Religion and Globalization

Abstract

Religion and Politics in the International System Today. By Eric O. Hanson New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 350 pp., $70.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-521-85245-5), $26.99 paper (ISBN: 0-521-61781-2). Eric Hanson's Religion and Politics in the International System Today “proposes a post-Cold War paradigm based on the interaction between the contemporary globalization of the political, economic, military, and communication systems and the significant role of religion in influencing politics” (p. 17). The book complements the rapidly growing body of post-September 11 scholarship on religion and international affairs—such as Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile by Pavlos Hatzopoulos and Fabio Petito (2003) , The Sacred and the Sovereign by John Carlson and Erik Owens (2003) , Bringing Religion into International Relations by Jonathan Fox and Schmuel Sandler (2004), The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations by Scott Thomas (2005), and Religion and Politics: Cultural Perspectives by Bernhard Giesen and Daniel Suber (2005). Unlike these books, however, Hanson confronts explicitly the relationship between religion and the evolving complexities of global politics, economics, and technology. Religion and Politics in the International System Today is divided into two parts. The first part contains four chapters in which Hanson explains his self-described “new paradigm for world politics” (p. 17). The first chapter lays out Hanson's views of the salient features of what he calls the “political and EMC” systems (by which he means the political plus economic, military, and communication systems) in the world today. The following chapters take “a political perspective on religion and politics” and a “religious perspective on religion and politics,” respectively. Finally, Hanson includes a brief history of the “religions of the book, meditative experience, and public life” as a background for the case studies that follow (p. 92). The second part of the book is an application of Hanson's theoretical framework to religion and politics in five regions: the West; East Asia; South and Central Asia; …