Secularism, modern state, and Homo religiosus societies.

• Author: Ozkan, Mehmet
• Position: "After Secularism: Rethinking Religion in Global Politics", "Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival", "Globalization and Islamism: Beyond Fundamentalism" and "Crescent and Dove: Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam" - Book review

After Secularism: Rethinking Religion in Global Politics

By Erin K. Wilson

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 232 pages, 61 [pounds sterling], ISBN 9780230290372

Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival

By Christopher Marsh

London: Continuum, 2011, 288 pages, $130.00, ISBN 9781441102294

Globalization and Islamism: Beyond Fundamentalism

By Nevzat Soguk

Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011, 200 pages, $79.00, ISBN 9780742557505

Crescent and Dove: Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam

Edited by Qamar-ul Huda

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2010, 336 pages, $24.95, ISBN 9781601270603

Religion has always been an overriding theme among social scientists, politicians, diplomats and laymen. While the importance attached to it has changed over the course of time; its significance has never ceased for society and states. Although the paradigm of secularism or secularization has been prominent and prevalent in the social sciences, religion has recently gained strong momentum in western academia. Furthermore, scholars of international relations have increasingly focused their attention on the role cultural elements and religion play in politics, foreign policy, and international relations, especially after the 9/11 attacks. It has also resulted in a renewal of the "clash of civilizations" debate, which had dominated the discourse on the role of religion in our contemporary world and in the context of terrorism, violence, and religious-extremism.

Recently, a new genre of academics has initiated an effort to outline a "grand theory" with regard to role of religion and culture in IR, but so far their efforts have not produced the expected outcome. Moreover they mostly fall in the trap of "empirically driven puzzle-solving." (1) However, their contributions have been very important in two ways. First, they rightly emphasized that religion is "an overlooked element" in IR thus requires more attention. (2) Second, they have started a new debate among scholars about the role of religion at a theoretical level within IR. Consequently, they have motivated newly interested students on the importance of pursuing a line of investigation in this area both for academic and practical purposes. Taking on four new books on religion and politics, this review intends to evaluate the theoretical and practical discussion over the role of religion in politics, IR, and global politics. It also sets out to critically analyze and assess their contributions to the newly developing literature on religion, politics, and IR.

The books at hand don't start off the same way and they don't being with the same question. However, what is interesting is that their conclusions are very similar; they concur that religion is becoming an important factor in politics whether it is in peace-making or in policy-making. Methodologically, they also have different approaches. Marsh and Soguk's books are comparative in nature but they each look at two different religious traditions, Christianity and Islam respectively, and in two different countries. Their focus also differs from each other. For example, while Marsh analyzes state policies toward religion, Soguk explains the results of interaction between state and religion in a historical context. Similarly, both Huda and Wilson's books are centered on a single issue--the influence of religion in conflict resolution and its role in politics.

Erin K. Wilson's After Secularism: Rethinking Religion in Global Politics is an overall theoretical book on the current state of religion and state relations and the role of religion in IR. In that sense, it is one of the latest attempts to provide a theoretical tool to analyze religion in IR and global politics. Starting with a usual critic of the secularism thesis and its repercussions on our understanding of world politics, she argues that "dominant conceptions of secularism have catalyzed the emergence of an understanding of religion based on dichotomies--institutional/ideational, individual/communal and irrational/rational" and that this understanding resulted in a definition of religion as institutional, individual and irrational. (3) She further argues that such a dichotomist understanding is very much dominant in current international relations literature and provides us only a limited understanding of religion. According to Wilson, IR scholars should go beyond this understanding if they really want to capture the phenomena of religion today. To do so, Wilson suggests a framework to analyze questions regarding religion and global politics, which she calls, "relational dialogism." This understanding is based on "the interconnections and fluidity within and across religion and politics in the west and globally." (4) According to relational dialogism, religion "can be both institutional and ideational, both individual and communal and both irrational and rational" (5) Wilson tests her framework in the case of the US, analyzing the six State of the Union Addresses from turning points of history and claims that "the religious elements ... directly influence US...