Religion in the Syntax of Power: A Postsecular Perspective on International Relations

Abstract

Religion research in international relations (IR) has grown exponentially, but has it extended an understanding of religious agency beyond the assumptions of secularism? This article suggests the orientation towards religion in IR is now best described as ‘postsecular’ and employs a linguistic analogy to offer a three-fold argument. First, the study of religion in IR has shifted from a focus on morphology (i.e. the definitional forms of religion) to syntax (i.e. the political functions of religion). Second, by likening the dynamics of IR to the syntax of a sentence, the impacts of religion can be measured by linking religious actors and interests to different word-functions that make up the sentence. This is modelled by comparing the functions of religion in IR against the four noun cases of classical grammar. Third, applying the model highlights the constraint of secular ‘readings’ of the political by illustrating how religion can be sustained throughout the full ‘syntactical range’ of IR, thereby presenting a postsecular ‘reading’ of religion in the discourse of international affairs.

The author thanks the reviewers and editors for their constructive guidance in the writing of this article.

Notes

¹This is a conservative dating to the Daedalus special edition on ‘Post-Traditional Societies’, Daedalus 102:1 (1973). Religious influence in the thought of several foundational IR theorists can be seen much earlier, for example, Heather A. Warren, Theologians of a New World Order: Rheinhold Niebuhr and the Christian Realists, 1920–1948 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

²R. Hassner, ‘Religion and International Affairs: The State of the Art’, in Patrick James (ed.) Religion, Identity, and Global Governance: Ideas, Evidence, and Practice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), p. 38.

³See J. A. Rees, ‘Religion Research in International Relations: A Taxonomy’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 48:1 (2013), pp. 129–134.

⁴See the introduction to this special issue.

⁵For example, see the special issue on the postsecular in the Review of International Studies, 38:5 (2012).

⁶L. Mavelli and F. Petito, ‘The Postsecular in International Relations: An Overview’, Review of International Studies, 38:5 (2012), pp. 931; cf. 931–942.

⁷C. Taylor, ‘Modes of Secularism’ in Rajeev. Bhargava (ed.) Secularism and Its Critics (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 31–53.

⁸J. Casanova, ‘Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective’, Hedgehog Review 8:1–2 (2006), pp. 7–22.

⁹Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).

¹⁰Peter Berger, ‘The Desecuralisation of the World: A Global Overview’ in P. Berger (ed.) The Desecularisation of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 1–18.

¹¹Examples of considered scholarship on secularisation and the agencies of religion include Journal for the Social Scientific Study of Religion 30:4 (1991) (special edition); R. Bhargava (ed.), Hedgehog Review 8:1–2 (2006), and Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Rethinking Secularism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

¹²A. Harrington, ‘Habermas and the “Post-Secular Society”’, European Journal of Social Theory, 10:4, p. 547; cf. pp. 543–560. See also U. Beck, ‘The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernization’ in Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Scott Lash (eds) Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern World (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 1–55.

¹³S. N. Einstadt, ‘Multiple Modernities in an Age of Globalisation’, Daedalus, 129:1 (2000), pp. 1–29.

¹⁴M. E. Marty, ‘Our Religio-Secular World’, Daedalus, 132:3 (2003), pp. 42–48.

¹⁵Ibid., p. 42.

¹⁶J. T. Madeley, ‘Introduction’ in John T. Madeley (ed.) Religion and Politics (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), pp. xxii.

¹⁷A. Tickner, ‘On the Frontlines or Sidelines of Knowledge and Power? Feminist Practices of Responsible Scholarship’, International Studies Review, 8:3 (2006), p. 390; cf. pp. 383–395. Also, R. Keohane, ‘The Globalisation of Informal Violence, Theories of World Politics, and the “Liberalism of Fear”’, Dialogue-IO, 1 (2002), pp. 29–43.

¹⁸D. Philpott, ‘The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations’, World Politics, 55:1 (2002), pp. 66–95; N. R. Keddie, ‘Secularism and its Discontents’, Daedalus 132:3 (2003), pp. 14–31; Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).

¹⁹Jonathan Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 7. For the author's own extended analysis of the interrelations between secular and sacral discourses in IR, see John A. Rees, Religion in International Politics and Development: The World Bank and Faith Institutions (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar, 2011), pp. 1–20.

²⁰See E. Bailey, ‘Implicit Religion’, Religion, 40:4 (2010), pp. 271–278. My argument is not that this is an unworthy area of enquiry into religion, but that it is not a primary concern of IR.

²¹Steve Bruce, God is Dead: Secularization in the West (Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2002), p. 203.

²²Though even here I would argue that IR scholars should enter this complexity at the institutional level. For a summary of indigenous spirituality in the policy domains of international institutions see K. Marshall, Global Institutions of Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), pp. 89–90.

²³A. D. Smith, ‘The “Sacred” Dimension of Nationalism’, Millennium, 29:3 (2000), pp. 791–814.

²⁴Jeff Haynes, The Politics of Religion: A Survey (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 223.

²⁵Scott M. Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), p. 24.

²⁶Jean B. Elshtain, ‘Really Existing Communities’, Review of International Studies, 25:2 (1999), p. 143; cf. pp. 141–146; Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community: Ethical Foundations of a Post-Westphalian Era (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1998).

²⁷M. Barbato and F. Kratochwil, ‘Towards a Post-Secular Political Order?’ European Political Science Review, 1:3 (2009), pp. 326–327; cf. pp. 317–340; see references to Habermas as a foundational influence in recent post-secular discourse in the introduction to this special issue.

²⁸W. Connolly, Why I Am Not a Secularist (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 56–58; on the ‘conceits of secularism’ see pp. 19–46.

²⁹Stanely Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), p. 77.

³⁰For an exploration of narrative in the Christian interpretive tradition see Hans Frie, George Hunsinger and William Placher, Theology and Narrative: Selected Essays (NC: Oxford University Press); on narrative theology and political themes see Chapter 10: ‘H. Richard Niebuhr on History, Church and Nation’, ibid., pp. 213–234.

³¹A. Pabst, ‘The Secularism of Post-Secularity: Religion, Realism, and the Revival of Grand Theory in IR’, Review of International Studies, 38:5 (2012), pp. 995–1017.

³²S. Thomas, ‘Living Critically and “Living Faithfully” in a Global Age: Justice, Emancipation and the Political Theology of International Relations’, Millennium, 39:3 (2010), pp. 505–524; on the undervaluing of religion in critical development studies see D. McDuie-Ra and J. Rees, ‘Religious Actors, Civil Society and the Development Agenda: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion’, Journal of International Development, 22:1 (2010), pp. 20–36; on the variable impact of religion in IR conference agendas in Australia and Britain see Rees, ‘Religion Research’, op cit., pp. 129–130.

³³J. Milliken, ‘The Study of Discourse in International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations, 5:2 (1999), pp. 225–254.

³⁴A. Holzscheiter, ‘Between Communicative Interaction and Structures of Signification: Discourse Theory and Analysis in International Relations’, International Studies Perspectives, 15:2 (2014), p. 143; cf. pp. 142–162.

³⁵Ibid.

³⁶See Nomi Erteschik-Shir, Information Structure: The Syntax-Discourse Interface (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007).

³⁷‘The structure, form, or variation in form (including formation, change, and inflection) of a word or words in a language.’ ‘Morphology, 3', OED Online, June 2010. http://www.oed.com.ipacez.nd.edu.au/view/Entry/122369 (accessed 20 May 2013). In this article I am emphasising inflectional morphology (the way words vary in form) rather than derivational morphology (the constitutive elements of words). See David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 198.

³⁸‘The arrangement of words (in their appropriate forms) by which their connection and relation in a sentence are shown.’ OED Online, 20 May 2013. See also Crystal, op cit., pp. 214–215.

³⁹On the complexity of such understandings across multiple languages see Patrick Farrell, Grammatical Relations (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005).

⁴⁰ Daedalus, 102:1 (1973); Daedalus, 120:3 (1991); Daedalus, 132:3 (2003). For an expanded comparison between these editions as well as the Millennium, 29:3 (2000) special edition on religion see Rees, Religion in International Politics and Development, op cit., pp. 13–15.

⁴¹‘Le XXIème siècle sera spirituel, ou ne sera pas.’ Cited in J. P. Mathy, ‘French-American Relations and the War in Iraq’, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 8:4 (2004), pp. 415; cf. pp. 415–424.

⁴²Thomas, Global Resurgence, op cit., p. 76.

⁴³Mavelli and Petito, op cit., pp. 934–935.

⁴⁴For example, J. Haynes, Religion and Development: Conflict or Cooperation? (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007). On ‘Conflict, Conflict-Resolution and Peace-Building’ see pp. 77–100.

⁴⁵For example, M. Clarke, ‘Understanding the Nexus between Religion and Development’ in Matthew Clarke (ed.) Handbook of Research on Development and Religion (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar, 2013), pp. 1–16.

⁴⁶For example, D. Johnston and B. Cox, ‘Faith-Based Diplomacy and Preventative Engagement’ in Douglas Johnston (ed.) Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 11–32.

⁴⁷R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation (Lanham, MD: Rowman and LittleField, 2000).

⁴⁸M. Barbato, C. De Franco and B. Le Normand, ‘Is There a Specific Ambivalence of the Sacred? Illustrations from the Apparition of Medjugorje and the Movement of Sant'Egidio’, Politics, Religion and Ideology, 13:1 (2013), pp. 53–73.

⁴⁹E. Shakman Hurd, ‘International Politics after Secularism’, Review of International Studies, 38:5 (2012), pp. 943–961.

⁵⁰Ibid., p. 951.

⁵¹Ibid., pp. 953–954.

⁵²I am applying the relation of subject to object as understood in classical grammar that associates the subject with the nominative case and the object with the accusative. See The Joint Association of Classical Teachers' Greek Course [JACT], Reading Greek: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 13.

⁵³S. L. Lamy, ‘The Role of Religious NGOs in Shaping Foreign Policy: Western Middle Powers and Reform Internationalism’ in P. James (ed.) Religion, Identity, and Global Governance: Ideas, Evidence, and Practice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), pp. 244–270.

⁵⁴Ibid., p. 245.

⁵⁵Ibid., pp. 235–254.

⁵⁶Ibid., pp. 247, 268.

⁵⁷For an alternative view see G. Clarke, ‘Agents of Transformation? Donors, Faith-Based Organisations and International Development’, Third World Quarterly, 28:1 (2007), pp. 77–96.

⁵⁸See Rees, Religion in International Politics and Development, op cit., pp. 46–73.

⁵⁹M. Clarke, ‘Understanding the Nexus between Religion and Development’ in M. Clarke, (ed.) Handbook of Research on Development and Religion (Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2013), p. 6, cf. pp. 1–16.

⁶⁰J. Busby, ‘Bono Made Jess Helmes Cry: Jubilee 2000, Debt Relief, and Moral Action in International Politics’, International Studies Quarterly, 51:2 (2007), pp. 247–275.

⁶¹F. Volpi, ‘Pseudo-Democracy in the Muslim World’, Third World Quarterly 25:6 (2004), pp. 1061–1078.

⁶²S. Rahnema and H. Moghissi, ‘Clerical Oligarchy and the Question of “Democracy” in Iran’, Iran Chamber Society, 2012. http://www.iranchamber.com/government/articles/clerical_oligarchy_democracy_iran.php. (accessed 4 May 2013).

⁶³M.-L. Gu and E. Bomhoff, ‘Religion and Support for Democracy: A Comparative Study of Catholic and Muslim Countries’, Politics and Religion, 5:2 (2012), pp. 280–316.

⁶⁴I. Hossain, ‘The Organisation of Islamic Conference: Nature, Role and Issues’, Journal of Third World Studies, 29:1 (2012), p. 299.

⁶⁵Ibid., pp. 289–293; also S. H. Hashmi, (2002), ‘Islamic Ethics in International Society’ in Jack Miles and Sohail H. Hashmi (eds) Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism and Conflict (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 148–172.

⁶⁶H. Karcic, ‘In Support of a Non-Member State: The Organisation of Islamic Conference and the War in Bosnia, 1992–1995’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 33:3 (2013), pp. 321–340.

⁶⁷Ibid., p. 336.

⁶⁸Ibid.

⁶⁹On the complex impact of the religious imaginary upon the conflict see M. A. Sells, ‘The Construction of Islam in Serbian Religious Mythology and Its Consequences’ in Maya Shatzmiller (ed.) Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-Ethnic States (Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen's University Press), pp. 56–85.

⁷⁰Karcic, op cit., p. 337.

⁷¹See J. G. Ruggie, ‘Epistemology, Ontology and the Study of International Relations’ Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 85–101.

⁷²Johnston and Cox, op cit., p. 16.

⁷³Ibid., pp. 23–27.

⁷⁴K. A. Fadl, ‘Conflict Resolution as a Normative Value in Islamic Law’, in Johnston and Cox, op cit., pp. 178–209.

⁷⁵Mark Juergensmeyer and Margo Kitts (eds) Princeton Readings in Religion and Violence. (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011).

⁷⁶Ibid., pp. 1–3.

⁷⁷Barbato, De Franco and Le Normand, op cit.

⁷⁸J. Rees, Religion in International Politics and Development, op cit., pp. 36–42. See also, J. A. Rees, ‘“Really Existing Scriptures”: On the Use of Sacred Text in International Affairs’ in Dennis R. Hoover and Douglas M. Johnston (eds) Religion and Foreign Affairs: Essential Readings (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), pp. 109–118.

⁷⁹R. Hassner, ‘How to Cite a Sacred Text’, Politics and Religion, 6:4 (2013), p. 845; cf. pp. 844–861.

⁸⁰J. A. Rees, ‘Isaiah's Vision of Human Security: Virtue-Ethics and International Politics’ in D. R. Hoover and D. M. Johnston (eds) Religion and Foreign Affairs: Essential Readings (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), pp. 119–126 (originally published in 2006).

⁸¹Ibid., p. 120. Italics in original.

⁸²Ibid., pp. 120–124.

⁸³Hurd, ‘International Politics after Secularism’, op cit., p. 955.

⁸⁴Thomas, Global Resurgence, op cit., p. 125.

⁸⁵JACT, op cit., p. 13.

⁸⁶For a reconsideration of the religious dynamics surrounding Westphalia see D. Philpott, ‘The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations’, World Politics, 52:2 (2000), pp. 206–245.

⁸⁷The experience in America was similar, though with some significant differences. For a distinction between the ‘collision’ of religion and state in Europe contrasted with ‘collusion’ between religion and state in the US, see Casanova, op cit., pp. 11–13.

⁸⁸Martyn Lyons, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution (London: Palgrave, 1994), p. 85.

⁸⁹Fox, op cit., p. 353.

⁹⁰Ibid. See pp. 313–351.

⁹¹P. Jenkins, ‘The Politics of Persecuted Religious Minorities’ in Robert A. Seiple and Dennis R. Hoover (eds) Religion and Security: The New Nexus in International Relations (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), pp. 25–36.

⁹²D. Fahmy, ‘This is Not Mubarak-lite: The New Face of Authoritarianism’, The Immanent Frame, 19 May 2014. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2014/05/19/this-is-not-mubarak-lite-the-new-face-of-authoritarianism (accessed 20 May 2014).

⁹³J. A. Rees, ‘Religion and International Financial Institutions’ in M. Clarke (ed.) Handbook of Research on Development and Religion (Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2013), pp. 281–282; cf. pp. 268–285.

⁹⁴As a complex and conflicted process see P. Chatterjee, ‘Secularism and Tolerance’ in R. Bhargava (ed.) Secularism and Its Critics (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 349–366; cf. pp. 345–379.

⁹⁵For a summation and critical engagement of this view, see S. Caton, ‘What is an “Authorizing Discourse”?’ in David Scott and Charles Hirschkind (eds) Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), pp. 31–56.

⁹⁶For other meanings of the dative that could equally be applied analogously in IR see JACT, op cit., p. 113.

⁹⁷Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

⁹⁸Ibid., p. 231. Italics added.

⁹⁹See also Pew Research Centre's Forum on Religion and Public Life, Faith on the Move: Religious Affiliation of International Migrants (Washington, DC: Pew Research Centre, 2010).

¹⁰⁰O. Roy, ‘Terrorism and Deculturation’ in Lousie Richardson (ed.) The Roots of Terrorism (New York and London: Taylor and Francis, 2006), pp. 159–170.

¹⁰¹Ibid., p. 160.

¹⁰²Ibid., p. 161.

¹⁰³Ibid., p. 169.

¹⁰⁴Additional cases may bring added value, such as the vocative (perhaps emphasising the self-understanding of religious actors) or locative (emphasis on the place or location where religious actors are situated).

¹⁰⁵O. Waever, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Inter-paradigm Debate’ in Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (eds) International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 174; cf. pp. 149–185. Waever is not suggesting that the contestation between paradigms has no place, but is instead addressing the problem of incommensurability, where theories are assumed to be answering different questions and thus cannot be practicably compared.

¹⁰⁶J. Camilleri, ‘Postsecular Discourse in an Age of Transition’, Review of International Studies, 38:5 (2012), pp. 1019–1039.

¹⁰⁷Asad, op cit., p. 200.