In Defence of Religion: Sacred Referent Objects for Securitization

Abstract

It is a widely shared assumption that since the end of the Cold war, conflicts and wars are less driven by political-ideological systems. Also they are not much caused by economic motives or even the classical ones of territory and power as an aim in themselves. The roots of conflicts are increasingly related to culture and identity, be it the wide-spread labeling of conflicts as 'ethnic' or the macrointerpretation of global politics in terms of a 'clash of civilisations'. 1 To Samuel Huntington, civilisations are ultimately defined to a large extent by religions. 2 Furthermore, he argues, one of the trends of the post-Cold War period is a 'revitalisation of religion throughout much of the world' which reinforces cultural difference. 3 Since the 1970s, the hope and fear of a 'withering away of religion' started to be defied. Not because of a lack of modernisation, but because one of the unexpected side-effects of modernisation was a 'revenge of God', an 'unsecularization of the world'. 4 In the area of international security, this has most keenly been felt in the form of an alleged threat from 'fundamentalism'. 5 This has meant primarily Islamic fundamentalism, 6 but the increasing influence of evangelic fundamentalism on US For helpful criticism and suggestions, we would like to thank

Islam and the Charismatic Revolutionary Social Transformation of Iran

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A Neo-Weberian Approach to Studying Religion and Violence

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