Religious Worldviews in Global Politics

An over-reliance on a simplistic rendering of secularization theory has led many students of International Relations to minimize the role that religion plays in contemporary global politics. A turn to the examination of “worldviews,” however, is a welcome opportunity to remind ourselves of the enduring claim that religion has on how modern individuals and communities continue to understand systems of order, and the relationship between human existence and what is really real. Religion and politics are two foundational aspects of human life and community that relate to each other as mutually constitutive elements of coherent – if often politically problematic – worldviews.