This comprehensive Handbook examines the relationship between religion and international relations, mainly focusing on several world religions – Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism. Providing a timely update on this understudied topic, it evaluates how this complex relationship has evolved over the last four decades, looking at a variety of political contexts, regions and countries.

This comprehensive handbook examines relationships between religion, politics and ideology, with a focus on several world religions — Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism — in a variety of contexts, regions and countries. Relationships between religion, politics and ideology help mould people’s attitudes about the way that political systems, both domestically and internationally, are organised and operate. While conceptually separate, religion, politics and ideology often become intertwined and as a result their relationships evolve over time. This volume brings together a number of expert contributors who explore a wide range of topical and controversial issues, including gender, nationalism, communism, fascism, populism and Islamism. Such topics inform the overall aim of the handbook: to provide a comprehensive summary of the relationships between religion, politics and ideology, including basic issues and new approaches. This handbook is a major research resource for students, researchers and professionals from various disciplinary backgrounds, including religious studies, political science, international relations, and sociology.

The Oxford Handbook of International Relations offers the most authoritative and comprehensive overview to date of the field of international relations. Arguably the most impressive collection of international relations scholars ever brought together within one volume, the Handbook debates the nature of the field itself, critically engages with the major theories, surveys a wide spectrum of methods, addresses the relationship between scholarship and policy making, and examines the field's relation with cognate disciplines. The Handbook takes as its central themes the interaction between empirical and normative inquiry that permeates all theorizing in the field and the way in which contending approaches have shaped one another. In doing so, the Handbook provides an authoritative and critical introduction to the subject and establishes a sense of the field as a dynamic realm of argument and inquiry. The Oxford Handbook of International Relations will be essential reading for all of those interested in the advanced study of global politics and international affairs.

NEW IN PAPERBACK FEBRUARY 2005! `The most systematic and wide-ranging survey of the multi-faceted field of International Relations yet produced. It is sure to become a standard reference work and teaching text, and is unlikely to be superseded at any time in the near future. It should be considered as essential reading' - International Affairs The Handbook of International Relations, published 2002 in hardback, quickly established itself as the benchmark volume, providing a state-of-the-art review and indispensable guide to the study of international relations. It is now released in paperback, in order to be accessible to students in classroom use. Divided into three parts, the volume reviews both the historical, philosophical, analytical and normative roots to the discipline and the key contemporary topics of research and debate today. The first part introduces the major approaches within the field and unpacks many of the on-going debates within the discipline including those between rationalist and constructivist approaches. The second part moves on to explore the key concepts and contextual factors important to the subject from concepts like the state and power, to international and transnational actors, debates around globalization, and contending feminist perspectives. The final part reviews a number of the key substantive issues in international relations and is designed to complement the analytical tools and perspectives presented in Parts I and II. Examples of the many topics included are: foreign policy; war and peace; security; nationalism and ethnicity; finance; trade; development; the environment; and human rights.

This third edition of the successful Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics provides a definitive global survey of the interaction of religion and politics. From the United States to the Middle East, from Asia to Africa, and beyond, religion continues to be an important factor in political activity and organisation. Featuring contributions from an international team of experts, this volume examines the political aspects of the world's major religions, including crucial contemporary issues such as religion and climate change, religion and migration, and religion and war. Each chapter has been updated to reflect the latest developments and thinking in the field, and the handbook also includes new chapters on topics such as religious freedom, religion and populism, proselytizing, humanism and politics, and religious soft power. The four main themes addressed are: • World religions and politics • Religion and governance • Religion and international relations • Religion, security and development References at the end of each chapter guide the reader towards the most up-to-date information on these key topics. This book is an indispensable source of information for students, academics, and the wider public interested in the dynamic relationship between politics and religion.

This Handbook offers analyses of how nine different world religions have related to issues of war and peace, theologically and practically; overviews of how scholars and practitioners in nine different topical areas of security studies have (or have not) dealt with the relationship between religion and security; and five case studies of particular countries in which the religion--security nexus is vividly illustrated: Nigeria, India, Israel, the former Yugoslavia and Iraq.

Over the past three decades, the study of religion and politics has gone from being ignored by the scholarly 7ommunity to being a major focus of research. Yet, because this important research is not easily accessible to nonspecialists, much of the analysis of religion's role in the political arena that we read in the media is greatly oversimplified. This Handbook seeks to bridge that gap by examining the considerable research that has been conducted to this point and assessing what has been learned, what remains unsettled due to conflicting research findings, and what important questions remain largely unaddressed by current research endeavors. The Handbook is unique to the field of religion and American politics and should be of wide interest to scholars, students, journalists, and others interested in the American political scene.

With a religious re-emergence in international relations, this book provides an introduction to the role religions play within the global political arena. Culled from theoretical, practical, and real-world experiences, Ferrara explains the role religion now plays in global affairs on diplomatic and political levels.

Like any other subject, the study of religion is a child of its time. Shaped and forged over the course of the twentieth century, it has reflected the interests and political situation of the world at the time. As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is undergoing a major transition along with religion itself. This volume showcases new work and new approaches to religion which work across boundaries of religious tradition, academic discipline and region. The influence of globalizing processes has been evident in social and cultural networking by way of new media like the internet, in the extensive power of global capitalism and in the increasing influence of international bodies and legal instruments. Religion has been changing and adapting too. This handbook offers fresh insights on the dynamic reality of religion in global societies today by underscoring transformations in eight key areas: Market and Branding; Contemporary Ethics and Virtues; Intimate Identities; Transnational Movements; Diasporic Communities; Responses to Diversity; National Tensions; and Reflections on ‘Religion’. These themes demonstrate the handbook’s new topics and approaches that move beyond existing agendas. Bringing together scholars of all ages and stages of career from around the world, the handbook showcases the dynamism of religion in global societies. It is an accessible introduction to new ways of approaching the study of religion practically, theoretically and geographically.

Secrecy is a central and integral component of all religious traditions. Not limited simply to religious groups that engage in clandestine activities such as hidden rites of initiation or terrorism, secrecy is inherent in the very fabric of religion itself. Its importance has perhaps never been more acutely relevant than in our own historical moment. In the wake of 9/11 and other acts of religious violence, we see the rise of invasive national security states that target religious minorities and pose profound challenges to the ideals of privacy and religious freedom, accompanied by the resistance by many communities to such efforts. As such, questions of secrecy, privacy, surveillance, and security are among the most central and contested issues of twenty-first century religious life. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is the definitive reference source for the key topics, problems, and debates in this crucial field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising twenty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into five parts: Configurations of Religious Secrecy: Conceptual and Comparative Frameworks Secrecy as Religious Practice Secrecy and the Politics of the Present Secrecy and Social Resistance Secrecy, Terrorism, and Surveillance. This cutting-edge volume discusses secrecy in relation to major categories of religious experience and individual religious practices while also examining the transformations of secrecy in the modern period, including the rise of fraternal orders, the ongoing wars on terror, the rise of far-right white supremacist groups, increasing concerns over religious freedom and privacy, the role of the internet in the spread and surveillance of such groups, and the resistance to surveillance by many indigenous and diasporic communities. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, comparative religion, new religious movements, and religion and politics. It will be equally central to debates in the related disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political science, security studies and cultural studies.