Bloomsbury Politics in a Religious World: Building a Religiously Literate U.S. Foreign Policy

Politics in a Religious World examines why US diplomacy often misunderstands, if not ignores, the role of religion in international conflicts.After the Cold War, it became evident that religion was a key factor in many conflicts, including Bosnia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan. However, the US failed to correctly appreciate this role, for example predicting the failure of the Iranian theocrats in 1979. Today, most of the security and foreign relations challenges faced by the US are infused with religious factors, from its relations with Iran to the Iraq war and jihadist terrorists. Religion, however, can also play a transnational role when it comes to human rights, conflict resolution, and political mobilization. Written by an expert in the field, the book analyzes why the US deliberately avoids the religious dimension of international affairs and proposes a comprehensive approach to a religiously literate US foreign policy. Politics in a Religious World addresses a needed area and will appeal to anyone studying US foreign policy as well as the interaction of religion and international affairs. Review "Eric Patterson's insightful book represents a welcome addition to the case that is building daily for including religious factors in the calculus of American foreign policy. Addressing the staunch secular bias in Western foreign policies head-on, he exposes the perils of continuing as before in the education and practice of our international relations professionals. His analysis and proposed remedies for our "religiously illiterate foreign policy" are sound and deserve serious attention." -Dr. Douglas M. Johnston, President and Founder, International Center for Religion & Diplomacy."Everyone who wishes to influence or conduct America's foreign policy in the 21st Century should be required to read Eric Patterson's Politics in a Religious World. In a real tour de force, Patterson calls on America's foreign policy practitioners to remove their 'secularist blinders' and recognize religion's central importance in billions of peoples lives in determining the behavior of diverse societies across the globe." -Dr. Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission"The U.S. foreign policy establishment continues to assume, against decades of evidence to the contrary, that religion operates according to the same logic as secular forms of power. Eric Patterson is the rare observer who combines a sophisticated understanding of religion's complex and contradictory roles in international politics with an insider's knowledge of U.S. diplomatic and military thinking. His balanced but blunt critique of the so-called "realism" that keeps many of our policymakers comfortable in their ignorance of religion could not be more timely." - R.Scott Appleby, University of Notre Dame, Co-Chair, Chicago Council on Global Affairs Task Force on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy. About the Author Eric Patterson is Associate Director, Berkley Center for Religion and World Affairs and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University, USA. Patterson also served as a White House Fellow, US Office of Personnel management. He is the co-author with Major John Gallager of Debating the War of Ideas (2009).