An Introduction to Religion and Politics (2^nd Ed.)
Theory and Practice
Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics Series

This 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 for all students of religion and politics, comparative politics, international relations, and security studies.

Chapter 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

Jonathan Fox is the Yehuda Avner Professor of Religion and Politics in the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, the director of the Religion and State Project, and the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Religion and International Relations section of the International Studies Organization (ISA). He has published extensively on religion and politics.