Description
Book SynopsisThis fully revised edition offers a comprehensive overview of the many theories of religion and politics and provides students with an accessible, in-depth guide to the subject's most significant debates, issues, and methodologies.
It begins by asking the basic questions of how social scientists see religion and why religion remains relevant to politics in the modern era. Fox examines the influence of religious identity, beliefs, institutions and legitimacy on politics, and surveys important approaches and issues found in the literature on religion and politics. Four new chapters on religious policy around the world, political secularism, and religious freedom and human rights have been added to fully revised content covering religious identity, rational choice approaches to religious politics worldviews, beliefs, doctrines, ideologies, institutions and political mobilization, fundamentalism, secularization, and religion and conflict.
This work will be essential reading
Trade Review
"This revised and reorganized edition of the Fox volume makes this work the standard introduction to politics and religion. An Introduction to Religion and Politics (2nd edition) covers virtually all of the major approaches to the study of religion and politics, and is both accessible to beginning students and a valuable resource for serious academic analysts. Quite simply, it has become the dominant text in the comparative field." - Ted G. Jelen, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
"An Introduction to Religion and Politics is an outstanding step beyond the high quality first edition. Fox, a leading scholar, offers a tour de force on subjects ranging from religious freedom to government regulation of faith. The book is distinguished by its comprehensiveness, notably intellectual breadth and topical range." - Patrick James, Dornsife Dean’s Professor, School of International Relations, University of Southern California
"Any student who seeks a foundation of knowledge about religion and global politics, in using this revised text, will be learning at the feet of one of the pioneers and masters of the field. Professor Fox leaves no stone unturned in covering both the theory and practice of religion in global politics in today's world." - Daniel Philpott, Professor, University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
Table of ContentsChapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Secularization and Functionalism: Predictions of Religion’s Decline, and Irrelevance Chapter 3: Religious Identity Chapter 4: Religious Worldviews, Beliefs, Doctrines, and Theologies Chapter 5: Religious Legitimacy Chapter 6: Religious Institutions and Political Mobilization Chapter 7: Rational Religion Chapter 8: Religious Fundamentalism Chapter 9: Religion and Conflict Chapter 10: Government Religion Policy 1: Official Policies and Supporting Religion Chapter 11: Government Religion Policy 2: Restrictions, Regulation, Control and Discrimination Chapter 12: Political Secularism Chapter 13: Religious Freedom Chapter 14: Religion in International Relations Chapter 15: Conclusions
