A Critical Review of the Literature

Chapter 2

Scholarship on Religion and World Politics:

1. Introduction

Tis chapter provides a critical review of some of the more central stud-ies connecting religious factors to international confict and cooperation as well as to matters of domestic political confict and stability. Much of this literature is quite recent; the study of religion and world politics was a fairly marginal topic in the mainstream IR literature up to the early 1990s. Te focus on cultural factors, in general, and on religious factors, in particular, as explanatory variables in the study of confict, cooperation, and internal political processes did not attract much attention during the Cold War era.

Studies using religion as an explanatory variable of international and domestic processes in the post–Cold War era produced many important insights. However, as is the case with any emerging trend in the study of complex issues, this literature involves multiple polemical and theoretical debates, a great deal of diversity in terms of scope, quality, and rigor, and—

as we demonstrate in the following chapters—largely mixed results. Our focus here is on the central theoretical insights into the linkages between religion and international political processes. We discuss the key ideas and identify some logical and methodological weaknesses that characterize this literature. More focused reviews of specifc aspects of these linkages—for example, the linkage between religion and international or internal confict, and between religion and international cooperation—are provided in the analytical chapters on these topics.

Before we go into the substance of this literature, we point out some of its more general features. First, it is important to note that the proliferation of the religion and politics literature has yielded a large number of writ-ings, many of them polemical or works of advocacy. Tere are numerous calls to introduce more religion-related concepts, theories, and empirical works into the study of IR (Fox and Sandler 2004, Sandal and James 2011, Snyder 2011 and several of the articles in that volume). Other publica-tions debate whether religion infuenced the writings of various IR scholars, whether religious factors were missing or present from key paradigms of IR, or whether they could be integrated into one or more of the existing paradigms (e.g., the writings of the authors in Troy 2014, Sandal and James 2011, Snyder 2011). Tese are useful but do not really add to our knowl-edge about when, how, and why religious factors help explain key aspects of world politics. Tey tell us where to look, but they do not tell us how to fnd what we are looking for. Tese writings lack a clear theory of the linkages between religious factors and international or domestic political behavior. Nor do they contain empirical results concerning such linkages.

Still other treatises question whether religion can be classifed or quan-tifed (Fitzgerald 2011), criticizing both empirical and more philosophi-cal writings on religion and international relations. Other studies question whether it is possible to generalize the concepts of secularism, religiosity, and the relations between religion and state (Hurd 2008), casting them in a postmodernist context where everything is blurred and socially manipu-lated in a hierarchical power structure. Some may think such polemics are useful and enlightening; we do not. Logically, one cannot use terms like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, political institutions, power, or state with-out defning them. Once these terms are defned, the boundaries of such concepts are set. Tere are things that fall into the parametric structure of the defnition, and things that do not. Tis is inherent in defnitions. Such defnitions may not establish a metric that has lower and upper bounds (or left and right ends of a continuum), and units of measurement that divide this continuum into parts. Tey do, however, include a conceptualization that allows distinguishing genders, individuals by family name or school enrollment, streets by street names, and so forth. Logically, one cannot deny something can be done, and at the same time do that very thing one asserts cannot be done simply by using the concepts that one says cannot be used.

Another class of “theories” of religion and politics entails general argu-ments about how religion enters local, national, regional, and global politics

(Hanson 2006). Te general argument is that religion infuences politics and societies at all these levels, and that, moreover, religion interacts with four diferent systems that characterize global politics: the political system, the economic system, the military system, and the communications system.

Tis is an interesting “grand” paradigm. Te problem is that it does not allow meaningful deduction of testable propositions about how exactly reli-gion interacts in each of these contexts. Tere is a sense that the only aspect of religion that allows it to infuence those levels of analysis and operate within each of the four systems is identity. Tis is an important observation, but hardly a novel or surprising one. We will discuss religion as an identity marker at greater length in the next chapter.

Given this discussion of quasi-theoretical polemics in the literature, our biases are rather clear. Our approach is decidedly positivist. We wish to understand if, how, when, and why religious factors afect specifc types of international and domestic political processes. We seek guidance in the lit-erature about these issues. If the litlit-erature ofers some guidance—even if we think there are problems and faws in certain arguments—then it is useful from a scientifc point of view. Tis principle guides our review. Terefore, we focus in this chapter on theories of religion and international relations that yield testable statements—statements which can be verifed or refuted by facts. Such testable statements specify whether, how, when, and why religious factors afect the behavior of states, of groups within states, and of groups of state and nonstate actors.

2. Straw Men in the Religion and Politics Literature—

Modernization and the Classical Paradigms of IR

Te received wisdom is that IR theory discounted the role of religion as an independent factor in world politics. Tere is more than a little merit to this claim. Te focus in the key theories that dominated the study of IR in the frst half of the twentieth century was on concepts such as national self-determination, transparency, and governance through international institu-tions (idealism), or power, interest, and balance (realism). Tese ideas were, in many respects, extensions of Enlightenment philosophy—and often had religious justifcations and rationales subsumed under considerations of the imperialist project of “Western civilization,” which connoted Western Christendom. Idealist and realist approaches contain empirical and analyti-cal adaptations of diferent philosophianalyti-cal ideas to the realities of the frst

and second half of the twentieth century (Waltz 1958, 1979), but religious rationales were at times just below the surface (Guilhot 2010).

Te second half of the twentieth century was dominated by realist, neo-realist, and Marxist theories on the one hand, and by liberal and neoliberal theories on the other. Neorealist theories continued the tradition of clas-sical realism with their focus on power, survival, and top-down systemic approaches that left little room for presumably nonsystemic forces such as culture or religion. Marxist approaches were avowedly non-religious or even anti-religious, and except for Gramscian approaches (e.g., Gill 1993) were largely dismissive of cultural factors even with the emergence of cul-tural theses of anticolonial struggles epitomized in Cabral’s (1972) analy-ses. Mainstream liberal theorists also marginalized the cultural dimension of world politics, focusing on economic interests and institutional struc-tures (Keohane 1984). When they did talk about culture, this was typically restricted to democratic values and norms (Maoz and Russett 1993, Russett and Oneal 2001, Doyle 1986). As Shah and Philpott (2011) argue, modern IR theory was (and still is) fundamentally secular.¹

Even more to the point, the claim of widespread acceptance of mod-ernization arguments among IR theorists prophesizing a secular decline in religion in world politics is overstated at minimum. Tis point is typically accompanied by the ubiquitous allusion in the literature to Berger’s (1968) contention in a New York Times article that by “the twenty-frst century, religious believers are likely to be found in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture.” His renunciation of this view thirty years later, presumably demonstrates the “resurgence” of religion as a fac-tor in IR (Philpott 2002, Shah and Philpott 2011, Toft, Philpott, and Shah 2011, Fox 2015). Shah and Philpott (2011, 24) are hardly alone among scholars of religion and politics in asserting that Berger’s original contention “spoke for intellectuals across the West.” Absent from many of these analyses is consideration that even as modernization became prominent, a rival “modernization revisionism” (Huntington 1971, 293) emerged from arguments of Samuel Huntington, Reinhard Bendix, S. N. Eisenstadt, Joseph Gusfeld, Milton Singer, and Lloyd and Suzanne Rudolph, among others.

Randall (1999, 45) notes that “it was modernization theory, or a par-ticularly crass version of it, which encouraged expectations that the general salience of religion in our lives and more specifcally its place in politics

would diminish with progressive modernization and notably with secu-larization and rationalization.” However, modernization revisionists chal-lenged or rejected such claims. For example, they rejected the simplistic dichotomy between “tradition” and modernity, which suggested a zero-sum relationship between the two, recognizing that “traditional institutions adapt to and co-exist with modern institutions, specifcally the nation-state,” while “the process of modernization may actually revitalize dormant traditional institutions and practices” (Randall and Teobald 1985, 35).

Revisionist scholars challenged the teleological assumptions of the mod-ernization literature that assumed “underdeveloped” states were compelled to “modernize” to a Western ideal. Haynes (2008, 24) agrees that “mod-ernization revisionism not only exposed early mod“mod-ernization theorists’

simplistic and ethnocentric assumption about tradition and modernity but also underlined that various so-called ‘traditional’ phenomena,” including religion, “continued to have developmental salience over time.” In fact, “the impact of modernization has been uneven; in more remote and traditional communities religious feelings and practice continue largely unchanged.”

In some cases “rather than straightforwardly undermining religion, mod-ernization has served in some ways to enhance its relevance” (Randall 1999, 48–49).

Generally, the modernization/secularization view of religious decline was often inattentive to the multidimensionality of religious adherence.

Predicting a decline in the infuence of religious institutions does not neces-sitate decline in the cognitive, normative, or experiential dimensions of reli-gion. Tese informal dimensions of religion allowed religious infuence to persist in “modern” societies (Ireland 1988). No later than 1971, political scientists such as Huntington (1971, 297) were asserting that “each of the assumptions which underlay the original, simple image of modernization could also be called into question,” yet the view persists among many schol-ars of religion and IR that modernization/secularization arguments held sway over the feld.

Despite the challenges to modernization/secularization theories in the sociological, political development, and dependency theories, moderniza-tion theory has become a favorite straw man of the religion and politics literature in the last two decades. Almost any recent study that seeks to establish a connection between religion and political processes challenges the modernization thesis. A typical example is Shah’s (2012, 3) argument:

Much classical thinking and practice [in politics] is . . . concerned with policing and strengthening the fence between two worlds. Te frst world is the “secular” and “public” world in which international actors . . . are presumed to make rational choices in the pursuit of political and economic power. Te second world is the “spiritual”

and “private” world in which religious actors—everything from church hierarches to clerical councils to violent organizations such as Al Qaeda and Hizbollah—are presumed to make faith-based choices in the pursuit of nonrational or irrational goals. . . . [T]he factual assumption about these two worlds is that they are two separate uni-verses, with little or no mutual contact or interaction.

Fox and Sandler (2004, 12) make an even more radical claim about mod-ernization and religion:

Ironically, this reassessment of the role of religion in society has resulted in an argument that is nearly exactly opposed to the argu-ment made by modernization and secularization theory: mod-ernization, rather than causing religion’s demise, is responsible for its resurgence. . . . While modernization and secularization theorists pos-ited that modernity had made religion a primordial remnant that was fading away as an important social and political factor, the cen-tral argument of this reassessment is that modernity is increasing the role of religion in society and politics. [Italics added for emphasis.]

Fox and Sandler argue that peoples’ expectations emanating from modern-ization processes toward greater welfare, peace, and security were largely unfulflled. Tis disappointment with modernization was particularly acute in the third world. In these countries, unfulflled expectations were con-verted into basic—or even fundamentalist—religious beliefs and practices.

Te growing opposition to colonialism and imperialism—and its replace-ment by authoritarianism and oppression—also led people to return to their religious roots. Western secular ideas were associated with imperial-ism, while religious beliefs were again associated with tribal, national, or communal roots. Finally, modernization has “allowed both the state and religious institutions to increase their spheres of infuence, thus resulting in more clashes between the two” (p. 12).

Similarly, Philpott (2007) and Toft, Philpott, and Shah (2011, 9–19) also make far-reaching claims about the role of religion in politics. Philpott (2007, 505) argues that “religion has waxed in its political infuence over the past generation in every region of the globe except perhaps Western Europe.” Toft, Philpott, and Shah (2011, 3) contend: “Earlier confned to the home, the family, the village, the mosque, synagogue, temple, and church, religion has come to exert its infuence in parliaments, presidential palaces, lobbyist ofces, campaigns, militant training camps, negotiation rooms, protest rallies, city squares, and dissident jail cells.”

Hurd (2008, 134) also argues that secularism has failed, and that reli-gion has experienced a signifcant resurgence over the past few years.

For at least three reasons, it has now become impossible to maintain that religion is irrelevant to international outcomes, as most conven-tional accounts would have it. First, the United States and others have had a hard time imposing their vision of secular democracy around the world. Second, there has been the advent of a U.S. foreign policy model in the George W. Bush administration that is ofcially secular but inspired by a kind of Christianity. Tird, over the past several decades there has been a rise in religious movements and organiza-tions with broad bases of national and transnational infuence.

Several things can be deduced from these statements. First, they rest on a temporal view of the role of religion in politics. Tese arguments sug-gest that religious factors became more important in both international and domestic politics—as well as in modern theories of IR—recently much more than they had been in the past. Several authors who have suggested that religious actors and religious matters can be relegated to the private or subpolitical domains, have come to recant their previous arguments (e.g., Henir 2012). Others (e.g., Hurd 2008, 2012) claim that secularism was a social construction of a political and intellectual elite that dominated both the practice and study of world politics in the Western world. In fact, this dominant view of world politics was always contested and challenged in other parts of the world and in other scholarships, but these latter chal-lenges became prominent only in the post–Cold War era.

Second, another assertion is that religious factors and religious actors have always played an important role in practical world politics. Yet, the

key scholarly paradigms of IR (and consequent empirical investigations) have largely ignored them. Even key proponents of these paradigms seem to acknowledge this point. Robert Keohane, a central theoreti-cian of neoliberalism, argued: “Te attacks of September 11 [2001]

reveal that all mainstream theories of world politics are relentlessly secular with respect to motivation. Tey ignore the impact of religion despite the fact that world-shaking political movements have so often been fueled by religious fervor.”² Snyder (2011), a realist theorist, makes a similar argument.

Tird, some argue that IR theories have acknowledged the role of religious factors in shaping politics, but this was buried or rather not taken seriously in approaches such as classical realism (Henne and Nexon 2014, 165–66). In the same volume, Mollov (2014) suggests that Morgenthau’s “liberal” realism was infuenced by his Jewish her-itage. Likewise, Carlson (2014) points out the “Christian” nature of Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism. Te common thread of these arguments is that even when a theory is presented as fundamentally secular, its insights are infuenced by the religious beliefs of its authors. A related argument asserts that mainstream IR of the postwar era was heavily infuenced by and attentive to issues related to religion. Guilhot (2010, 224) argues that “while nobody would deny that international relations theory is a secular social science . . . the search for a theory of inter-national relations was permeated by theological themes.” Not only do a number of IR scholars employ “religious metaphors” and “eschato-logical or theo“eschato-logical references” in analyzing “core features” of world politics (e.g., “Wizards of Armageddon,” “Teologians of War,” “New Leviathan”) but also such “references are too pervasive, too ubiquitous to be treated as mere coincidences. Tey point at a theological substra-tum that once provided an explicit background against which a number of central concepts of IR theory resonated” (p. 224).

As a result, the scholarship on religion and international relations holds to the view that IR ignored the role of religion in world afairs, but this is more apparent than real. Nonetheless, there is a persistent view that secular-ization was a largely unquestioned “sacred canopy” over postwar IR.³ While this may have been evident in sociology, it was much less evident in IR, and even less in the subfeld of comparative politics, which was home to the modernization arguments in political science.

On another plane, the prevalence of religious infuences in interna-tional afairs was evident among policy makers and analysts even if their language often adopted the more ideological and basic force arguments of the national security regimes in Western states and their Cold War adversar-ies. Preston (2012, 7) asserts that religion is the “missing link, a vital but unrecognized, even undiscovered,” aspect of US foreign relations. It was not the only factor, but at times “it was a critically important factor; other times, it played a relatively minor role.” Religion “acted as the conscience of American foreign relations;” and popular religious pressure led foreign policy elites to “merge the moralism and progressivism of religion with the normally realist mindset of international politics.” Moreover, “Protestant exceptionalism helped breed American exceptionalism and led to a con-sistent belief in America as a chosen nation and Americans as a chosen people” (p. 13), which inspired and served to justify American imperialism and interventions abroad. Similarly, Muehlenback (2012, viii) asserts that

“religion played a signifcant role in determining the scope and stratagems of the Global Cold War,” though he is careful to add that “it was a factor in

Im Dokument Religious Sources of Confict and Cooperation in the Modern Era (Seite 36-73)