Abstract
This article offers, for the first time, a theoretical model of religion’s influence on the formulation and execution of national security policies. To build this model, it analyses the influence of religion on Israel’s national security policymaking—before and after Israel’s security environment went through a process of religionization beginning in the 1970s. The article proposes that religion’s effect on national security policymaking is comprised of three tiers that follow one another in the decision making sequence and, yet, are independent from one another: (1) operational beliefs embedded in the state’s security thinking on the relations between religion and security; (2) opportunities and constraints on the state’s freedom of action, due to the role religion plays in global, regional and domestic politics as well as bilateral relations; and (3) governmental utilization of religion to realize national security goals. At its conclusion, the article demonstrates that the model is applicable to other countries as well, using the case of France’s policies in the 21st century.
Highlights
The belief in a close connection between national security and religion is quickly becoming the new gospel of the International Relations discipline
Decisionmakers’ freedom of choice is determined, inter alia, by the role religion plays in global politics (e.g., Israel’s enhanced freedom of action after the war on Islamic terror became the main frame for talking about religion in international politics); the role religion plays in regional politics, and by bilateral relations based on religious affinity and the existence of each other’s religious diasporas
This article offered a three-tier model of the involvement of religion in national security making, based on the case of Israel before and after the religionization of its environment in the late 1970s-early
Summary
The belief in a close connection between national security and religion is quickly becoming the new gospel of the International Relations discipline. Undertone: policies that were guided by assumptions on religious matters, that signified a serious attempt to utilize religion for security objectives, or that pushed decisionmakers towards perceiving religious actors differently than secular actors It excludes, for example, the extension of the state’s protection to Jews everywhere—a basic principle of Israel’s security policy—because the relationship between Israel and the Jewish diasporas more closely resembles the relationships of other countries with their ethnic and national diasporas, rather than with their religious diasporas. The article begins with an exploration of how young Israel understood the connection between religion and national security It explores how, after the 1970s, Israel’s conflict with its environment transformed from a secular, nationalist inter-state conflict into a conflict between two religions, and how this transformation influenced the role religion plays in formulating Israel’s national security strategy today. Singling out one type of contributor to the exclusion of others is ill-advised, because in most cases of significant religionization of societies, states and regions, all three types come into play, as has been the case in the religionization of Israel’s security environment during the last four decades—which is used here to answer the article’s main question: What is the role of religion in the making of national security strategy, and does it change with the shifts in religion’s place in a country’s security environment?
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