Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium

Abstract

Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium. By Jonathan Fox. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004. 312p. $75.00.Jonathan Fox's book makes a very important contribution to the ongoing debate on the impact of religion on domestic conflict. On the one hand, the author takes issue with Samuel Huntington's clash-of-civilizations thesis. As many others before him, Fox does not find much quantitative support for Huntington's bold expectations: We neither experience a major reorganization of international relations along civilizationally defined fault lines nor observe a significant increase in the number of violent disputes involving parties from different civilizations. On the other hand, he objects to those recent studies according to which the onset of civil wars is determined by political and economic factors, while religion is found to be largely irrelevant (see, for instance, James Fearon and David Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97 [no. 1, 2003]: 75–90, or Errol Henderson and David J. Singer, “Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946–92,” Journal of Peace Research 37 [no. 3, 2000]: 275–99). By using data both from the Minorities at Risk Project (MAR) and the State Failure Project (SF), Religion, Civilization, and Civil War provides strong evidence that religious identity—whether the conflict involves two groups who belong to different religions or to different denominations—and, even more so, religious grievances do influence conflict escalation. This can be best studied when the crude distinctions of Huntington are questioned and religious diversity within civilizations is recognized.