1. Does the entrenched secularism of the
discipline of International Relations
leave it ill-equipped to understand
important contemporary issues, such as
religious terrorism?
Tom Corben
3437822
ARTS2814
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2. On September 11th 2001, religion exploded into the consciousness of International
Relations (IR). The terrorists who carried out the attacks, however, were “motivated
by ideas, but not economic, strategic or politically liberal ones” (Philpott 2002: 66),
ideas which political scholarship at the time had great difficulty in accounting for.
Indeed, this religious ‘resurgence’ was not due to its theoretical value, but “real-world
events” that made it impossible to ignore (Hurd 2008: 134).
IR has long inherited the assumption that the separation of religion and politics is
entirely necessary for the realisation of a secure, rational political society (Wilson
2012: 33). Over time, however, this secular bias has become entrenched, contributing
to “inaccurate and incomplete understandings” of the political roles of religion in
various contemporary contexts (p. 2). As a result, the idea of metaphysical theorising
has commonly been discounted because of its inherent ‘irrationality’ and supposed
irrelevance to rational politics. As such, religious incursions into the public realm
have regularly securitised.
Secular knowledge structures within IR have failed to account for religion, or at most
considered spiritual beliefs secondary motives to socioeconomic or political
grievances (Pabst 2012: 996). While a post-secular discourse has recently emerged, it
has only served to further entrench secularist logic, chiefly because it constrains
religious contributions to the public sphere in the interests of maintaining secular
hegemony (p. 1009). Nevertheless, increasingly frequent challenges to secularism
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3. will have significantly influence Western political and IR theoretical perspectives of
religion (Wilson 2012: 42).
This essay will explore how the entrenched secularism within IR compounds
disciplinary attempts to understand contemporary religious issues, with particular
attention to radical Islamism. Beginning with a brief discussion on the definitions of
‘secularism’ and, necessarily, ‘religion’, this paper will proceed to analyse how the
ongoing securitisation of religion as a threat to public politics has perpetuated a
secular bias within the IR in its past and present forms. A discussion of the
shortcomings of critical theories and post-secularism in theorising about religion will
follow, contending that the discipline remains trapped within a secular bias.
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Secularism is not a monolithic concept, but can assume many forms. Hallward
conceptualises secularism as a relational settlement between politics and religion
regarding the latter’s place in society (2008: 4). Hurd sees secularism as a political
project that reimagines a socio-political order based on “a set of constitutive norms
and principles” (2008: 135). On a basic level, secularism can be understood as a set
of ‘truth’ claims that privilege different social and political discourses the interests of
limiting religious influence in the public sphere of politics (Wilson 2012: 31).
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4. Secularism, necessarily, constructs a religious ‘other’, and this dyadic relationship is
given to constitute the ‘public’ and ‘private’ realms respectively (Hallward 2008: 3).
Secular discourses assume themselves to be fundamentally “accessible or intelligible”
because they appeal to an innate, universal human rationalism, rather than a
particularist religious metaphysical discourse (Dallmayr 2012: 966). Secularism does
not dismiss religion entirely, but instills it with a particular presence (Hurd 2012:
955).
Contentiously, IR has somewhat adopted religious ideas into its ‘secular’ intellectual
concepts and structures, particularly in matters of sovereignty and security (Hurd
2008: 116). For instance, both Wilson (2012: 52) and Pabst contend that secularism
invests the public political sphere - embodied by the state - with a quasi-sacred
significance, a sort of “secular capture of the sacred” (2012: 1002). In a sense,
modern doctrines of commerce and liberal politics have also been invested with a
quasi-religious significance. However, that the secular defines the religion-politics
relationship necessarily determines the questions asked of religion and “the kinds of
answers one expects to find” (Wilson 2012: 116), restricting both the parameters of
inquiry and limiting the possibilities of uncovering coherent knowable evidence. This
becomes problematic when the assumption that religion cannot or will not infiltrate
the public political realm is shown to be flawed.
While many IR theories have advocated the separation of church and state,
secularism shares a particularly strong affiliation with liberalism. Mavelli notes that
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5. the secular liberal state has been highly idealised as the environment in which the
separation of knowledge and faith claims should occur (2011: 181). Wilson further
contends that assumptions about what secularism is and does are “closely linked with
various tenets of liberalism”: the separation of the church and state, the
individualisation of faith, and the promotion of tolerance and freedom as democratic
values (2012: 33). Different incarnations of secular liberalism are underpinned by the
assumption that religion is irrational and incompatible with rationally-founded public
politics (p. 34).
Arguably, religion’s subordination to secularism occurs a priori to political theorising
because secularism is implicit within IR theory itself. Scholarship neglects to
question the legitimacy of its secular basis , meaning that it “becomes blind to its own
weaknesses vis-à-vis religious dogmatism” (Hallward 2008: 5). Indeed, if we were to
re-invert the religion-politics duality, secularism becomes religiously problematic
because it inappropriately “sacralises the profane” (Pabst 2012: 1002). As a result,
one could call into question the ability of IR to address contemporary religious issues.
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Particularly in the wake of 9/11, political Islam became widely conflated with notions
of the ““anti-modern,” “anti-Western,” and “anti-secular”” (Hallward 2008: 4),
regarded as “most incompatible with the dictates of political liberalism” (Hurd 2012:
952). Indeed, violent political Islam has been framed as a reflex response to perceived
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6. economic or political poverty vis-à-vis secular liberal modernity, and “a menacing
departure” from secular statist norms with “the potential to be irrational, dangerous,
and extremist” (Hurd 2008: 122). Critical IR theories in particular have privileged
quantifiable socio-economic or political factors over radical religious beliefs in
explaining radical Islamism (Jones & Smith 2010: 260). However, in recent years
Islamist groups have challenged the secular international system, presenting a
theologically-based alternative model of their own.
Indeed, the idea of religious violence as unrestrained and irrational is “a crucial part
of dominant secularist ideology”, particularly its attempts to subordinate religion
(Wilson 2012: 46), though that Islam may possess political theories of statehood
constitutes a significant divergence from the secular norm. In turn, secularism holds
that “the security of the public sphere rests on its secular character” (Mavelli 2011:
178), and for religion to overstep the public threshold challenges the status quo and
marks its becoming as a political ideology in its own right. The result is a process of
securitising secularism against the ‘threat’ of politically aspirational religion, which
in itself becomes permanently securitised (p. 178).
Considered so, Religion migrates from the private sphere not to the public realm, but
rather that of security, precluding any possibility of it constituting a political or
‘rational’ worldview. Violent religious expression becomes “not true religion, but
religion securitised, that is, ideology” (Mavelli 2011: 190): in entering the public
realm, religion somehow sheds and retains its religiosity. The binary terminology of
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7. ‘secular’ or ‘religious’ has produced various terms with which to describe “a variety
of religion-state relationships”, both practical and theoretical, in the Islamic world
(Hallward 2008: 2). In practice, these terms deny any possibility of Islam having a
political vision because the conventions of contemporary IR cannot allow for such an
occurrence.
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The securitisation of secularism is not an anomaly: it is the historical norm. Taken to
constitute the very basis for International Relations as we know it, the separation of
church and state necessitates that religious infringements into the public realm are
always going to be securitised. Though a specific product of Western historical
experience, secularism seldom explores this history nor problematises this
observation. The secularism that pervades liberal theory is fundamentally informed
by its particularist historical experience. Secular liberalism is regularly unable to
discern the limitations of its rational, empirical bias, and regularly fails the test of
self-reflection (Hallward 2008: 5).
Western scholarship has largely passed over the role of religious ideas and narratives
in the foundation of contemporary international society (Wilson 2012: 5). Prior to the
Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which supposedly marked the clear division of politics
and religion, it was the Church which had constituted social community. Theology -
not secularism - had served as the principle social organisational and behavioural tool
(Wilson 2012: 32). Westphalia, then, may have simply inverted this relationship,
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8. replacing religious communities with a system of empirically definable political
bodies.
Indeed, the Westphalian settlement did not necessarily achieve security, but
perpetuated insecurity by relocating divine omnipotent authority within the temporal,
fallible state. The process of Westphalian synthesis discussed by Philpott (2002)
shifted the European locus of power from the church to the state, proscribed religious
interventions into other states, and sought an end to political support for public
religion. Fear of a “nominalist God” was replaced with the fear of Hobbes’ Leviathan
(Mavelli 2011: 187).
IR has long privileged public over private religious phenomena, particularly coherent
institutional forms (Wilson 2012: 41). However, that religion operates at multiple
social levels outside the West requires a reconsideration of religion as a strictly
private practice (Hoover 2004: 3). Private religious liberty has arguably become “a
site of resistance or insurrection” against hegemonic authorities both secular and
religious (Hurd 2012: 960). Otis contends that religion acts as a force multiplier -
both rhetorically and practically - in its ability to appeal to these transcendent socio-
cultural ties across secular state boundaries and rules (Otis 2004: 21). Indeed, global
Islamic organisations frequently operate across many states, “building loyal
followings who then articulate Islamic politics, sometimes through
violence” (Philpott 2002: 83). Evidently, to relegate powerful religious traditions
entirely to the realm of private belief is to ignore their innate propensity to form
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9. influential communities which transcend secular state boundaries (Hurd 2008: 47) - a
risk that secularism has largely obscured.
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IR theories commonly assume to ‘know’ the proper relationship between religion and
politics, regardless of cultural or historical context. For example, traditional theories
are blinded in their analysis of global religious security issues because they are
beholden to an entrenched “ahistorical vision of a “secular” state” (Otis 2004: 11). In
turn, the projection of this model onto other ‘non-Western’ societies has the effect of
instantly disqualifying political expressions of faith. In the case of political Islam,
these expressions are then linked to a supposed Muslim proclivity for violent public
expressions of faith (Hurd 2008: 119). While a “singular focus on theology” obscures
a myriad of other interrelated factors (Otis 2004: 15), IR theory commonly falls in the
opposite direction, failing to extract the metaphysical concepts pervading political
religious expressions.
Yet 9/11 did not mark the birth of the religious security threat: it merely altered its
locus, agent and nature. Religious violence is no longer characterised by large
interfaith wars, but characterised by individual or small groups acts of extremism
against symbolic (Western) targets, the success of which is based upon perceived
transcendental benefit and legitimation (Otis 2004: 13). The violence associated with
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10. Islamist extremism has the dual effect of negatively sensationalising political Islam,
and amplifying its supposed threat to the liberal secular West.
The ability of IR to account for assertive religion in contemporary international
relations has been called into question with the increasing frequency of Islamist
extremism since 9/11. Undoubtedly, many actors feel that the secular grip on the
international system makes violent resistance “the only available strategy to ensure
both temporal and spiritual security” (Otis 2004: 17). Islamists regularly target state
actors, challenging the assumption that secular states are the most important actor in
international society (Hurd 2008: 125). IR theory regularly fails to account for the
possibility that political Islam may actually represent a progressive public negotiation
between religion and politics in Islamic societies (p. 129), rather than a throwback to
an idealised theocratic past. Furthermore, it may also articulate an alternative world
system based on an ideology other that Enlightened rationalism
Interestingly, Jones and Smith have identified a common intellectual thread between
radical Islamism and “transformational agenda of critical international relations
theory” (2010: 255). They suggest that IR scholars and Islamists alike have drawn on
post-colonial literature to explain Islamic grievances with the West, as well as
utilising critical theory to explain the phenomena of radical Islamic terrorism itself.
However, while critical theories challenge hegemonic ideologies, they do not
explicitly reject secularism. On the contrary, critical theory remains trapped within a
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11. logic insufficient to account for the metaphysical, religious motives behind radical
Islamist movements.
Rather than acknowledging the agency of Islamist ideology, critical IR theory claims
that Western governments have exaggerated and securitised Islam in order to justify
the expansion of state powers (Jones & Smith 2010: 259). The liberal state, as the
agent of secularisation, claims to discipline religious violence, justifying its own
violence as entirely calculative and rational. Bracketing religion “as a dimension of
insecurity” in this manner serves to reinforce a state-centric security logic and its
monopoly on violence (Mavelli 2011: 179). However, while such a revelation indicts
manipulative liberal secular states, it does not acknowledge the religious ideology
behind the threat. Critical theory affords Islamist ideology some coherence within
conventional IR, but also distorts the underlying metaphysical principles at hand
(Jones & Smith 2010: 244), discounting the relevance of Islamic theology and the
agency of religiously motivated actors (p. 243). Evidently, ts preoccupation lies in
critiquing “the questionable Western democratic response to such violence” (p. 253).
Western IR scholarship has generally “struggled to accept that the secular is not a
fixed, natural category”, but a subjective product of historical and cultural context
(Wilson 2012: 43). Even in the post-9/11 era, critical and post-secular theoretical
modes of inquiry have failed to “overcome the hegemony of secular reason” (Pabst
2012: 996). Indeed, the ‘restoration’ of religion to the public sphere has activated new
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12. forms of secular and religious authority that have perpetuated secularism and the
constraint of public religious expression (Hurd 2012: 946).
Given its particularist origins, a lack of enquiry into non-Western experiences with
religion and politics experience has undoubtedly impacted on IR’s ability to theorise
about religious issues. Positivist social science has fatally dismissed the
‘unobservable’ in favour of empirical evidence-based enquiry, essentially curtailing
understandings of what religion says and does in international relations (Pabst 2012:
998). An entrenched epistemological framework, while entirely useful, has
contributed to an intellectual stasis that makes theorising about metaphysics
extremely difficult, but obscures the role of secularism in producing religious subjects
and identities (Hallward 2008: 8).
Though acknowledging the historical significance of religion in the creation of
international society, the English School has essentially historicised religion as a relic
of the past. Speculating that religion as once-but-no-longer politically influential fails
to account for contemporary religious conflicts, political projects or public
professions of faith by political actors (Wilson 2012: 9). Constructivism, too, falls to
secularist bias in categorising religion as as one among many ‘cultural’ concepts or
factors, rather than a distinct entity. As Wilson highlights, “theorising about the nature
of religion itself is rarely done” (p. 59).
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13. IR theory struggles to theorise about metaphysical religion because it cannot breach
its innate secular nature. While post-secularism has presumed to depart from the
restrictions of secular logic, it too remains trapped within this entrenched bias
(Dallmayr 2012) in denying a pluralistic relationship between religion and politics,
discounting the possibility that the two often coexist and often share similar goals and
trajectories (Pabst 2012: 997). Religious ‘unbelief’ is maintained as the default
position from which religion and politics are observed (p. 1003). Furthermore,
institutional filters continue to protect hegemonic secularism against religious
challenges by privileging “certain forms of certain religions” (Hurd 2012: 949) that
conform to secular norms and do not seek to challenge the status quo. Religion is
thus permitted a presence within the public sphere but in a strictly un-institutionalised
capacity (Pabst 2012: 1005). Religion is relevant to IR only when it can be put to
‘good’ use consummate with secular politics, or when it endangers existing structures
(Hurd 2012: 946).
A chief proponent of post-secularism, Habermas sought to identify the acceptable
conditions under which religion could legitimately reenter the public realm.
Habermas advocated a mutual compromise between religion and politics, whereby
religion would accept ‘natural’ reason as the basis for public life while politics would
refrain from judging religious ‘truth content’ (Dallmayr 2012: 964-966). However,
this proposition remains trapped within secularist thought, for it requires the
translation of religious discourse into the language of public rationality, reinforcing
the secular hierarchy (Pabst 2012: 1004).
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14. - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The parameters of this essay have made it necessary to gloss over many of the finer
details: varieties of secularism, the history of IR, and so forth. However, what has
become clear is that the entrenched secularism within IR has complicated its ability to
theorise about contemporary religious affairs and continues to do so. Evidently, there
is a pressing need to understand the ways religious ideas challenge Westphalian
norms (Philpott 2002: 92). However, as Wilson puts it, “it is not enough to simply
note that a bias exists” (2012: 3). Critique of secularism is undoubtedly important if
religion is to undergo de-securitising, but should not come at the expense of
identifying the core motivations behind religious issues, not just violent Islamism.
Such a project will undoubtedly require a reconsideration of the place of metaphysics
within IR (Dallmayr 2012).
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15. References
Dallmayr, F. 2012 ‘Post-secularity and (global) politics: a need for radical
redefinition’, Review of International Studies, 38:5, pp. 963-973
Hallward, M. 2008 ‘Situating the “Secular”: Negotiating the Boundary between
Religion and Politics”, International Political Sociology, 2, pp. 1-16
Hoover, D. 2004 ‘Introduction: Religion Gets Real’, pp. 1-10 in Seiple, R. & Hoover,
D. (eds.) Religion & Security: The New Nexus In International Relations, Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, New York
Hurd, E. 2008 The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, Princeton
University Press, United Kingdom
Hurd, E. 2012 ‘International politics after secularism’, Review of International
Studies, 38:5, pp. 943-961
Jones, D. & Smith, M. 2010 ‘Beyond Belief: Islamist Strategic Thinking and
International Relations Theory’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 22:2, pp. 242-266
Otis, P. 2004 ‘Religion and War in the Twenty-first Century’, pp. 11-24 in Seiple, R.
& Hoover, D. (eds.) Religion & Security: The New Nexus In International Relations,
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, New York
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16. Mavelli, L. 2011 ‘Security and secularisation in International Relations’, European
Journal of International Relations, 18:1, pp. 177 - 199
Pabst, A. 2012 ‘The secularism of post-secularity: religion, realism, and the revival of
grand theory in IR’, Review of International Relations, 38:05, pp. 995 - 1017
Philpott, D. 2002 ‘The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International
Relations’, World Politics, 55:1, pp. 66-95
Wilson, E. 2012 After Secularism: Rethinking Religion in Global Politics, Palsgrave
Macmillan, London, pp. 1-27
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