Religion and Post-secular Politics

Abstract

A comprehensive review of recent work in the social sciences on politics and religion would be a herculean task and possibly of limited utility. To begin with, the meaning of the two terms is hotly contested. Across the literature, the analytical specification of these social spheres varies. What counts for religion includes multiple and varying value systems and what counts for politics includes widely different principles of power and influence. Compounding this complexity, empirical accounts of politics and religion present a bewildering array of particular concretions of these varied value systems and differing power principles. Adding another level of difficulty for reviewers, research into the intersection between religion and politics gained new popularity over the past few decades without clearing this analytical muddle. For much of the twentieth century, secularization theory dampened interest and research in the relationship between religion and politics, but this has all changed. First after 1979, then again after 1989, and September 11, 2001, the social sciences pulsed with new productivity addressing this intersection of social spheres. In short, as reviewers, we face an explosion of new work in a subfield with fuzzy lines of demarcation.