Rethinking Religion and World Affairs

In recent years, the role of religion in the study and conduct of international affairs has become increasingly important. Rethinking Religion and World Affairs seeks to question and remedy the problematic neglect of religion in extant scholarship. Drawing on the work of leading scholars as well as policy makers and analysts, this volume will form the first comprehensive and authoritative guide to the interconnections of religion and global politics. These essays grapple 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. Later chapters address the representation of religion in the expanding global media landscape, the unique place of religion in American foreign policy, and the dilemmas it presents. Rethinking Religion and World Affairs will become an invaluable resource for professional and emerging scholars, journalists, policy makers, diplomats, and others concerned in their personal or professional capacities with religion and international affairs.

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.