Review: The Rediscovery of Religion in International Affairs

March-April 1996

Students and practitioners of international politics in the West have long ignored the crucial role that religious factors play in the life of nations. Those who have paid some attention generally end up bemoaning the divisive role of religion when it becomes entangled in matters political. Few have made a serious effort to consider its more constructive role in helping to prevent or resolve violent conflicts. In Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft (Oxford, 1994), Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson go a long way toward providing a much needed corrective.

This volume has its genesis in the Religion and Conflict Resolution Project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a highly influential Washington think tank. The project is the brainchild of Johnston, who was aided by a distinguished interdisciplinary advisory group that numbered among its members several Evangelical and Roman Catholic scholars. The authors call into question the intellectual framework within which people are currently trained in the field of international relations, specifically its neglect or denial of religious and other cultural factors in shaping the behavior of states. They also show how this framework is rooted in an Enlightenment worldview, which has succeeded in imposing its restrictive prejudices concerning the public role of religion on the way we think about foreign affairs and politics more generally.

Seven carefully researched and documented case studies, coordinated by Sampson, form the core of the book. These analyze the important peacemaking role of self-consciously religious actors in diverse geographical settings, including Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Taken together they add up to a compelling case for the positive potential of religious actors and influences in situations of conflict, and for the thesis that the process of conflict resolution is apt to be frequently misunderstood if the religious dimension is not taken into account.

The book would have been strengthened considerably had it included case studies documenting the contributions of religious traditions other than Christianity. Also, it would have been helpful to show how the religious dimension—viewed not as a discrete, isolated social component but as an all-pervasive influence—shapes the main purposes and instruments of conventional diplomacy and not simply the outcome of certain conflictual situations.

—Luis E. Lugo