Religious Appeals In Power Politics

Religious Appeals in Power Politics examines how states use, or attempt to use, confessional appeals to religious belief and conscience to advance political strategies and objectives. Through case studies of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, Peter S. Henne demonstrates that religion, although not as high profile or well-funded a tool as economic sanctions or threats of military force, remains a potent weapon in international relations. Public policy analysis often minimizes the role of religion, favoring military or economic matters as the "important" arenas of policy debate. As Henne shows, however, at transformative moments in political history, states turn to faith-based appeals to integrate or fragment international coalitions. Henne highlights Saudi Arabia's 1960s rivalry with Egypt, the United States's post-9/11 leadership in the global war on terrorism, and the Russian Federation's contemporary expansionism both to reveal the presence and power of calls for religious unity and to emphasize the uncertainty and anxiety such appeals can create. Religious Appeals in Power Politics offers a bold corrective to those who consider religion as tangential to military or economic might.

This book explores the interaction between two of the most charged topics in the modern world, religion and politics. It shows the inextricable connection between religious attitudes and representations, and political activities. After an introductory chapter explores theoretically the religious articulations of political power, the authors examine the role played by religion in the current political situation in several countries. Approaching these cases as anthropologists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists, the authors make visible the dialectical relationship between religion and the pursuit of political power—on the one hand, the political significance of religious choices, and on the other, the almost unavoidable need to articulate in religious terms a group’s attempt to acquire, maintain, or expand political power.

This book explains how religious politics, repressive institutions, and leaders' political strategies intersected in the US Global War on Terror.

The expectations that economic leaders and politicians have of religions and their leaders as guardians of the moral and ethical traditions of humanity, and of their ability to mediate in the current situations of conflict, requires religions, and not least Christian churches, to engage in critical self-reflection about their action in the public space. -- Konrad Raiser *** Religion pervades today's headlines, yet not always in a positive way. Is there a positive role for religion in the future? Focusing on the global picture and on all religions, not the least Christianity, in this book author Konrad Raiser closely probes the relationship between religion and politics in all its rich, promising, and sometimes deadly combinations. As a Christian theologian with decades of international and interreligious experience, Raiser's enlightening book wrestles with: the most contentious questions posed by the ambiguous status of religion in a post-secular world * the advent of a global economic order that leaves whole regions behind * the rise of fundamentalism in religious traditions * religion and violence * religiously-motivated terrorism. Anchored in fundamental considerations about how religion and politics relate to each other in both practice and in theory, Raiser searches for a positive cultural role for religion in today's emerging global culture and in the path to peace and justice.

This volume picks up a rather uninvested field of international relations theory: the influence of religion on Realism as well as the power of Realism to address religious issues in world politics. Although classical scholars of Realism rarely mention religion explicitly in their well-known work, this volume suggests that Realism offers serious ground for taking religion and faith into account as well as evaluating the impact of religion on its theoretical framework: how religion and religious worldviews influence and affect the theoretical framework of Realism, and how Realism approach religious issues in international relations as a relatively new field of international studies. Although international relations scholars now widely deal with issues of religion, large portions of the theoretical underpinning are missing. In addressing this lack, the volume illustrates the possibility of reform and change in Realism. Furthermore, the chapters reach out to normative statements. The contributors offer a theoretical view on religion in international relations in the context of Realism but always connect this with actual, real-world related political problems. The volume takes into account not only classical thinkers and approaches of Realism but also present-day authors dealing with ethical and normative questions of international relations in the aftermath of 9/11. Offering a fresh perspective on the influence of religion on international relations theory, this work will be of great interest to scholars of religion and international relations, international relations theory, and political philosophy

Religion is usually thought of as inconsequential to contemporary Canadian politics. This book takes a hard look at just how much influence faith continues to have in federal, provincial, and territorial arenas. Drawing on case studies from across the country, it explores three important axes of religiously based contention – Protestant vs. Catholic, conservative vs. reformer, and, more recently, opponents vs. defenders of accommodating minority religious practices. Although the extent of partisan engagement with each of these sources of conflict has varied across time and region, the authors show that religion still matters in shaping political oppositions. These themes are illuminated by comparisons to the role faith plays in the politics of other Western industrialized societies.