Call for Papers – Dossier Religion and International Studies

Organizers: Fernando Maia (PUC-Rio) e Tiago Rossi Marques (Martin Bucer)

Deadline for paper submissions: June 30.

Edition: v.16, n.3 (2019)

Along the process of separation of the religious and political spheres in the wake of the twentieth century, there was a strong tendency to believe that the religious phenomenon would be doomed to a definitive social and public decline, influenced by a wave of secularization that  displaced this phenomenon to the private and personal spheres,  with minor incidence on the culture and the public life.

 Contrary to the predictions of secularist theories of past centuries (TAYLOR, 2010) the  ressurgence of religion in what is called in the “West" the “Post-secular” period came to the center of public, political and social debates, whether national or international, not without mutation and resistance. (GRAHAM, 2013). In this sense, contemporary studies of the Human and Social Sciences have pointed out to the return of religion to the center of academic and theoretical debates, gaining more and more "public prominence as a significant factor in global politics and civil society". (GRAHAM, 2014, p 235).

It will be in this Post-Secularist debate, also present in the studies of International Relations (PETITO, MAVELLI, 2014; WILSON 2012), that it is possible to claim: whether at local, national or global level, religion can be a participant in the human development and in its most diverse social organizations - not without hindrance, as pointed out above. This would include the Global South beyond the boundaries of the “west". As Graham (2014, p. 237) points out, incountries "such as Brazil, China or India, religion continues to grow as a significant part of public life". This religious phenomenon, insofar as it may have some influence on the analytical effort produced in the field of International Studies, leads us to inquire "if" and "in what ways", either directly or indirectly, it collaborates  in the theoretical, paradigmatic and analytical production  of International Studies  marking what Scott M. Thomas (2014) called “religious turn”.

It is in this sense that we seek here to foment the debate around Religion and International Relations, seeking to  understand the forms and means – if they occur –  by which this "phenomenon" would take  part in  the field, theoretically, analytically or praxiologically , through its relationship with "the Political"  amid the "International". The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent and in what ways Religion and its institutions  may affect: (1) domestic and external legislative structures, (2) modeling values, social and cultural practices of peoples and nations, (3) foreign policy and decision-making process, (4) i international institutions and organizations, the studies on (5) security, peace and democracy, (6) development issues, and political economy, (7)  ecopolitics, (8) Human Rights and International Law, (9) in Ethics, Politics and the Social, (10) among others. We invite the most diverse approaches, actors, theories and religions to contribute to the construction of knowledge on this issue.

References

GRAHAM, Elaine. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Public Theology in a Post-Secular Age. London: SCM Press, 2013.

_____. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Public Theology in a Post-Secular Age. Practical Theology, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 235-251, December 2014.

PETITO, Fabio; MAVELLI, Luca (eds.). Towards a Postsecular International Politics: New Forms of Community, Identity, and Power. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014.

TAYLOR, Charles. Uma Era Secular. São Leopoldo: Unisinos. 1 ed., 10 de outubro, 2010.

THOMAS, Scott M. The Religious Turn in the Study of International Relations. The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 12:4, pp.76-82, DOI:10.1080/15570274.2014.976090, 2014.

WILSON, Erin K. After Secularism: Rethinking Religion in Global Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.