Politics of Religion

Presentation by
Saeed Memon

Madam Uzma Shujaat

Area Study Centre for Europe

Politics of Religion
It is a centuries old phenomenon
Greek Mythology that regarded their
gods the architectures, designers and
even destroyers of their destinies.
Roman Empire also held Christianity
in high regard and even the
RomanEmperor Constantine the
Great
(306337
AD),
made
Christianity the dominant religion of
the Roman Empire.

 Hindu Mythology and the philosophy of

Hindutva tell us the importance of
Religion in the politics of India. The
five fundamentals of Hindutva revolve
around the Hinduism as the dominant
force in Hindustan tarnishing the
image of the Secular Socialist
Republic of India.
For Muslims, Islam has also been given
the central place in public and private
life as being the complete code of life.

 Europe witnessed the Dark Age when

Church held the strong control on every
aspect of public and personal life, even
people had to ask the Priests permission for
marriage and child birth.
The Period of Reformation and Renaissance
followed by Industrial Revolution, Europe
separated the Church from Politics, and the
role of religion was privatized as a personal
matter of individual person.
Post Westphalia world -> Secular ->
traditional decline of traditional values and
the religion was inevitable casualty.

Impact of Religion on
International Relations
The
relationship
between
religion
and
international relations is both dialectical and
interactive: each shapes and influences the
other.
Religion has an impact on international
relations in two main ways. First, governments
may make issues linked to religion a focal
point of their foreign policies. Second, nonstate actors inspired by religious concerns may
engage politically with governments, whether
within countries or across state borders.

 How and under what circumstances might

religion influence a states foreign policy,
including in relation to national interest
goals?
The question can be approached in two
separate ways:
First, it can refer to politics a state adopts in
order to deal with religious actors it
encounters in trying to put into effect its
foreign policy beyond the countrys borders.
Second, it can refer to actions and policies
of domestic religious actors seeking to
influence state foreign policies.

 No longer, as in centuries past, is

religion a dominant force in the
determination of State boundaries
or even in the creation of States.
In the Twentieth century the
partitions of Ireland, Syria, India
and Palestine were all designed to
create separate political units for
Catholics
and
Protestants,
Christians and Muslims, Muslims
and Hindus, and Jews and Arabs,

 Only a few governments have foreign

politics and more generally international
relations
ostensibly
or
significantly
motivated by religion.
For example, in Iran in the late 1970s,
and in Eastern Europe, Latin America and
Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, leading
religious institutions and figures shifted
apparently abruptly from support to
opposition of incumbent authoritarian
regimes.

 This led in Muslim Iran to a theocracy,

while in Eastern Europe, Latin America
and Africa religious actors, notably
Roman Catholic figures, were in the
forefront of moves towards popular,
democratically elected governments.
Later, during the 1990s and early 2000s
religious actors from numerous faiths
became involved in both domestic and
international
attempts
to
resolve
conflicts and build peace (Bouta et al.,
2005).

Post Iranian revolution

and 9/11
The Iranian revolution of 1979 is an
important point for seeing a re-insertion of
religion into international relations. Before
the revloution, international relations
experts took little or no account of religion
in their understanding of world affairs.
Later, other events, most obviously 9/11,
also nudged IR scholars to examine the
role of religions, mainly because of how it
affected the USA.

 The perceived unimportance of

religion in IR before Irans revolution
was closely linked to the prominence
of secular international security
issues during the Cold War, between
the late 1940s and late 1980s.
Religions impact on international
relations is not clear or straight
forward.

 Since the end of the Cold War in the

late 1980s, there have been a number
of national and international conflicts
with roots in religious, cultural and
ethnic divisions. On the other hand,
religion is also an increasingly
important source of co-operations,
often focusing upon conflict resolution
and peace building, as well as human
and social development.

 Over times, especially after the

Second
World
War,
secularism
became an ideology of domination,
implying
the
marginalisation,
downgrading and, in some cases,
belittling of religious ideas, in the
pursuit
of
progress
and
modernisation.
The
post-Cold
War
era,
is
characterized both by a widespread
religious resurgence and, more
tentatively, by a gradual, patchy
post-secularisation of international

 Since September 11,2001, religion has become a

central topic in discussions about international
politics. Once terrorism put religion in the
international spotlight, this realm suddenly seemed
to teem with lively issues i.e. :
the foreign policy predilections of the (US) Christian
Right towards Israel and Southern Sudan, the
complications of faith-based Western activism
abroad, the Dalai Lama and the Falun Gong as
potential destabilizers of officially atheist but
increasingly neo-Confucian China, and the Myanmar
military regimes fear of a potential alliance of
Burmese monks and international refugee
organizations. Perhaps religious international politics
had been there all along, but it suddenly became
harder to ignore. (Snyder :2011)

 Snyder mentions four of the world

faiths in this quotation - Buddhism,
Christianity, Confucianism, and Islam.
The influence of Hindusim in Indias
foreign policy, especially in relation to
(Muslim) Pakistan during the rule of the
Hindu nationlist Bharratiya Janata Party
in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and
that of Jewish political paries in Israel
particularly regarding the Palestinians
and the status of Jerusalem.

 There has been a significant shift in

world politics, necessitating more
consistent attention paid to religion
as a result of a perceived shift to
post secular international relations
(Habermas, 2006; Barbato and
Kratochwil, 2009).

 The assumption that the religious revival

in todays world heralds a new era is not
supported by the evidence. Data and
analysis both suggest a continuing,
complex, hierarchical and multipolar, but
also interdependent and multilateral,
global system. Those acting under the
inspiration of a creed will, in the long
run, have to adapt to the secular
concepts that underpin the foundations
of the world order rather than the other
way round. ( Merlini, 2011 : 127 )

 There is a little evidence that the

fundamentals of international relations have
suddenly changed as a result of the current
religious resurgence.
There appears to be no compelling
evidence that post-secular international
relations is clearly different from earlier
secular
international
relations
which
evolved over the centuries following the
Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
We still live in a hierarchical and multipolar,
but also interdependent and multilateral,
global system (Merlini, 2011: 127).

References:
Bouta, T., Ayse Kadayifci-Oreelana, S. and AbuNimmer, M. (2005) Faith-Based Peace-Building:
Mapping and Analysis of Christian, Muslims and
Multi-faith Actors, The Hague: Netherlands Institute
of International Relations.
Synder, J. (2011) Introduction, in J.Synder (ed.),
Religion and International Relations Theory, New
York: Columbia University Press, pp. 1-23.
Merlini, C. (2011) A Post-Secular World?, Survival,
53, 2, pp. 117-130
Telhami, S. (2004) Between faith and ethics, in
J.B.Hehir, M. Walzer, et.al, pp.71-84

Thanks You