Notes
1. There is an entire literature in international relations theory that explains the propensity of international relations scholars to regard religion primarily as a source of disturbance in the international order and to dismiss its legitimacy as a force in modern international politics. The literature argues in essence that the fault is located in the most fundamental foundations of the discipline of international relations: in the Westphalian consensus itself, which was an attempt to relegate religion to the private sphere and banish it from the ‘modern’ conception of politics, both domestic and international. This literature is not the focus of the essays in this collection, but examples may be found in CitationFox (2001: 54), Fox and Sandler (Citation2004: 14–24), and Hatzopoulos and Petito (Citation2003: 2).
2. Accepting this challenge seemed a natural extension of my work on ethnicity and nation-building in Singapore (Barr and SkrbiŠ Citation2008), and the interaction of religion and politics more broadly (Barr Citation2002, Citation2008a, Citationb).
Fox
,
Jonathan
.
2001
.
Religion as an overlooked element of international relations’
.
International Studies Review
,
3
(
3
)
:
53
–
73
.
Fox
,
Jonathan
Shmuel
Sandler
,
2004
.
Bringing religion into international relations
New York
:
Palgrave Macmillan
.
Hatzopoulos
,
Pavlos
Fabio
Petito
,
2003
.
‘The return from exile: an introduction’
,
in
Fabio
Petito
Pavlos
Hatzopoulos
,
Religion in international relations: the return from exile
New York
:
Palgrave Macmillan
,
1
20
.
Barr
,
Michael D.
Zlatko
Skrbiš
,
2008
.
Constructing Singapore: elitism, ethnicity and the nation-building project
Copenhagen
:
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
.
Barr
,
Michael D.
,
2002
.
Cultural politics and Asian values: the tepid war
London
:
Routledge
.
Barr
,
Michael D.
,
2008a
.
‘Confucianism, from above and below’
,
in
Jeffrey
Haynes
Routledge handbook on religion and politics
London
:
Routledge
,
64
78
.
Barr
,
Michael D.
,
2008b
.
‘Singapore's Catholic social activists: alleged Marxist conspirators’
,
in
Michael D.
Barr
Carl A.
Trocki
Paths not taken: political pluralism in post-war Singapore
Singapore
:
National University of Singapore Press
,
228
47
. Additional information
Notes on contributors
Michael D. Barr
Michael D. Barr is Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of International Relations at Flinders University. His latest book (written with Zlatko Skrbiš) is Constructing Singapore
Elitism, Ethnicity and the Nation-Building Project (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2008)