Rethinking Religion and World Affairs

In recent years, the role of religion in the study and conduct of international affairs has become increasingly important. The essays in this volume seek to question and remedy the problematic neglect of religion in extant scholarship, grappling with puzzles, issues, and questions concerning religion and world affairs in six major areas. Contributors critically revisit the "secularization thesis," which proclaimed the steady erosion of religion's public presence as an effect of modernization; explore the relationship between religion, democracy, and the juridico-political discourse of human rights; assess the role of religion in fomenting, ameliorating, and redressing violent conflict; and consider the value of religious beliefs, actors, and institutions to the delivery of humanitarian aid and the fostering of socio-economic development. Finally, the volume addresses the representation of religion in the expanding global media landscape, the unique place of religion in American foreign policy, and the dilemmas it presents. Drawing on the work of leading scholars as well as policy makers and analysts, Rethinking Religion and World Affairs is the first comprehensive and authoritative guide to the interconnections of religion and global politics.

"There is an increasing recognition across the social sciences that the dominance of an epiphenomenal approach to the study of religion in world affairs has produced inadequate research and scholarship. This volume speaks creatively to that lack, exploring the key themes that arise when discussing religion in international affairs, focusing its six sections thematically on secularization, human rights, conflict and peace-making, civil society, media, and foreign policy." --Theology

"Rethinking Religion and World Affairs is a unique compendium of the perspectives of many of the top scholars writing on the increasingly prominent, but long neglected topic of religion and world politics. Illuminating the intersection of religion with the themes of democracy, human rights, conflict, humanitarianism, the media, and foreign policy, these first-rate essays offer broadly accessible, up-to-date treatments of the big ideas that define this field."

--Jack Snyder, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations, Columbia University

Timothy Samuel Shah is Associate Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

Alfred Stepan is the Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia University. He has also been Gladstone Professor of Government at Oxford University and Director of Graduate Studies in Political Science at Yale University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the British Academy.

Monica Duffy Toft is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Contributors

Editors' Introduction: Religion and World Affairs: Blurring the Boundaries - Timothy Samuel Shah, Alfred Stepan, and Monica Duffy Toft

Part 1: Religion, Secularism, and Secularization

1. Why Religion? Why Now? - J. Bryan Hehir

2. Rethinking Public Religions - José Casanova

3. The Politics of Secularism - Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

Part 2: Religion, Democracy, and Human Rights

4. Religion, Democracy, and the "Twin Tolerations": Reconciling Political Freedom and Religious Autonomy - Alfred Stepan

5. How Should States Deal with Deep Religious Diversity: Can Anything Be Learnt from the Indian Model of Secularism? - Rajeev Bhargava

6. Rethinking Islam and Democracy - Robert W. Hefner

7. Religious Freedom, Democracy, and International Human Rights - John Witte, Jr. and M. Christian Green

Part 3: Religion, Conflict, and Peacemaking

8. Religion, Terrorism, and Civil Wars - Monica Duffy Toft

9. What Religion Contributes to the Politics of Transitional Justice - Daniel Philpott

Part 4: Religion, Humanitarianism, and Civil Society

10. Where Is the Religion? Humanitarianism, Faith, and World Affairs - Michael Barnett

11. Faith, Gender, and International Relations - Katherine Marshall

12. Religion and Development - Katherine Marshall

13. Interreligious Dialogue and International Relations - Thomas Banchoff

Part 5: Religion and the Media

14. Islam and the Promenades of Global Media - Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Nichole J. Allem

15. Old Monks, New Media, and the Limits of Soulcraft: A Case Study of Burma's 2007 Saffron Revolution - Diane Winston

Part 6: Religion and American Foreign Policy

16. God's Country? American Evangelicals and US Foreign Policy - Walter Russell Mead

17. America's International Religious Freedom Policy - Thomas F. Farr

18. Navigating in the Fog: Improving US Government Engagement with Religion - Frederick D. Barton, Shannon Hayden, and Karin von Hippel

Appendix: Internet Resource Guide - M. Christian Green with Nicole Greenfield

Index