Ir Assignment
Ir Assignment
Ir Assignment
SUBMITTED BY :
SYEDA MALAIKA
SUBMITTED TO :
ROLL NO.
39
SUBJECT:
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
ASSIGNMENT:
REVIEW OF CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION:
The chapter “Religion and International Relations
Theory” is written by Monica Duffy Toft. She is among
prominent scholars of International relation and a
professor. Her research focuses on civil wars,
international security and role of religion in international
relations . She has authored significant books like God’s
century : Resurgent Religion and Global Politics and
Securing The Peace : The Durable Settlement Of Civil
Wars.
This particular chapter has four parts . Basically its main
focus is on role of religion in international politics and
emphasizes on the fact that how the international
relations theories ignored its importance in global
politics. Initially, Toft discussed about the purpose of
writing this chapter. Secondly , mentioned the factors
behind global resurgence of religion .Thirdly ,the relation
between contemporary IR theories and religion .
Lastly, in detail defined the Religious Actors and their
role in international politics .
Summary:
In the beginning of this chapter, there are three reasons
Toft mentioned for writing it , in which she discusses
and emphasize the role of religion in Global politics . First
reason is that increasing empirical Trend, where more
and more individuals , communities, groups and even
states are identifying as “ religious”. Moreover Toft
emphasize that they are not only increasing in numbers
but also their influence is expanding. Secondly, the
religion that was expected to be diminish of and its
presence considered to be faded in global level, was now
on its peak after 9/11 and the whole world saw that. To
discuss religion without confusion in context of
international relations and to establish a framework for
further analysis and discussions , Toft gave a working
definition of religion that is common to majority religion
specifically the Abrahamic ( Judaism , Christianity, Islam)
ones .
In the second part of chapter Toft discusses about Global
resurgence of Religion and explains in detail the factor
responsible for this revival on global scale.
The factors she mentioned are three:
Failure of promises of modernization
Rise of democratic system
Globalization
First factor responsible for global revival of religion ,
20th century marked the emergence of three important
movements of modernization
(Capitalism, Marxism – Leninism and fascism ) each of
them promised to solve persistent human problems
like wars, poverty and diseases. Moreover, rise of
machine at that time considered as the harbinger of
future without want and hunger. She argued that none
of three lived up to their promises for instance,
Marxism-Leninism fell victim to their internal conflicts.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in 1980 , such as glasnost,
exposed the gap between Soviet Reality and promised
Communist Utopia.
Second factor Toft mentioned in her research is
Democratization of world, this trend was started in
1970s .For example, Roman Catholics challenged
political authority which was in result of second
Vatican council (1962-1965)and also Pop John Paul II
against the communist regime in eastern Europe . This
trend shows the collapse of authoritarian regimes
which was suppressing particular groups , as the trend
of democracy increased it created space for non-state
actors like religious actors who was now allowed to
make influence in public.
The third factor is globalization, which is a tool for
better communication which make it easy for religious
groups to convey their message speedily all around the
world and to target and influence more and more
individuals and communities. This resulted in
conversion which ultimately increased the no. of
religiously influenced people.
In the third part of chapter the relation between
religion and international relations theories is being
discussed. This part of chapter analyses that how
different IR theories approach the role of religion in
international relation and mentioned the need for IR
theorist consider the religion as the influential factor in
global politics.
Realism, one of the important theories of IR, ignored
and overlook the importance of religion in
international relations. As realist focused on state’s
power, interest and security, their consideration of
religion as a domestic issue making it nearly irrelevant
to international relations and global political dynamics.
Liberalism, focused on individual freedom and rights,
international cooperation and economic
interdependence, overlooked the importance of
religion. Their assumption of secularization of states
leads to decline in religious influence, completely
isolating religion from politics. Moreover, their over-
emphasis on individual freedom neglects the role of
religion in shaping collective behavior and social norms
which is a prominent factor in global politics.
Constructivism, focused on role of norms, ideas and
identities in shaping international relations, arguing
that these factors shape the behavior of state. It
emphasize on social construction of state identity,
which behave accordingly to preserve their norms and
ideas thus influencing foreign policies. Toft argue that
constructivist overemphasize on norms and other
social constructs, making it difficult to establish clear
causal relationships between different variable which
resulted in theory to be called as a vague, unclear and
ambiguous.
Last sections of this chapter explains that, what are
religious actors and how they are influencing politics
on global politics. Religious actors are those
individuals, groups or organization that derive their
identity from religious beliefs, irrespective of whatever
religion to. They can either be state-based actors or
non-state actors. For example, religious nationalist
movement, terrorist organization or transnational
religious groups etc.
The influence of different religious actors is illustrated
by using various examples from past by Toft in this
chapter like the influence of Islamic Revolution in Iran
on middle Eastern politics , or the religious conflict
between Jews and Muslims that is influencing global
politics to great extent .The Yugoslav war is also
mentioned as one of the examples where religion is
literally influencing the political landscape.
These Four section of chapter provide argument based
and factual understanding of how religion is kept on
side in international relations theories and how much
the religion is important when we talk about
international politics.
Conclusion:
Monica Duffy Toft’s work on explanation of intersection
between religion and politics is of great importance.
Despite of the fact that Toft didn’t mentioned the
complexities of religious diversity ,this research provides
a nuanced explanation of how religion is even relevant
to international politics, covering the important points
like trends and factors due to which religious should be
taken serious in IR. Analyzing contemporary IR theories
approach towards religion and also defining that who are
religious actors and how they are influencing
international politics.