning religion’s historical influence on the development of the modern West and the international states-system, I suggest further that not only did religion have an important influence on the historical development of politics in the West, but it continues to have a direct impact on Western politics through a variety of avenues, in particular through political discourses, narratives and constructions of national, civilizational and to some extent global identity.
This emphasis on identities highlights a key shared assumption of my approach in this book with social constructivists, most notably the importance of ideas and identities in understanding world politics (Ruggie 1998: 862-3; Hobson 2002: 24-25; Reus-Smit 2002a: 129). Like constructivists, I hold that ideas and identities are not given or fixed but are developed, constructed and subjected to change through social interaction (Ruggie 1998: 862-3; Hobson 2002: 24-25; Reus-Smit 2002a: 129). The central concerns of this book, namely religion, secularism, the West and global politics, also correspond with the central focuses of the constructivist research agenda, as outlined by John Ruggie. Social constructivist research is concerned with “world views” (such as religion and secularism), “civilizational constructs [such as the West], cultural factors, states identities and the like” - ideas and assumptions that shape how actors perceive and respond to the world (Ruggie 1998: 867).
Scott Thomas (2005: 94) has argued that social constructivist research is limited by the assumptions of liberal modernity that underpin it. Specifically, Thomas highlights that the failure to examine the historical origins of social institutions and practices, through which constructivists argue ideas and identities are shaped, is a major weakness of constructivism. Thomas (2005) is not the only author to identify this as a problem within social constructivism. Christian Reus-Smit (1999; 2002a) and Michael Barnett (2002) have argued for the inclusion of certain aspects of historical sociology within social constructivism. Reus-Smit (2002b) further suggests that constructivists should pay greater attention to English School approaches. Thomas (2005: 94) highlights the English School as providing the means by which to partially overcome some of the problems he sees as inherent in social constructivism.
By combining English School and social constructivist approaches, I circumvent social constructivism’s failure to examine the historical origins of social institutions and practices. The book demonstrates the importance of identities and ideas as factors influencing state action in world politics through the case study examining the place of religion in US political discourse, national identity and foreign policy. This approach is consistent with social constructivism. The book also indicates, however, that the mere recognition of these ideas and identities is insufficient. How these ideas and identities developed and the embedded cultural assumptions that underpin them must also be understood, a methodological commitment gleaned from the English School. Through an historical overview of the development of mainstream secular logic within International Relations and its limiting effect on how religion is understood, I identify and challenge the influence of dualism on present conceptions of religion and politics in the West and at a global level, thus contributing to the critique of the secularist bias within International Relations.
Taking this critique further and reconceptualizing religion for International Relations, I combine constructivist assumptions with insights from feminism and postmodernism.iv In particular, I draw on the work of Raia Prokhovnik (2003) in critiquing dualism and Julia Kristeva’s exploration of Bahktinian dialogism to develop an alternative approach to understanding religion. This alternative analytical framework represents an attempt to overcome the limiting effects of dualistic thinking concerning religion and politics. Throughout the book, I also incorporate insights from theology and Judeo-Christian
scriptures to illuminate assumptions from religion about the nature of existential reality that permeate domestic and international politics, yet often go unacknowledged, since these assumptions have become embedded within the “deep culture” of the West (Galtung 1996). In this way, the book uses observations from the English School, social constructivism, feminism, postmodernism and theology to contribute to the critique of mainstream secularism in International Relations and offer a new way to consider the relationship between religion and politics. In doing so, the book offers a small contribution to one of the five areas in International Relations and comparative politics “ripe for development” that Daniel Philpott (2009: 198) has identified. The book offers a nuanced theory concerning the nature of religion and its relationship with politics in the West. As Philpott (2009: 198) predicted, this approach does indeed question the assumption that religion has “returned” to international politics, as many recent works have claimed (Petito and Hatzopoulos 2003; Mickelthwait and Wooldridge 2009). Instead my approach suggests, along with Hurd (2008: 3) that in fact, religion never went away.
The Problem of Dualism in International Relations
Dualism is a dominant influence in Western thought and academia (Ashley 1989; Bleiker 2001; Galtung 1996: 214; Prokhovnik 2003) and is frequently associated with the work of Rene Descartes on separating the mind and the body (Harth 1991: 149). Prokhovnik (2003: 4) argues that all other dualisms are essentially extensions of Descartes original mind/body dualism. Dualism separates concepts that, in fact, often exist in symbiotic relationships. It divides the world into containable, knowable, separated parts, providing scholars with a means of making sense of the world (Galtung 1996: 215). Frequently, those containable, knowable, separated parts are positioned in opposition to one another, in an “either/or” relationship enforced by dualism. For example, something is either “religious” or it is “secular” – it cannot be both. Western scholarly thinking has been predisposed to explain and interpret history, society and world politics in the context of oppositions. “IR theory and Western conceptualising in general have traditionally been based on the juxtaposition of antagonistic bipolar opposites” (Bleiker 2001: 181). International Relations scholars have noted how these bipolar opposites have affected understandings of world politics through subordination of certain opposing elements. Michael Walzer (2004) has highlighted this tendency in liberal politics, specifically with reference to reason and passion. Passion is
separated from and subordinated to reason (Walzer, 2004: 122). Feminist authors in and outside of International Relations emphasize how these “conceptual dichotomies” have been used to describe differences between men and women and in many cases to subordinate women to men (Tickner, 1998: 431; Prokhovnik, 2003; Tickner, 2006: 387). Ashley (1989: 261) argues that the use of these practical oppositions is a central component of the modern discourse, a discourse that is heavily indebted to liberalism. In viewing the world through these practical oppositions, one side of each opposition becomes privileged and the other is subordinated.
These relationships of privilege and subordination are managed in Western and International society by the public/private divide. Privileged concepts are situated in the public realm, while subordinate terms are privatized. The public/private divide is considered one of the key tenets of liberalism (Eberle 2002a: 76-77) and a principal characteristic of the West (O’Hagan 2002: 43; Scruton 2002: 10-11). The public realm contains all those elements that are based in reason and that relate to the common good, arbitrated or mediated by the state through the process of politics. The private realm contains all those elements that relate to the individual, which are often viewed as being not entirely based in reason and consequently considered irrational. A similar, though increasingly problematic, division between domestic and international politics appears to operate at the global level and is managed through sovereignty and the norm of non-intervention (Brown 1998: 6-9). Whatever is considered rational and relates to society as a whole is positioned within the public realm (Sullivan 1990: 155). Whatever is deemed irrational and individual is restricted to the private realm. Dichotomous thinking further affects this division by privileging elements within the public realm over elements within the private, creating “antagonistic bipolar opposites” (Bleiker 2001: 181).
Social science and International Relations analyses have consequently tended to focus on public realm phenomena, giving little attention to private realm elements. Investigations have in general failed to consider that the public/private divide is largely artificial and that elements of the private realm impact on elements in the public. Equally, at the level of international politics, the divide between domestic and international is misleading, since domestic politics influence a state’s behaviour internationally and global events impact on the internal politics of the state. This is to say nothing of transnational actors such as
non-government organizations and multi-national corporations that operate across state boundaries and frequently influence global politics (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Conceptualizing domestic and international society in terms of the public/private divide leads to incomplete understandings of relationships between different issues and is increasingly untenable in an era of globalization (Hopkins, Lorentzen, Mendieta, and Batstone 2001:1–2; Steger 2008: 11). This is particularly true of understandings of the relationship between religion and politics.
Dualism and Secularism
Dominant modes of secularism within International Relations are, I suggest, inherently dualistic. The “secular” is primarily used as a category to differentiate from the “religious” (Casanova 2009: 1049). This immediately establishes a dualism between what is “secular” and what is “religious”, although, as shall be highlighted throughout the book, categories such as these are not fixed. What is secular and what is religious shift depending on socio-historical, political, cultural, economic, theological and environmental circumstances.
It is important to distinguish between the secular, secularism (and secularist), and secularization. The three are obviously related and all, in large part, are indebted to the Enlightenment commitment to reason and logic over seemingly irrational superstition and belief (Berger 1999: 2; Fox 2001: 56; Casanova 2009: 1049-1051). Following Hurd (2008: 12-13) and Taylor (2007: 2), I understand secularism as “the public settlement of the relationship between religion and politics”. This public settlement is by no means consistent or homogenous across the geographical and cultural contexts within the West and takes on numerous forms, which I discuss in greater depth in Chapter One. Nonetheless secularism as a public settlement is broadly considered a defining societal characteristic of the West (Taylor 2007: 1). Associated with this public settlement may be other characteristics, such as the gradual decline in religious belief and practice, alongside a shift in the nature of belief itself, where belief in God (in particular the Judeo-Christian God) used to be considered essential and is now but one amongst many possibilities (Taylor 2007: 2-3). In this sense, secularism refers to the possibilities for choosing for oneself what religion to believe in, if any at all. Secularism as a public settlement of the relationship
between religion and politics both makes possible and is facilitated by the decline in religious belief and the shift in the nature of belief (Taylor 2007: 4).
An important part of this public settlement is the identification and separation of what Taylor (2007: 15-16) and Casanova (2009) refer to as the immanent and the transcendent or the natural and the supernatural. As Charles Taylor (2007: 15) has argued, “[o]ne of the great inventions of the West [and, I would argue, of secularism in particular] was that of an immanent order in Nature, whose working could be systematically understood and explained on its own terms” without reference to a transcendental order. From a dualistic secular perspective, then, politics and the secular make up the realm of the immanent, while religion constitutes the realm of the transcendental. The public settlement between religion and politics has in part facilitated and been facilitated by the distinction and separation of the immanent and the transcendent and the predominant removal of the transcendent from Western society and public life.
Yet, as Hurd (2008) has emphasized, the public settlement of the relationship between religion and politics has gradually taken on a form of discursive, ideological and productive power in many contexts within the modern West, particularly within the discipline of International Relations. “Secularism produces authoritative settlements of religion and politics, while simultaneously claiming to be exempt from this process of production” (Hurd 2008: 16). As such, mainstream secularism, understood in an ideological sense, in some measure exercises control over the ways in which religion manifests in politics and public life.v In part this is achieved by the separation of the immanent and transcendent and the exclusion of issues pertaining to the transcendent in public life. The transcendent is not permitted within the public sphere, partly because it is seen as irrational, partly because the nature of the transcendent is highly contested. With regard to personal, private beliefs about the transcendent, as much as secularism produces public settlements that open up opportunities for choice concerning religious commitment, it also frequently carries an implicit assumption that, when given the choice, most people will choose non-belief (Taylor 2007: 3, 12). “[T]he presumption of unbelief has become dominant in more and more… milieux; and has achieved hegemony in certain crucial ones, in the academic and intellectual life, for instance; whence it can more easily extend itself to others” (Taylor 2007: 13).
What this book is particularly interested in is how dominant modes of secularism within International Relations, such as those identified by Hurd (2008) as forms of discursive, ideological and productive power, have limited the way we conceptualize religion and the implications of this for International Relations analysis. I propose that secularism has produced a highly limited yet dominant and permeating definition of religion within International Relations as primarily institutional, individual and irrational, concerned only or primarily with the transcendent and consequently of little relevance to politics and public life. Secularism is strongly influenced by the Western experience and the JudeoChristian tradition (Hurd 2008: 6, 23), making an analysis of secularism’s effect on understanding religion in the context of Western politics especially apt. Secularism is also intimately connected with the political philosophy of liberalism (Fox 2001: 54; Thomas 2005: 39). As such, the book includes an analysis and critique of liberal approaches to religion and its relationship with politics, since these have played a critical part in the formation of secularist thinking and its manifestation in the social sciences, including International Relations. Through Western colonialism, this particularly Western experience of limiting religion spread, interacting with and influencing “the many different ways in which other civilizations had drawn boundaries between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane,’ ‘transcendent’ and ‘immanent,’ ‘religious’ and ‘secular’” (Casanova 2009: 1063). This process has in part contributed to notions that secularism and secularization are universal experiences and natural phenomena (Eberle 2002a: 312-4; Hurd 2008:14-16; Casanova 2009: 1052-3).
I use secularization to refer to the observable historical process of managing the relationship between religion and politics in the Western social and political context and to distinguish this process from the ideological project of secularism (Hurd 2008: 13). Secularization involves the gradual restriction or removal of religious influences in the public realm, the separation of the transcendent and supernatural from the immanent and natural, through various institutional, political, legal, social and even theological mechanisms. The process of secularization is driven in part by a commitment to the overall principles of secularism. Hence the process of secularization takes on different forms, depending on which variant of secularism is driving it, as well as depending on other political, economic, cultural, geographical and
historical factors. Several authors have suggested that although the West is generally characterized as “secular”, it is a very religious, especially Judeo-Christian, type of secularization. They highlight this through emphasizing specific Western liberal values, such as equality, tolerance, the rule of law and the separation of church and state, that have strong connections to values in the Judeo-Christian tradition (Hurd 2008; Samantrai 2000: 105, 118; Wilson 1992: 208; Zacher and Matthew 1995: 111).vi Whilst secularization occurs differently in different national and regional contexts, even in France, perhaps the most staunchly secular nation in the West, its secularization is acknowledged to be influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, both in theory and in practice (Jones 2004: 154-155, Jones 2003), and Catholicism still plays a significant role in French society, culture and national identity (The Economist, 9 April 2005).
The secularization of the West, then, is not as straight forward as the somewhat simplistic understanding of secularization as the absence of religion from politics in the public sphere or the separation of church and state, though these are still important facets. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that Western processes of secularization involve the overt disassociation of certain public values with the Judeo-Christian tradition, while still retaining the general spirit of those values; the removal of the transcendent while retaining the imprint of the transcendent on the immanent. This suggests that dualism is an important part of secularism and processes of secularization, promoting the separation of the public and private spheres, the separation of church and state, the separation of the natural and the supernatural, and the exclusion of explicitly religious ideas from the public realm. Secularism and processes of secularization are consequently important in understanding why religion’s influence on politics has been and continues to be problematic within International Relations. It further highlights the centrality of dualism within the secularist bias that obscures understandings of religion in International Relations.
Religion: Three dichotomies
A significant part of the dualistic secularism that has influenced International Relations is a limited definition of religion that restricts understanding of the multiple ways in which religion influences
and interacts with politics in the West and globally. This definition has emerged primarily with reference to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and, I suggest, operates mainly around three dichotomies. The three dichotomies are: institutional/ideational, individual/communal and irrational/rational. According to this conceptual model, religion is either institutional or it is ideational, either individual or communal, either irrational or rational. The six elements cannot co-exist within a dominant secular dualistic framework.
The first of these dichotomies relates to religion as an institution or religion as a set of ideas. Religion, I propose, is both institutional and ideational, not one or the other. The overall tendency within International Relations, however, has been to focus on the institutional aspects of religion, especially in the context of the West. Religion’s institutional element is observable and tangible and thus, easier to examine, in contrast to religion’s ideational influences, which are more subtle, implicit and intangible. This focus on the institutional element of religion, coupled with the separation of church and state and the public/private divide, highlights in part why the influence of religion on politics has only been partially understood within International Relations.vii
The second dichotomy refers to whether religion exercises influence at an individual level or at a broader communal level. Again, I argue that religion’s influence operates at both levels. However, International Relations scholars have tended to assume that the influence of religion functions primarily at the individual level in the West and even here, its influence is on the wane. This perception of religion as mainly important to individuals is reinforced by the public/private divide. Liberal advocates of secularism also promote the idea that religion should only function at the individual level and should not influence politics and society (Cudd 2002: 125 n.19; Dombrowski 2001: 4; Thomas 2000: 819). Assumptions that religion has been successfully and almost wholly excluded from the public realm in general and politics in particular have led International Relations scholars to overlook religion in analyses of Western and global politics until relatively recently.
The third dichotomy involves whether religion is seen as rational or irrational. This dichotomy reflects two influences from the secularist bias, one at a micro-level, within the dominant secularist framework itself and one at a broader macro-level, external to the secular worldview. Within the mainstream secularist framework, especially in International Relations, religion has overwhelmingly been
considered irrational.viii This view carries over from the influence of liberalism on the social sciences and the West generally. It is also closely connected to religion’s perceived focus on the transcendent and supernatural, which the dominant modern liberal secular framework views as irrational and not relevant to politics and public life. The effect of this liberal influence on International Relations is that religion is considered relevant only to analyses of developing societies and to considerations of factors, such as ethnicity, culture and identity, long regarded as peripheral to International Relations. Ethnicity, culture and identity have also frequently been considered “irrational” within International Relations, to the extent that they are highly contested and variable, rather than fixed and unchanging (Lapid 1996: 7-8; Wendt 1996: 62). Consequently, ethnicity, culture and identity have also been excluded from mainstream International Relations analysis (Hudson 1997: 1-2). However, since the end of the Cold War, greater efforts have been made to engage more critically with ethnicity, culture and identity. The engagement with religion has been much more tentative, especially with regard to the influence of religion in the politics of the apparently secular, modern states of the West. There is, however, a growing, albeit still small, acknowledgement that aspects of religion can be consistent with liberal secular definitions of what is rational, as well as displaying some “irrational” characteristics.
Yet even this growing acceptance that religion can be “rational” within the secular worldview reflects a broader macro-level problem. The very notions of what are considered “rational” and “irrational” adhere to a liberal secularist perspective. The “rational” is almost always equated with what is “good” and the “irrational” with what is “bad”. This does not take into account that other non-Westernliberal-secular perspectives have very different understandings of what is rational and what is irrational; that something could be both irrational and rational; that “irrational” can be “good”, “rational” can be “bad”; that it is not necessary or helpful to assign value judgements to these categories; or that rational and irrational may not even be part of these alternative epistemological and ontological frameworks. For example, within a liberal secular framework, reference to God is considered irrational, since there is no way to prove categorically that God exists (Eberle 2002a: 313-314). From a Judeo-Christian theological perspective, however, reference to God is entirely rational, since God is the beginning and end of all
creation. These circumstances require us to step passed the dominant secularist framework for thinking about religion, particularly public expressions of religion and its influence on politics.
Rather than consigning faith to individuals further behind on a linear, objective path of universal progress (an eschatological vision of secularism now widely abandoned by secular theorists, Taylor, 2007; Torpey, 2010), religion needs to be seen to reflect a different set of fundamental values across communities. Religion, namely, is not irrational so much as it is non-rational. It simply does not consider pure reason (that is reason uninformed by faith) to be the ultimate arbiter of truth. (Ager and Ager 2010: 8)
As well as differences between secular and religious frameworks concerning what is considered rational and irrational, perspectives on what is rational and irrational within religious/theological worldviews shifts. Different members of the same religious denomination may have completely opposing views on whether referring to God or other supernatural and transcendental phenomena in public political discourses is rational or irrational, for example, depending on their beliefs regarding the separation of church and state. Thus, the categories of rational and irrational need to be considered fluid. As such, a relational dialogist theoretical framework further recommends itself to the study of religion and politics.
The relational dialogist model operates on a “both-and” framework, meaning that something can be both rational and irrational, not the either/or dualistic framework inherent within secularism, which says that something must be either rational or irrational, but cannot ever be both.
By calling into question these macro-level assumptions about what is rational and irrational, the book draws on and contributes to previous work by scholars in the areas of emotion and aesthetics who challenge established notions of “common sense”. Bleiker (2009: 29) claims “the aesthetic model of thought challenges the construction of common sense that has given social science, and instrumental reason in general, the power to synchronise the senses and claim the high ground in the interpretation of world politics”. Religious models of thought operate in much the same way. Through questioning the seemingly unquestionable categories of what is “rational” and what is “irrational”, the book further
promotes a “shift in sensibilities” (Bleiker 2009: 29) away from the dualistic patterns of thought implicit in the secularist bias in International Relations.
The dichotomous view of religion as predominantly institutional, individual and irrational to some extent accounts for the more cautious and partial considerations of religion’s relationship with politics, particularly in the West, by International Relations scholars. Yet, as Bretherton (2010: 15) highlights, the contemporary context provides a setting in which traditional, established dualisms, or binary oppositions, are being challenged. “The contemporary context may be described as a postsecularist space… a period in which, for the first time, multiple modernities, each with their respective relationship to religious belief and practice, are overlapping and interacting within the same shared, predominantly urban spaces” (Bretherton 2010: 15, emphasis in original). It is this postsecularist space with its multiple modernities that challenges existing binary oppositions – “secular and religious, tolerant and intolerant, public and private, conservative and radical, and left and right” - causing them to fall apart (Bretherton 2010: 15). The same is true for the binary oppositions within religion itself. These dualisms are also being challenged and are beginning to break down, compelling us to rethink our approach to religion as well as religion’s relationship with various aspects of politics and society.
In contrast to the dualistic definition of religion as mainly institutional, individual and irrational that dominates mainstream International Relations, I develop an analytical framework based on relational dialogism for exploring religion that does away with such false dualisms. This framework encompasses religion’s institutional, ideational, individual, communal, irrational and rational elements, valuing them equally, recognising the ongoing interconnections and interactions amongst them and infused with an understanding of religion’s existential concern with and influence on both the immanent and the transcendent. A relational dialogist framework will make an important contribution to overcoming the effects of dualism and moving beyond the secularist bias within International Relations. This relational dialogist framework provides the basis for a working definition of religion, albeit shifting and contextspecific (referring to political, geographical, historical, cultural, economic, theological, environmental factors). While fluidity is important to bear in mind when thinking about religion, it is equally important to provide a grounded definition for what we mean by the “real” observable manifestations of religion
that are present in everyday life. Religion is, as I use the term throughout the book, an internally logical set of ideas and beliefs about the nature of existential reality (encompassing the immanent as well as the transcendent) that shapes and is shaped by both individual and community identity and action, and which may be facilitated and practiced through institutional arrangements, rituals and/or symbols. In developing this definition I draw on the work of scholars such as Peter Mandaville and Paul James (2010: xii-xiii), who define religion as “a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing”. Mandaville and James (2010: xxix, fn.13) developed this definition in part to move away from the inherent dualism between “immanence/transcendence, spirituality/materialism, and sacredness/secularity” that is found in many definitions of religion within International Relations and the social sciences more generally and as such offers a useful basis for a more comprehensive definition of religion for International Relations. Another important aspect of their definition is the recognition, in line with Strenski (2010: 49), that context (“relatively-bounded”) is a significant part of how religion needs to be reconceptualised. My definition builds on this by specifically acknowledging the place of institutions and religious non-government organizations which, while not present in all religions, play a significant role in globally dominant religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and in political contexts important in the study of International Relations, such as development, as Jeffrey Haynes (2007) has noted. In addition, by incorporating an acknowledgement of historical context and the influence of beliefs and ideas on community identity and state action, my definition opens up space to explore the embedded, implicit assumptions from religion concerning the nature of existential reality that permeate a society’s collective subconscious. Further, my definition provides the beginnings of a conceptual path to move from thinking about religion as wholly irrational, a dominant trend within International Relations, to recognize its rational dimensions both within and beyond a liberal secular framework. As such, the definition that I offer, in line with the relational dialogist conceptual framework that I develop more throughout this book, provides a means for moving from dominant conceptions of religion that are constrained by a dualistic focus on religion’s institutional, individual and irrational elements to a definition that recognises all six
dimensions through which religious assumptions about the nature of existential reality can infuse politics and public life.
After Secularism in the Practice of Politics - Religion and the USA
After developing the relational dialogist alternative to dominant secular dualist conceptions of religion, I apply this alternative approach to a case study of the USA. There are significant reasons that make the USA the most appropriate choice for a case study exploring the relationship between religion and politics in the West, despite there being a large amount of research that already exists on religion and US politics. It must also be acknowledged that the USA is different from many other Western states with regard to its relationship with religion and the particular type of secularism that dominates the political sphere in the US (McConnell 2009; Kuru 2007). However, the value of the case study does not lie in what it contributes regarding the relationship between US politics and religion. Rather, the significance of the case study lies in the contribution to developing a framework for analysis of religion and politics that reconceptualizes religion and thus moves passed the secularist bias within International Relations. If the relational dialogist approach to religion is able to draw out new insights on the relationship between religion and politics in the USA, where a significant amount is already known, this suggests that the relational dialogist approach will also be useful for developing more nuanced understandings of religion and politics in contexts where the connections are perhaps not as overt as they are in the US.
A large number of studies of religion and US politics tend to define religion as institutional, individual and irrational. Whilst notable exceptions do exist (Campbell 1998; Bellah 2005), mainstream International Relations scholarship gives scant attention to the insights that may be gained by including the ideational, communal and rational elements of religion. This again highlights the limitations present in existing research on this issue and the need for exploring alternative ways of thinking about religion and politics in International Relations.
The USA is also a suitable state for a case study because it is the pre-eminent Western state in world politics, despite recent questions raised about its power and influence as a result of the global financial crisis (Drezner 2009). For the majority of the time in which International Relations has existed as a field of study, the most powerful Western state has been the USA. Its culture, politics and national
identity have a significant effect on how the West as a civilizational identity is defined and understood.ix
Thus the relationship between US politics and religion has a significant impact on how the relationship between religion and Western and global politics is viewed.
Bellah (2005: 52) has also highlighted that the “civil religion” that operates in the USA provides a critical link between the “profoundest commitments of Western religious and philosophical traditions” and the ideas that shape and influence the beliefs and behaviours of ordinary American citizens. This link between dominant articulations of national identity and state purpose and broader Western civilizational history and identity provides further justification for the importance of the USA as a case study with insights for understanding the relationship between religion and politics in the broader West. Galtung (1996: 247-52) has also noted the central place of the USA within the broader civilizational identity of the West.
Finally, the tension between religion and secularism within conceptions of the West is also evident within the USA. The USA, like the West, is described in turn as either secular, or as heavily influenced by religion. The USA was the first modern, European-influenced state to be established without an official state church (Taylor 2007: 2; Wolfe 2003). The principle of the separation of church and state has always played a significant role in US politics. Yet, the strong religious themes in US national identity and the influence of religious lobby groups on US domestic politics is well documented. This somewhat confusing and ambiguous situation provides an ideal case study for scrutinizing how religion continues to influence Western and global politics.
Structure of the Book
This book is at its essence concerned with rethinking religion in International Relations and global politics. In order to do this, the book examines the historical context from which modern International Relations and global politics emerged, considers the impact of this context on the development of notions about religion and its relationship with politics, before exploring alternative ways of thinking about this significant issue.
The first two chapters of the book outline the ways in which dominant modes of secularist thinking have affected International Relations approaches to religion. The first chapter focuses particularly on how mainstream secularism has influenced perceptions of religion’s importance for global politics, while the second addresses how prevailing secularist assumptions in International Relations have contributed to the development of a dichotomized definition of religion that dominates much International Relations analysis. The first chapter provides an historical and theoretical overview of secularism, its internal logic and its impact on International Relations theory regarding the place of religion in global politics and International Relations analysis. The chapter explores the historical emergence of secularism within the political and cultural context of the West, highlighting that secularism is underpinned by dualistic thinking. This dualism situates secularism as an antagonistic bipolar opposite to religion.
I suggest that there are four key moves that secularism makes that have affected International Relations theory and its approach to religion. The first of these is establishing and emphasizing the supposed need to separate religion and politics, as part of a broader project of separating “rationalism” from “irrationality.” The second move is the actual exclusion of religion from politics. The third move is the imposition of the public/private divide to enforce and maintain the separation and exclusion of religion (along with all other “irrational” influences on politics and society such as emotion, culture, history and tradition). The fourth move is to uphold the exclusion of religion as part of progress and development. According to this fourth proposal, only undeveloped, pre-modern societies allow religion to influence politics and public life. This emphasis on progress and development also leads to a privileging of the present and the future over the past, with history being devalued as an important factor influencing politics and public life. The chapter explores philosophical and historical contributions to the development of these four moves of secularism, before going on to highlight how these four assumptions within mainstream secularism have impacted on International Relations theory and efforts to conceptualize religion’s relationship with politics. A number of dualistic assumptions persist
within International Relations theory and continue to impact on approaches to understanding religion and politics, especially within the context of developed societies where secularism is held to be a key feature of public life, namely the societies that constitute the West. Perceptions of religion and politics in the West are affected by assumptions about the relationship of religion to progress and development, history and how it interacts with elements of the public realm, in particular politics.
Yet as well as being affected by assumptions about religion’s relationship with a number of other factors, International Relations approaches to religion and politics are affected at a more fundamental level by perceptions concerning the nature of religion itself. The second chapter examines specifically how secularist logic has limited understanding of religion within International Relations. The dichotomized definition of religion as institutional, individual and irrational is not independent of the secular dualist assumptions in International Relations theory outlined in Chapter One but is influenced by and contributes to reinforcing these assumptions. Religion’s position within the private realm and its association with culture, emotion, history and tradition (Editors 1996: 1) relate to key elements in how religion is defined and understood within International Relations. I propose that International Relations scholars have largely understood religion as institutional, individual and irrational. Such a definition enables religion to be more easily separated from politics and public life. Religious institutions are separated from political institutions by law. Religion becomes a matter of personal belief and conviction, one that cannot be enforced on others or promoted beyond the private realm of family and individual life. Religion’s irrationality (which is connected to its focus on the transcendent) provides justification for keeping it in the private realm, along with other “irrational”, intangible potential influences on politics and public life – emotion, culture, history and tradition. The chapter explores religion in canonical mainstream and marginal texts within International Relations scholarship, arguing that despite important contributions at the margins, mainstream International Relations scholars have by and large perpetuated the dualistic understanding of religion as institutional, individual and irrational.
Chapters One and Two highlight the continued influence of the dualistic logic inherent in mainstream secularism on International Relations theory, understandings of religion’s relationship with politics and understandings of religion itself. Despite the significant advances made in the critique of secularist logic in International Relations, this logic continues to limit analysis through its restriction on how religion is conceptualized in International Relations. This suggests the need for alternative approaches to understanding religion in International Relations, for overcoming the dualistic influences on how religion is conceptualized and enabling a fuller, more nuanced analysis of its impact on global politics.
Chapter Three engages with work from feminist and postmodern scholars on dualism to develop an alternative model for thinking about and analysing religion and Western politics.
Feminist authors such as Raia Prokhovnik (2003) have proposed relational thought models as an effective means for challenging masculine dichotomous hierarchies in Western intellectual and cultural traditions. Julia Kristeva’s (1986) reading of Mikhail Bahktin’s theory of dialogue provides a means through which scholars can understand that relationships amongst elements within religion and Western politics are not static, defined and finite, but fluid, constantly in conversation with each other, shifting and changing. I draw on Kristeva and Prokhovnik to develop an alternative theoretical approach, relational dialogism, for understanding religion and its relationship with politics in the West. Using the relational dialogist approach, the chapter then examines key political norms and values associated with the West, highlighting the ways in which religious narratives and values have become embedded within dominant Western political stories, norms and processes.
There is little benefit in proposing an alternative theoretical approach to analysing religion in International Relations if it cannot be applied to real world political contexts. Thus, Chapters Four and Five utilize the relational dialogist approach to explore the impact of religion on politics in the USA. In particular, the analysis is concerned with drawing out the influence of religion’s traditionally neglected elements – its ideational, communal and rational elements. To achieve this, the chapters focus specifically on how religion contributes to constructions of national
identity, with some attention to broader Western civilizational and global identities. The case study examines the use of religious rhetoric, narratives, values and imagery on ways in which global politics are interpreted and responded to in US politics at specific points of significance in recent history. I utilize the methodology of discourse analysis to apply the relational dialogist framework to the construction of US national identity and the development, justification and implementation of policy in response to important global events.
Chapter Four provides important background information for the case study. It begins with a brief historical overview of key themes and trends in US national identity, noting influence from religion, and how these themes have manifested in US engagement in global politics from time to time. This overview draws history into the analysis of religion’s influence on politics. The chapter also outlines the historical development of the State of the Union addresses and provides important background information to each of the six speeches included in the analysis. In preparation for the discourse analysis, the chapter also highlights key words and phrases associated with the six different elements of the relational dialogist understanding of religion. This identification of key words and phrases forms a critical part of drawing out the influence of religion in the six speeches in the discourse analysis.
Against this historical and contextual backdrop, Chapter Five provides examples of how religion influences constructions of identity and responses to global events within the USA through a discourse analysis of six State of the Union addresses. The purpose of the discourse analysis is to demonstrate how different elements of religion have become embedded within US political discourse and culture over time, to the point where their presence is considered “natural”. Traditional approaches to religion within International Relations often miss these embedded elements because they are mainly focused on the influences of religious institutions and the personal beliefs of political elites, rather than the more subtle influence of religious ideas, narratives and imagery on shaping community identity and values. The chapter also draws out insights with regard to broader Western civilizational and international identities, highlighting the need for exploring the role of religious ideas, imagery and narratives throughout the historical
development of the West, the international community and global politics more generally. The case study demonstrates the utility of a broader, more fluid approach to understanding religion and its relationship with politics in International Relations, thus contributing further to destabilizing International Relation’s secularist narrative.
In the conclusion, I highlight the contribution of the book to the critique of secularism in International Relations theory and developing alternative ways of thinking about religion. I note, however, that there is still a need for more thoughtful, critical engagement by International Relations scholars with religion and politics in a variety of geographical, cultural, political and historical contexts. I consider the possibilities for future research, which could apply the relational dialogism model to other case studies from within the Western context, such as Great Britain, France, Germany and Australia. This could then be extended to examine the utility of relational dialogism for comparative analyses of religion and politics between Western and nonWestern states, examining the implications of this for relations between Western and nonWestern state and non-state actors. Relational dialogism could also be applied to studies of religions from outside the Western (Judeo-Christian) tradition, such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. The compatibility of the relational dialogist model with methodologies other than critical discourse analysis could also be explored. Finally, it is important to remember that relational dialogism is but one alternative way for thinking about religion in International Relations. Numerous other possibilities exist and should continue to be explored, developed and refined as part of the broader critique of secularism and efforts to reconceptualize religion within International Relations.
The primary contribution of the book is the development of an analytical framework for International Relations that reconceptualizes religion in an effort to move beyond the dualistic secular bias. In an unconventional yet effective way, it combines a broad macro-level analysis of the development of dominant ideas and assumptions regarding secularism, religion and politics with a micro-level exploration of how these ideas and assumptions impact on the everyday discursive development of state identity and action within current world politics. The book also relies on a multidisciplinary approach,
drawing together insights from a wide and disparate array of literature including International Relations, philosophy, history, sociology and theology.
This broad approach highlights and in some ways addresses the Western academic tendency to compartmentalize knowledge, separating issues and ideas that are in fact interrelated. Not only does the book advocate the transcendence of dualism in relation to religion, it also provides an example of the insights to be gained by breaking down the barriers between different subject areas within academic enquiry. As such, the book shows that the history of ideas is intimately connected to understandings of power, identity and state action in modern world politics. It also demonstrates that civilizational identity and religion, rather than being abstract or irrelevant concepts, are central to a comprehensive understanding of global politics in the twenty-first century.
Notes
Introduction
i Fox. 2004. Religion, Civilization and Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, p1
ii Philpott. 2009. “Has the Study of Global Politics found Religion?” Annual Review of Political Science 12: 184
iii Recent examples include Barack Obama (Mansfield 2008), Hilary Clinton (The Washington Times 2008) and George W. Bush (Mirra 2003) in the United States; Tony Blair (Hinsliff 2007; Strenski 2010: 28-30) and Gordon Brown (Beckford 2009; Winnett 2009) in the United Kingdom; Nicolas Sarkozy in France (McNicoll 2008); Angela Merkel in Germany (Case 2006; Watt 2006); Kevin Rudd (Abbott 2007; ABC 2005; Burchell 2007; Rudd 2006), Tony Abbott (Burchell 2007) and John Howard (Donald and Inggulden 2007) in Australia.
iv I recognise that some scholars will object to this combination of theories because in many respects these theories have largely incompatible views of the nature of international relations, the sources of power, order and authority, conceptions of peace and the most effective ways for pursuing that peace in global politics. I do not for one minute wish to suggest that these theories can effectively be combined with regard to all issues within International Relations scholarship. That is not the purpose of this book. My objective here is to rethink religion, a largely under-theorised area of International Relations. These theories all, in their own ways, offer unique and useful approaches for how to begin reconceptualising religion to achieve a more nuanced, comprehensive analysis of religion’s role and influence in contemporary global politics.
v Defining secularism as a form of ideological power is not without its problems, in part as a result of multiple forms and definitions of secularism but also contested understandings of ideology within political science. Knight (2006: 623) argues that the “core definition” of ideology is coherence, meaning “a relatively stable set of interrelated ideas”. On the basis of this core definition, secularism can arguably be understood at the very least as ideological in nature, if not an ideology in its own right, since secularism promotes a set of relatively stable ideas concerning how society should be organised and how the relationship between religion and politics should be managed. In contrast, Freeden (2001: 6) defines ideologies as “the arrangements of political thought that illuminate the central ideas, overt assumptions and unstated biases that in turn drive political conduct”. On this understanding, it may be more appropriate to consider secularism as a core concept (Freeden 2003; Steger 2009) of the political ideology of liberalism (Fox 2001: 54; Thomas 2005: 39), not an ideological formation in its own right, since secularism may be considered one of the “assumptions or biases” that drive political conduct. Many of the main claims of liberal political ideology are founded upon assumptions of secularism as a key defining feature of contemporary Western society, in particular notions of individual freedom and the separation of political and religious authorities through the division of society into public and private spheres. While secularism is also a key feature of socialism and of some totalitarian political ideologies, such as communism (Freeden 2003), this may be a reflection of the historical origins of these political ideologies in the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions, which encompassed the rejection of religion. All this does not necessarily mean that understanding secularism as an ideology in its own right or as a part of the broader ideology of liberalism are necessarily inconsistent or mutually exclusive. It is possible that secularism may be understood as operating at both levels, albeit as
different types of secularism in each case. This further suggests that the question of the ideological status of secularism, as an ideology in its own right or as a core concept of overarching political ideologies, requires further investigation. Nonetheless, designating the dominant mode of secularist thought in International Relations as “ideological” seems broadly consistent with accepted notions of the core definition of ideology (Knight 2006). My thanks to Prof Manfred Steger for highlighting this issue.
vi Although, as Sen (2006) has argued, there is little evidence to suggest that these ideas are peculiarly Western. Variations of these ideas and values are present in a number of non-Western cultures and traditions as well. Rather, these ideas have been presented as Western by both Western and non-Western scholars, most notably as part of the ‘Asian values’ debate.
vii This emphasis on religion’s institutional dimension is particularly problematic when looking at religions that do not have as strong an institutional dimension as the Judeo-Christian tradition.
viii The irrational/rational dichotomy is problematic because both terms are highly contested. From a Western liberal perspective, irrational refers to any concept, belief or value not arrived at by human reason, that must be taken on faith. Rational refers to principles and ideas that can be justified through secular human reason alone, even although they may have had their origin in religion (Arblaster 1984: 79; Geuss 2001: 57-58). Despite its problems, however, it is a central part of how religion has been understood and also why religion has been neglected in relation to Western politics.
ix See, for example, Morgenthau 1985: 373-4.