IPSA RC 43 - Religion and Politics

In recent years, the discipline of International Relations has undergone a religious renaissance. The distinction between the religious and the secular has been brought into question by a resurgence of interest in religion, culture and identity in the context of international politics, forcing mainstream theories to take religion seriously. Furthermore, efforts to “provincialize” IR by bringing in voices from the “outside” the West have stimulated interest in other religious traditions which have hitherto been marginalized in the discipline. Attempts have also been made to free IR from its dominant secular orientation through an encounter with the “post-secular” which can open up productive avenues of inquiry.

The overall objective of this series, therefore, is to open up space for critical scholarship on Religion and International Relations and to “post-secular” approaches to global politics. The main aims of the series are to decentre and pluralize discussions of religion in international politics by bringing into question the theological underpinnings of IR and by creating room for the articulation of alternative understandings of the relationship between the ‘religious’ and ‘political’ from other faith traditions. The overall objective of the series is to open up space for critical scholarship on Religion and IR and to “post-secular” approaches to global politics which engage with different religious traditions. We understand “critical” in a broad sense to denote a perspective which seeks to bring into question both the main metaphysical underpinnings of the discipline of IR and of the category of religion itself.

In particular, this series would welcome proposals focusing on the following themes:

– Interrogating the Category of Religion
– Exploring Religion's Relationship with Politics
– Religion and Theories of IR
– Religion and Security
– Religion and Peacebuilding
– Religion and Identity Politics
– Religion, Gender and Sexuality
– Religion and Nationalism
– Religion and International Political Economy
– Postsecularism in IR
– Non-Western Religious Traditions and IR
– Transnational Religious Actors and IR
– World Religions and Global Politics