When Worlds Collide: Religion, Politics, and Society in a Globalized World

Dear Colleagues,

Thirty years after the publication of Huntington’s famous article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?”, its only mistaken aspect appears to be the question mark. World politics has become far more complicated than that in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, shifting toward some rather unexpected directions. One of them is the ever-increasing role of civilization, as a factor associated with political positioning, identities, and alliances, at the expense of more traditional features such as ideology or ethnicity. In that context, and in accordance with Huntington’s theory, religion is particularly relevant to scholarly pursuit as perhaps the main feature of civilization.

The aim of this Special Issue of Religions is to explore the influence of religion in shaping modern politics, societies, and international relations. The interdisciplinary approach via which political science is studied through the prism of religion is still, to a significant degree, rather scarce. Considering the apparent relevance of religion in contemporary political processes, this may seem unexpected and in need of explanation. I would suggest that political science in the interdisciplinary context is often studied together with other social sciences and humanities, such as history, geography, philosophy, law, economics, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, communication and media studies, etc. Study programs often combine at least some of these fields, as the scholarly value of interdisciplinarity has been increasingly recognized and pursued in Western academia. When it comes to religion and politics, however, the academic reality is somewhat different. Formal academic training and expertise in both theology and political science seems rather rare. Theologians tend to be less acquainted with political science, and political scientists are even more unacquainted with theology. Political scientists who do develop an academic interest in theology face an additional problem associated with the diversity of religions, sects and denominations, and the consequent extensive variety of spiritual attitudes and relations to politics. Dissimilarities in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim understandings of contemporary society and politics, for someone acquainted primarily with the secular, rational and humanist approach to social sciences, may be very surprising and unexpected. Further challenges and complexities arise when the issue of denominations or sects within the same religion is considered. Notwithstanding common basic doctrines, premises and worldviews, the attitudes of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, or Sunni and Shia, to a variety of political issues may differ profoundly.

Finally, scholars who do possess the necessary expertise in political science and theology, and produce works in which they combine the two, may find it challenging to navigate through peer-review processes for the very same reasons addressed above.

We considered all of these factors while devising this Special Issue of Religions. Therefore, we are pleased to welcome scholars with expertise in the three major monotheistic religions, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam, or theology and political science in general, to submit their research regarding the interaction among religion, politics, and society in our globalized world. The scope of this Special Issue includes broad theoretical and methodological issues, or more specific issues such as the following:

• Western Christian influence on current political debates in the US or Europe;
• Rapprochement of Catholics and Protestants in contemporary Conservative political movements;
• The role of Orthodox Christianity in shaping Russian imperialism;
• Religious vs. secular Zionist movements in Israel;
• Religious aspects of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict;
• Middle Eastern politics between religion and pragmatism (or any MENA state);
• Islam and human rights as charted by the UN;
• Islam and democracy;
• Revolutionary jihadism vs. Arab kingdoms and emirates’ political establishment;
• The role of Shiism in advancement of Iranian influence in Iraq, Sirya, Lebanon or Yemen;
• Religious aspect of contemporary Middle Eastern hostilities and alliances;
• Relation between pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism;
• Politics of Muslim Brotherhood;
• Caliphate in historical and contemporary Islamic thought;
• Jewish religious anti-Zionism;
• Jewish religious Zionism;
• Contemporary Christian Zionism;
• Methods in research of religious influence on politics.

Prof. Dr. Boris Havel
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• religion
• theology
• civilization
• politics
• society
• history
• globalization
• identity
• political science