This book explores developments in the three major societies of the South Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – focusing especially on religion, historical traditions, national consciousness, and political culture, and on how these factors interact. It outlines how, despite close geographical interlacement, common historical memories and inherited structures, the three countries have deep differences; and it discusses how development in all three nations has differed significantly from the countries’ declared commitments to democratic orientation and European norms and values. The book also considers how external factors and international relations continue to impact on the three countries.

This volume approaches the UN as a laboratory of religio-political value politics. Over the last two decades religion has acquired increasing influence in international politics, and religious violence and terrorism has attracted much scholarly attention. But there is another parallel development which has gone largely unnoticed, namely the increasing political impact of peaceful religious actors. With several religious actors in one place and interacting under the same conditions, the UN is as a multi-religious society writ small. The contributors to this book analyse the most influential religious actors at the UN (including The Roman Catholic Church; The Organisation of Islamic Countries; the Russian Orthodox Church). Mapping the peaceful political engagements of religious actors; who they are and how they collaborate with each other - whether on an ad hoc basis or by forming more permanent networks - throwing light at the modus operandi of religious actors at the UN; their strategies and motivations. The chapters are closely interrelated through the shared focus on the UN and common theoretical perspectives, and pursue two intertwined aspects of religious value politics, namely the whys and hows of cross-religious cooperation on the one hand, and the interaction between religious actors and states on the other. Drawing together a broad range of experts on religious actors, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Religion and Politics, International Relations and the UN.

This collection explores how Christian individuals and institutions – whether Churches, church-related organisations, clergy, or lay thinkers – combined the topics of faith and national identity in twentieth-century Europe. "National identity" is understood in a broad sense that includes discourses of citizenship, narratives of cultural or linguistic belonging, or attributions of distinct, "national" characteristics. The collection addresses Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox perspectives, considers various geographical contexts, and takes into account processes of cross-national exchange and transfer. It shows how national and denominational identities were often mutually constitutive, at times leading to a strongly exclusionary stance against "other" national or religious groups. In different circumstances, religiously minded thinkers critiqued nationalism, emphasising the universalist strains of their faith, with varying degrees of success. Moreover, throughout the century, and especially since 1945, both church officials and lay Christians have had to come to terms with the relationship between their national and "European" identities and have sought to position themselves within the processes of Europeanisation. Various contexts for the negotiation of faith and nation are addressed: media debates, domestic and international political arenas, inner-denominational and ecumenical movements, church organisations, cosmopolitan intellectual networks and the ideas of individual thinkers.

A collection of new essays exploring the complex and unstable articulations of race and religion. Drawing on original research, the authors investigate how race and religion have defined global relations, shaped the everyday lives of individuals and communities and how communities use religion to contest the power of racism.

What is the enduring impact of Presbyterianism on what it means to be Scottish?Presbyterianism has shaped Scotland and its impact on the world. Behind its beliefs lie some distinctive practices of governance which endure even when belief fades. These practices place a particular emphasis on the detailed recording of decisions and what we can term a 'systemic' form of accountability.This book examines the emergence and consolidation of such practices in the 18th-century Church of Scotland. Using extensive archival research and detailed local case studies, it contrasts them to what is termed a 'personal' form of accountability in England in the same period. The wider impact of the systemic approach to governance and accountability, especially in the United States of America, is explored, as is the enduring impact on Scottish identity.This book offers a fresh perspective on the Presbyterian legacy in contemporary Scottish historiography, at the same time as informing current debates on national identity.Key Features:A novel focus on religion as social practice, as opposed to belief or organizationA strong focus on Scotland, but in the context of BritainExtensive archival work in the Church of Scotland records, with an emphasis on form as well as contentA different focus on the Church of Scotland in the eighteenth centuryOffers a detailed focus on local practice in the context of national debates

This book examines how German-language authors have intervened in contemporary debates on the obligation to extend hospitality to asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants; the terrorist threat post-9/11; globalisation and neo-liberalism; the opportunities and anxieties of intensified mobility across borders; and whether transnationalism necessarily implies the end of the nation state and the dawn of a new cosmopolitanism. The book proceeds through a series of close readings of key texts of the last twenty years, with an emphasis on the most recent works. Authors include Terézia Mora, Richard Wagner, Olga Grjasnowa, Marlene Streeruwitz, Vladimir Vertlib, Navid Kermani, Felicitas Hoppe, Daniel Kehlmann, Ilija Trojanow, Christian Kracht, and Christa Wolf, representing the diversity of contemporary German-language writing. Through a careful process of juxtaposition and differentiation, the individual chapters demonstrate that writers of both minority and nonminority backgrounds address transnationalism in ways that certainly vary but which also often overlap in surprising ways.

Historians have long believed that Catholics were late and ambivalent supporters of the German nation. Rebecca Ayako Bennette’s bold new interpretation demonstrates definitively that from the beginning in 1871, when Wilhelm I was proclaimed Kaiser of a unified Germany, Catholics were actively promoting a German national identity for the new Reich.

9/11 and its aftermath demonstrate the urgent need for political scientists and historians to unravel the tangled relationship of secular ideologies and organized religions to political fanaticism. This major new volume uses a series of case studies by world experts to further our understanding of these complex issues. They examine the connections between fascism, political religion and totalitarianism by exploring two inter-war fascist regimes, two abortive European movements, and two post-war American extreme right-wing movements with contrasting religious components. A highlight of this collection is a fresh article from Emilio Gentile, recently awarded an international prize for his contributions to our appreciation of the central role played by political religion in the modern age. This is preceded by an editorial essay by Roger Griffin, one of fascist studies' most original thinkers. Alongside these contributions the reader is presented with a wealth of work that redefines the complex concept of 'totalitarian movement' and our understanding of generic Fascism. Taken as a whole, it comprehensively analyses the links between particular totalitarian movements and regimes and the concrete historical phenomena produced in the light of current, radical theories of fascism, totalitarianism and political religion. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international relations, politics and contemporary history. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

Disenchantment is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? In The Power of the Sacred, Hans Joas develops the fundamentals of a new sociological theory of religion by first reconstructing existing theories, from the eighteenth century to the present. Through a critical reading and reassessment of key texts in the three empirical disciplines of history, psychology, and sociology of religion, including the works of David Hume, J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James, Emile Durkheim, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas presents an understanding of religion that lays the groundwork for a thorough study of Max Weber's views on disenchantment. After deconstructing Weber's highly ambiguous use of the concept, Joas proposes an alternative to the narratives of disenchantment and secularization which have dominated debates on the topic. He constructs a novel interpretation that takes into account the dynamics of ever new sacralizations, their normative evaluation in the light of a universalist morality as it first emerged in the "Axial Age," and the dangers of the misuse of religion in connection with the formation of power. Built upon the human experience of self-transcendence, rather than human cognition or cultural discourses, The Power of the Sacred challenges both believers and non-believers alike to rethink the defining characteristics of Western modernity.