© 2007 Martin L. Banzhaf
Globalization is a trans-state vehicle facilitated by technological interconnectedness. So how can the paradigms of international relations develop and test theory showing the religious impact on a society? Global economics over the last centuries provide a direction as the former global mercantile economy over emerging regions of the former colonial world which had relegious elements is one enduring perception of a possible precursor of today's globalization. This has caused the Marxist’s arguments of capitalistic exploitation of former colonies to take on new meaning. For others, such as economic liberalism (global free markets over nationalization) it is the triumph of modernization and a force providing greater wealth, freedom, and democracy through the advancement of technology and ideas growing out of the last 500 year of Western civilization’s advancement. However, globalization’s critics from isolationist perspectives assert that it undermines democracy, cultural identity, and threatens the environment. These critiques are worthy of consideration, so here the trans-state movement of globalization is investigated as a force in social movements and their core ideas. In this regard, Jan Scholte (1997) gives three concepts of globalization that highlight this movement. “(1) Globalization is an increase in cross-border relations. (2) Globalization is the removal of barriers to large-scale movements of trade, travel, communications, and finance. (3) Globalization and social relations are viewed as decreasingly tied to territorial frameworks. Instead, global phenomena extends across widely scattered locations simultaneously, diminishing the significance of territorial distance and borders.” Therefore, globalization’s phenomenal impact resides in society and through a trans-state ubiquity. State-centric theory demands a clarification of how the state as a unit is now to amalgamate such influences.
The state and its societal reach are considered in the discipline of sociology. Nation-states are geographical, juridical, and cultural units, and the terms provide utility in describing a country or a state through its most common use. States are also power relations embodied in various domestic political institutions and certainly through institutions, regimes, collective security, and are worked out internationally. Confusion exists on how to separate these two analytically distinct concepts. This is where Max Weber's conception of the state could be helpful. For Weber, the state is a set of cadre and institutions that exercise authority, a “legitimate monopoly of coercion,” over a given territory. In the Weberian construct, the economic and political (in Weberian terms, "markets and states") are externally related, separate and even oppositional, spheres, each with its own independent logic. Nation-states interact externally with markets. (Robinson: 2001 p.162) This implies that a nation-state’s reach is not confined to its boundaries. The International Political Economy (IPE) is such a vehicle demonstrating this. Then what about religious and ideological expressions over a trans-state movement?
Globalization has antecedents in demonstrating societal influence. One area in which this is understood comes through the nation-state’s presence in the colonial era. A colony is a trans-territorial presence of a state in another region, and more specifically among people and a society that is indigenous to that region and different than the nation-state. As colonies developed, the assimilation of nation-state and indigenous culture reciprocally interacted. The levels of such an interface could fall on a continuum. On one end stands a strict separation of the colonial power from the local culture and on the other an indistinguishable merger of cultures in forming a syncretistic blend. However, a process takes place over generations through a historical movement furthering assimilation and the homogenizing effect.
If distinctive cultures developed because groups of people were largely cut off from contact with one another, it is likely that a further expansion of interaction opportunities will have a profound impact on the values of these same groups of people. As globalization expands and both remote and local communications become instantaneous, the relevance of distance and physical geography as forces that shape culture will decline. (Grieg: 2002 p.231) Certainly the modern world does not possess this in an exclusive sense or more precisely such a thing has never occurred before - it has - just as the Guttenberg printing press as a technological device set into motion the Reformation’s religious impetus, so too has the world wide web -internet provided the means of a global Islamic jihad resurgence.
The means of globalization today is unique over the former colonial presence, as the interchange of ideologies and even religious ideas were not something easily traversed across geography until the last century. Nevertheless, an impact on the colonies transpired, and it is notable that the many former colonies have large domestic societies that now bear the various European colonizers state’s religion.[ii] The presence of booming populations of Christian converts in Latin America, Africa and most notably China[iii] presents a shift from the traditional Western locus of Christianity, and the same can be said of America and Europe, that its religious identity of the Judeo Christian element and even secularism is now shifting to accommodate Islam and other Eastern spirituality religions being introduced through the influence of globalization into the West. If colonialism truly established the Christian religion in the hearts of the people is hotly debated. Nevertheless, what is now evident in the Global South is hardly colonial. “Globalization has helped create alternative transnational religious subcultures or communities that are revitalizing Islam and Christianity.” (Thomas 2005:115) Its significance is beyond the bounds of this paper, yet it also lends toward a way out of the confining conclusions of the infamous “Clash of Civilizations” of the Harvard scholar, Samuel Huntington. His work should be viewed as a working narrative of history, not necessarily International Relations theory. Being no more than a narrative, and finding renewed attention today in a post 9/11 world, where plausibility is produced by the combination of world events and excessive media attention. Huntington’s work could help in arguing that International Relations theory needs to glance at the religious forces at work in a nation. However, its general nature lends to an inconclusive and ambiguous understanding. "...the novelty of Huntington from our perspective, …is that he managed to bury the role of religion in international conflict in a more neutral language of culture and civilization.” (Fox and Sandler: 2004 p.30) Rather than looking at modern civilizations as static, a process view of their changing nature is needed and religions are certainly not monolithic.
This also points to the negative view of the influence of religion within International Relations and forming the conventional debate on current American foreign policy directions which has not been able to deal with religion due to its scientific positivism. In light of radical Islam, the convergence has certainly captivated scholars. It is the rising question of the last decade and therefore demands theoretical treatment. The communication strength of globalization has accelerated this even further. Globalization and the postmodern project is the convergence that has set the stage for the new millennium. Its treatment in recent years among critical theorists reflects a growing trend in the expansion of the research project. Nevertheless, parallel approaches in International Relations and historical sociology have not totally excluded the role of religion and ideas.
Globalization must also be viewed with lenses from the historical societal approaches that have a direct relevance to International Relations, such as the English School founded by Martin Wight yet better interpreted by the late Hedley Bull and his formulation of the "Anarchical System." The English school three divisions: the international system, the international society and the world society [iv] comprise its general research program. In all these programs, the English School makes room for societal ideas and religion through a historical sociological approach. A thorough examination of these divisions is unnecessary, yet certain questions arise concerning their viability as theory. Beginning with an international system, aligning most closely to the neo-realist paradigm of the Americans, the following is realized: The international system existed because the projection of European power brought previously isolated peoples and political communities into regular contact with each other. For a system to exist requires the existence of units, among which significant interaction takes place and that are arranged or structured according to some ordering principle.
The Hedley Bull formulation of the "Anarchical System" defines significant interaction as being action such that ‘the behaviour of each [actor] is a necessary factor in the calculations of the others.’ In the international system, the units are states (or independent political) communities). The interactions among them include war, diplomacy, trade, migration and the movement of ideas.” (Buzan 1993: p.331) The key phrase here is “the movement of ideas” which certainly includes religion. In distinguishing the English school from the more scientific American school, it is presented that the “consequences of anarchy vary according to the level and type of interaction in the system.” (Buzan 1992: p.331) Such an analysis provides globalization its maneuverable position around the contours of state power, or lack thereof. However, this does not equate the English school with American neo-realists such as Kenneth Waltz who take a different view that state inequality is a more prominent factor today than in the era of the super-powers. This improves the political role of a country over economics, as Waltz rejects the globalizers’ view that “the world is increasingly ruled by markets,” (Waltz 1999: p.700) or by ideas and the contributing religious movement as surmised, since the neo-realists have no use for societal influences on the international system. But within Buzan’s work some helpful directions are bridged between the two realist schools of thought. Here, the English school draws upon sociological concepts which help in providing empirical data. There are two possible views, and it is helpful in understanding these to use the classical distinction from sociology between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft conceptions of society. The gemeinschaft understanding sees society as something organic and traditional, involving bonds of common sentiment, experience, and identity. It is an essentially historical conception: societies grow rather than being made. The gesellschaft understanding sees society as being contractual and constructed rather than sentimental and traditional. It is more consciously organizational: societies can be made by acts of will. (Buzan:1993 p. 333)
Just as societies can be made by acts of the will, International Relations theory, namely by neo-realists, also can be constructed in the same way. Although the English school certainly would provide the gemeinshaft direction in explaining globalizational movements today, it is the neo-realist conception of boundaries of international systems that would confine research on the state originating systems into “like units.” The gesellshaft would fit the neo-realist or liberal construction, but the gemeinshaft is the underlying concept that provides movement for ideas and religious aspects. For an example of this process, Buzan contributes the following: The first view of how an international society comes into being is rather forcefully advocated by Wight: "We must assume that a states-system [i.e., an international society] will not come into being without a degree of cultural unity among its members." This view results from historical analysis and fits closely with the gemeinschaft conception of society. Wight develops two examples to support his case, classical Greece and early-modern Europe. In both cases, international societies developed in subsystems whose units shared significant elements of culture, especially religion and language. The ancient Greeks shared a language and religion that differentiated them from so-called barbarian. Most Western and Southern (though fewer Eastern) Europeans shared the cultural residue of the Roman Empire, most notably in the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. … At a very minimum it suggests that the preexistence of a common culture among the units of a system is a great advantage in stimulating the formation of an international society earlier than would otherwise occur…. (Buzan: 1993 p.333)
As historical sociology, this provides a crucial component in doing theory, but whether it should actually be considered theory is debatable according to the American positivists. Buzan (2004) builds upon previous work in concluding that in the light of the structural Americans, the English School does not really hold up as a theory in stating, “Many Americans, however, often demand that a theory strictly explains and that it contains or is able to generate testable hypotheses of a causal nature.” (Buzan 2004: p. 24) Recent scholars of the English school have tended to concede that the work of founding English school scholar Martin Wight should not be considered theory in the strict sense of the word. But how this really matters in the broad scheme is irrelevant, for the American positivist constructivist school has embarked on this direction in studying globalization. Alexander Wendt, one such theorist, has developed the theoretical framework to pursue this: “[i]t is collective meanings that constitutes the structures which organize our actions. Actors acquire identities – relatively stable, role specific understandings and expectations about self – by participating in such collective meanings.” (Wendt 1992: p.397) International systems are thus incorporating new directions, one that the English School has given much attention. This same conclusion questioning “real theory” is also found in relation to international society. “Despite its long gestation, international society remains better developed as a historical than a theoretical concept.” (Buzan:1993 p.329) As research is oriented more toward historical events in the English school, American structural liberalism is a contemporary pursuit, and focuses more on the International Political Economy (IPE). At the core to this understanding are international institutions which are strengthened due to globalization’s acceleration. …the twentieth century’s obsession with nationalism as the link between the inter human and the interstate domains has to be broadened out to incorporate the wider forms of inter human society - interstate agenda, whether in human rights, democracy or economic interdependence/ globalisation. (Buzan 2004: p.197)
Following from this are questions of what is actually meant by world society, and how it relates to globalization. World society bears heavily on the most important debates within the English school, so much so that even the relatively well-developed concept of international society cannot be properly understood without taking world society into close account. For all of its shortcomings, the English school approach to world society does show exactly why the concept is important, and also shows where (if not yet how) it fits into a theoretically pluralist approach to IR theory. (Buzan 2004: p.62)
State-centric assumptions are not primary, and the trans-nationalism of modern European state system which has evolved into the European Union (EU) is kept in view by the founding scholars as the concept of world society has developed. Here, the unique twist of the English school within a “revolutionism” construct show how ideas generate across global society. World society has evolved into what is known today as group of states allowing for domestic influences made up of highly organized intra and non-governmental organizations (IGOs; NGOs), transnational in their scope and local in their activities. His [Bull] world political system includes firms, states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), a bundling together which blurs any distinction between international and world system, and feels close to what Americans once labeled a world politics paradigm, and now goes more under globalization. (Buzan 2004: p. 38)
In holding the English school to the strict American scientific confines, the matter of religion and ideas continues to have a force all its own. In today’s world of diverse actors, the English school has certainly provided a description of the new non-state actors contributing to international politics in the form of IGOs and NGOs. This is where the prescriptive possibilities are sought from the descriptions of the organized actors of world society, the aforementioned NGOs, and particularly those of a faith based orientation. Religious NGOs and institutions are creating transnational advocacy linkages and coalitions with new social movements on a variety of global issues that can be interpreted as a part of a growing cosmopolitan ethos that might underlay a global civil society. (Thomas 2005: p.115 )
Something the Americans have addressed in another theoretical approach through structural liberalism, which focuses on institutions and regime theory, yet with the developing school of constructivism the validity of such influences are no longer questioned as they once where. However, it has not kept inquisitive international relations scholars across the globe struggling with the confines of their own empirical demands.
Although constructivism developed in American institutions under structural or neo-realist and liberalist theorists, it has a found a great affinity with European based research. As the state-centric system dominates most other theories, these societal approaches have furthered dialog between constructivism and the English School. Further contributions of a more religion specific focus are pursued in the work of Scott Thomas. Thomas, a constructivist, has also addressed previous arguments concerning the exclusion of religion in International Relations because of the modernist project, and looking at the globalizational phenomena of various sub and trans-state actors, such as NGOs. His contribution in tracing the modernist project in International Relations involves the strictly private religious affair promoted within the principle of state sovereignty for the purpose of promoting loyalty among its people. This relegated religion to a separate set of beliefs to keep ecclesiastical authorities out of matters of the state. (Thomas 2003: p.28). Furthermore in criticizing the positivistic modern approach of the rationalistic American school and some constructivists in missing the significance of “religion for social action” in international relations, Thomas draws upon social theory. This puts the individual story within the broad community where an identity is formed. In constructing this larger narrative of collective states, individual and communities, the interpretative function is the key factor. Many scholars of international relations are often frustrated by the fact that interpretative theory does not produce the kind of general conclusions or law-like propositions that emerge from explanatory theory in the social sciences. There is an absence of predictive capacity in interpretative theory, but this does not mean it is irrelevant to policy analysis. Interpretative theory, at least in its narrative form, does help to locate those points of decision where different actions might have produced different results or a different ending, and so it can show up in areas where more information is useful, and where possible policy interventions may help to produce different outcomes. (Thomas 2005: p. 73) Thomas has contributed an examination of the necessity in dealing with religion. Secular reason or social theory do not provide a kind of objective or non ideological space, a view from no where, from which to study the world or from which competing paradigms can be compared; and nor does theology or any religious tradition, many social theorists would quickly add.
The elusive nature of objectivity continues to stand as a stumbling block in theory construction. This is true for the English school approach and the anti-positivist constructivists as the complexity of humanity diverts one from making cause and effect connections of ideas and religion to certain actions. Other constructivists such as Vendulka Kubálková suggest the development of an International Political Theology (IPT), as one would study the IPE. As a social constructivist and rejecting the mainstream constructivism held hostage to scientific positivism, her approach is helpful in distinguishing a number of important methodological approaches. First, she argues the validity of certain type of studies. Modern social scientists, including the majority of IR scholars, have reduced religion to religious organizations and have categorized them as elements of transnational civil society or even as cultural ‘civilizations.’ The faithful are presumed to act in accordance with rational choice theory; if they engage in violence, then it must be because they believe the ends justify the means. (Kubálková 2003: p.81) Instead of looking at actions immediately, she follows linguistic/rule oriented constructivism, and views religions as systems of rules that make them rational for the believers. This is because the reality of a believer is impossible to understand without interpreting the representations of that reality as it is communicated through language. She argues against a state-centric focus, because to analyze International Relations this exclusive emphasis clearly misses dimensions of social activity impacting foreign relations, since most religions take texts as their core, for it is essential to have an approach that takes texts seriously, rather that just relying upon observable facts and actions. (Kubálková:2003: p.94) In other words, “speaking is doing.” Following the theory of Nicolas Onuf she states: Onuf recognizes abduction as a category of reasoning in addition to induction and deduction. Abduction is reasoning by reference to the resemblance of wholes; metaphors and articles of faith make sense as wholes or not at all. IPT recognizes rationality, but it acknowledges different forms of rationality, none of which are universal to all humanity. There are, therefore, other forms of rationality—not just that based on the Western concept of rational choice, which draws on economics to define what is rational in material terms. (Kubalkova: 2006 p.144)
Kubalkova, in pursuing the constitutive elements of religion from the perspective of a believer, goes beyond the assumptions of trying to prove the God of religion behind a confession, and simply observes the reality of collective belief within a people. The object of God is therefore found in societal constructs, as expressed in colloquial language and expression. Obviously, positivistic science has a problem with God in claiming that the concept or person is empirically unobservable, and thus unverifiable, but Kubalkova argues there is now a way of understanding religion when one employs an interpretive methodology, similar to Thomas, who utilizes the narrative approach from social theory. Therefore, social theory’s value consists in how it constructs the interpretative aspects, which are derived from a narrative. Postmodern approaches generally work from the other direction in deconstructing the narrative of a culture or society from their texts. This process is certainly helpful, yet the difficulty comes when postmodern assumptions of relativity are applied and the search for an absolute truth is looked upon as impossible, so truth itself is something constructed. Nevertheless, this also highlights the precarious nature of positivist neo-realists and liberals descriptive constructions of the international system. Critical theorists can now challenge their objective positivist claims because of methods that trace their construction from select empirical data. Therefore, objectivity implies “objects” that are studied through the exclusion of others which are just as valid in describing the state.
The strict confinement of positivist science notwithstanding, the development of theory which includes religion is a new direction for International Relations study in the age of globalization. Moved by theoretically divided International Relation approaches to begin a new dialog out of postmodern critical research, it has precedent in the English school’s historical sociological method and has attracted scholars who have traced the reasons for religion's exclusion, while arguing for a broader approach from the traditional schools. However, it is necessary to consult interdisciplinary approaches in sociology and history and incorporate various approaches from critical and postmodern theory to legitimize dialog between the divided methodologies.
[i] Weber, Max. (1977) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Prentice Hall, New York, New York.
[ii] Barrett, D.B. Kurian, G.T. Johnson, T.M. eds., (2001) World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[iii] Thomas, Scott. (2005) Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century. Gordonsville, VA, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. p 224.The rise of the Pacific Rim also contributed to a change in the role of culture in development. The old debate, initiated by Max Weber and R. H. Tawney over the way religious values, such as The Protestant Ethic, can help to shape, direct, or even be a barrier to economic development, had come full circle with the rise of East Asian countries, and the end of the Third World as a coherent idea. Culture and religion matter for economic performance. Protestantism and Confucianism were now thought to encourage the entrepreneurial attitudes necessary for economic growth and prosperity. The East Asian countries, whose peoples remained faithful to their values, showed that it was possible to develop [prosper] without losing your soul after all.
[iv] General definitions from Buzan, Barry. (2004) From International to World Society : English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. West Nyack, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. p 7.International system (Hobbes/ Machiavelli/ realism) is about power politics amongst states, and puts the structure and process of international anarchy at the centre of IR theory. This position is broadly parallel to mainstream realism and neorealism and is thus well developed and clearly understood. It also appears elsewhere, as for example in Tilly’s (1990: 162) definition that states form a system to the extent that they interact with each other regularly, and to the degree that their interaction affects the behaviour of each state. It is based on an ontology of states, and is generally approached with a positivistepistemology, materialist and rationalist methodologies and structural theories.International society (Grotius/ rationalism) is about the institutionalization of shared interest and identity amongst states, and puts the creation and maintenance of shared norms, rules and institutions at the centre of IR theory. This position has some parallels to regime theory, but is much deeper, having constitutive rather than merely instrumental implications (Hurrell 1991: 12-16; Dunne 1995: 140- 3). Check citations. International society has been the main focus of English school thinking, and the concept is quite well developed and relatively clear. In parallel with the international system, it is also based on an ontology of states, but is generally approached with a constructivist epistemology and historical methods.World society (Kant/ revolutionism) takes individuals, non-state organizations and ultimately the global population as a whole as the focus of global societal identities and arrangements, and puts the transcendence of the states-system at the center of IR theory. Revolutionism is mostly about forms of universalist cosmopolitanism. It could include communism, but as Weaver (Weaver) (1992: 98) notes, these days it is usually taken to mean liberalism. This position has some parallels to transnationalism, but carries a much more foundational link to normative political theory. It clearly does not rest on an ontology of states, but given the transnational element, neither does it rest entirely on one of individuals. Critical theory defines some, but not all of the approaches to it, and in Wightian mode it is more about historically operating alternative images of the international system as a whole than it is about capturing the non-state aspects of the system.
Sources Cited and ConsultedBuzan, Barry. (1993) From International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School, International Organization, Vol.47, No. 3 (Summer, 1993), pp. 327-352.
Buzan, Barry. (2004) From International to World Society : English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. West Nyack, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Fox, Jonathan. (2004) Bringing Religion into International Relations. Gordonsville, VA, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
George, A. (1999). Adapting to constraints on rational decisionmaking. In Kaufman, et al., Understanding international relations: The value of alternative lenses. (5th ed., pp. 677-693). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Grieco, Joseph M. (1987) “Realist International Theory and the Study of World Politics” in Doyle, Michael W., eta al New Thinking in International Relations Theory. Colorado Westview Press.
Greig, Michael J. (2002) The End of Geography?: Globalization, Communications, and Culture in the International System The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 46, No. 2. (Apr., 2002), pp. 225-243.
Hopf., Ted. (1998) The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory International Security, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Summer, 1998), pp. 171-200.
Huntington, Samuel. (1997) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon and Schuster, New York, New York.
Keohane, R & Nye, J (1999). Complex interdependence. In Kaufman, et al., Understanding international relations: The value of alternative lenses. (5th ed., pp. 503-518). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Kubálková, Vendulka, (2003) “Toward an International Political Theology” p. 79-105 in Petito, Fabio & Hatzopoulos, Pavlos (eds.) Religion in International Relations. The Return From Exile New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kubalkova, Vendulka. (2006) International Political Theology, Brown Journal of World Affairs , VOLUME XII, ISSUE 2 pp.139-150.
McDougall, Walter A. (1998) "Introduction in Faith and Statecraft”, Orbis, 42:2 (Spring 1998): http://www.fpri.org/fpriwire/0603.199803.mcdougall.religionindiplomatichistory.html
Philpott, Daniel, (2001) Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Philpott, Daniel, (2002) “The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations” p. 66-95 in World Politics 55, October 2002.
Reus-Smit, Christian. (2002) Imagining society: constructivism and the English School, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations Volume 4 Issue 3 Page 487-509, October 2002.
Robinson, William I.(2001) Social Theory and Globalization: The Rise of a Transnational State, Theory and Society, Vol. 30, No. 2. (Apr., 2001), pp. 157-200.
Scholte, Jan A.(1997) 'Global Capitalism and the State', International Affairs, vol. 73, no. 3 (July 1997), pp. 427–52.
Thomas, Scott. (2005) Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations : The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century. Gordonsville, VA, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Waltz, Kenneth. (2004) “Political Structures” in Kaufman, Daniel J., et al. Understanding International Relations: The Value of Alternative Lenses. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Waltz, Kenneth N. (1999) Globalization and Governance PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 32, No. 4. (Dec., 1999), pp. 693-700.
Wendt, A. (1999) A Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999
Globalization is a trans-state vehicle facilitated by technological interconnectedness. So how can the paradigms of international relations develop and test theory showing the religious impact on a society? Global economics over the last centuries provide a direction as the former global mercantile economy over emerging regions of the former colonial world which had relegious elements is one enduring perception of a possible precursor of today's globalization. This has caused the Marxist’s arguments of capitalistic exploitation of former colonies to take on new meaning. For others, such as economic liberalism (global free markets over nationalization) it is the triumph of modernization and a force providing greater wealth, freedom, and democracy through the advancement of technology and ideas growing out of the last 500 year of Western civilization’s advancement. However, globalization’s critics from isolationist perspectives assert that it undermines democracy, cultural identity, and threatens the environment. These critiques are worthy of consideration, so here the trans-state movement of globalization is investigated as a force in social movements and their core ideas. In this regard, Jan Scholte (1997) gives three concepts of globalization that highlight this movement. “(1) Globalization is an increase in cross-border relations. (2) Globalization is the removal of barriers to large-scale movements of trade, travel, communications, and finance. (3) Globalization and social relations are viewed as decreasingly tied to territorial frameworks. Instead, global phenomena extends across widely scattered locations simultaneously, diminishing the significance of territorial distance and borders.” Therefore, globalization’s phenomenal impact resides in society and through a trans-state ubiquity. State-centric theory demands a clarification of how the state as a unit is now to amalgamate such influences.
The state and its societal reach are considered in the discipline of sociology. Nation-states are geographical, juridical, and cultural units, and the terms provide utility in describing a country or a state through its most common use. States are also power relations embodied in various domestic political institutions and certainly through institutions, regimes, collective security, and are worked out internationally. Confusion exists on how to separate these two analytically distinct concepts. This is where Max Weber's conception of the state could be helpful. For Weber, the state is a set of cadre and institutions that exercise authority, a “legitimate monopoly of coercion,” over a given territory. In the Weberian construct, the economic and political (in Weberian terms, "markets and states") are externally related, separate and even oppositional, spheres, each with its own independent logic. Nation-states interact externally with markets. (Robinson: 2001 p.162) This implies that a nation-state’s reach is not confined to its boundaries. The International Political Economy (IPE) is such a vehicle demonstrating this. Then what about religious and ideological expressions over a trans-state movement?
Globalization has antecedents in demonstrating societal influence. One area in which this is understood comes through the nation-state’s presence in the colonial era. A colony is a trans-territorial presence of a state in another region, and more specifically among people and a society that is indigenous to that region and different than the nation-state. As colonies developed, the assimilation of nation-state and indigenous culture reciprocally interacted. The levels of such an interface could fall on a continuum. On one end stands a strict separation of the colonial power from the local culture and on the other an indistinguishable merger of cultures in forming a syncretistic blend. However, a process takes place over generations through a historical movement furthering assimilation and the homogenizing effect.
If distinctive cultures developed because groups of people were largely cut off from contact with one another, it is likely that a further expansion of interaction opportunities will have a profound impact on the values of these same groups of people. As globalization expands and both remote and local communications become instantaneous, the relevance of distance and physical geography as forces that shape culture will decline. (Grieg: 2002 p.231) Certainly the modern world does not possess this in an exclusive sense or more precisely such a thing has never occurred before - it has - just as the Guttenberg printing press as a technological device set into motion the Reformation’s religious impetus, so too has the world wide web -internet provided the means of a global Islamic jihad resurgence.
The means of globalization today is unique over the former colonial presence, as the interchange of ideologies and even religious ideas were not something easily traversed across geography until the last century. Nevertheless, an impact on the colonies transpired, and it is notable that the many former colonies have large domestic societies that now bear the various European colonizers state’s religion.[ii] The presence of booming populations of Christian converts in Latin America, Africa and most notably China[iii] presents a shift from the traditional Western locus of Christianity, and the same can be said of America and Europe, that its religious identity of the Judeo Christian element and even secularism is now shifting to accommodate Islam and other Eastern spirituality religions being introduced through the influence of globalization into the West. If colonialism truly established the Christian religion in the hearts of the people is hotly debated. Nevertheless, what is now evident in the Global South is hardly colonial. “Globalization has helped create alternative transnational religious subcultures or communities that are revitalizing Islam and Christianity.” (Thomas 2005:115) Its significance is beyond the bounds of this paper, yet it also lends toward a way out of the confining conclusions of the infamous “Clash of Civilizations” of the Harvard scholar, Samuel Huntington. His work should be viewed as a working narrative of history, not necessarily International Relations theory. Being no more than a narrative, and finding renewed attention today in a post 9/11 world, where plausibility is produced by the combination of world events and excessive media attention. Huntington’s work could help in arguing that International Relations theory needs to glance at the religious forces at work in a nation. However, its general nature lends to an inconclusive and ambiguous understanding. "...the novelty of Huntington from our perspective, …is that he managed to bury the role of religion in international conflict in a more neutral language of culture and civilization.” (Fox and Sandler: 2004 p.30) Rather than looking at modern civilizations as static, a process view of their changing nature is needed and religions are certainly not monolithic.
This also points to the negative view of the influence of religion within International Relations and forming the conventional debate on current American foreign policy directions which has not been able to deal with religion due to its scientific positivism. In light of radical Islam, the convergence has certainly captivated scholars. It is the rising question of the last decade and therefore demands theoretical treatment. The communication strength of globalization has accelerated this even further. Globalization and the postmodern project is the convergence that has set the stage for the new millennium. Its treatment in recent years among critical theorists reflects a growing trend in the expansion of the research project. Nevertheless, parallel approaches in International Relations and historical sociology have not totally excluded the role of religion and ideas.
Globalization must also be viewed with lenses from the historical societal approaches that have a direct relevance to International Relations, such as the English School founded by Martin Wight yet better interpreted by the late Hedley Bull and his formulation of the "Anarchical System." The English school three divisions: the international system, the international society and the world society [iv] comprise its general research program. In all these programs, the English School makes room for societal ideas and religion through a historical sociological approach. A thorough examination of these divisions is unnecessary, yet certain questions arise concerning their viability as theory. Beginning with an international system, aligning most closely to the neo-realist paradigm of the Americans, the following is realized: The international system existed because the projection of European power brought previously isolated peoples and political communities into regular contact with each other. For a system to exist requires the existence of units, among which significant interaction takes place and that are arranged or structured according to some ordering principle.
The Hedley Bull formulation of the "Anarchical System" defines significant interaction as being action such that ‘the behaviour of each [actor] is a necessary factor in the calculations of the others.’ In the international system, the units are states (or independent political) communities). The interactions among them include war, diplomacy, trade, migration and the movement of ideas.” (Buzan 1993: p.331) The key phrase here is “the movement of ideas” which certainly includes religion. In distinguishing the English school from the more scientific American school, it is presented that the “consequences of anarchy vary according to the level and type of interaction in the system.” (Buzan 1992: p.331) Such an analysis provides globalization its maneuverable position around the contours of state power, or lack thereof. However, this does not equate the English school with American neo-realists such as Kenneth Waltz who take a different view that state inequality is a more prominent factor today than in the era of the super-powers. This improves the political role of a country over economics, as Waltz rejects the globalizers’ view that “the world is increasingly ruled by markets,” (Waltz 1999: p.700) or by ideas and the contributing religious movement as surmised, since the neo-realists have no use for societal influences on the international system. But within Buzan’s work some helpful directions are bridged between the two realist schools of thought. Here, the English school draws upon sociological concepts which help in providing empirical data. There are two possible views, and it is helpful in understanding these to use the classical distinction from sociology between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft conceptions of society. The gemeinschaft understanding sees society as something organic and traditional, involving bonds of common sentiment, experience, and identity. It is an essentially historical conception: societies grow rather than being made. The gesellschaft understanding sees society as being contractual and constructed rather than sentimental and traditional. It is more consciously organizational: societies can be made by acts of will. (Buzan:1993 p. 333)
Just as societies can be made by acts of the will, International Relations theory, namely by neo-realists, also can be constructed in the same way. Although the English school certainly would provide the gemeinshaft direction in explaining globalizational movements today, it is the neo-realist conception of boundaries of international systems that would confine research on the state originating systems into “like units.” The gesellshaft would fit the neo-realist or liberal construction, but the gemeinshaft is the underlying concept that provides movement for ideas and religious aspects. For an example of this process, Buzan contributes the following: The first view of how an international society comes into being is rather forcefully advocated by Wight: "We must assume that a states-system [i.e., an international society] will not come into being without a degree of cultural unity among its members." This view results from historical analysis and fits closely with the gemeinschaft conception of society. Wight develops two examples to support his case, classical Greece and early-modern Europe. In both cases, international societies developed in subsystems whose units shared significant elements of culture, especially religion and language. The ancient Greeks shared a language and religion that differentiated them from so-called barbarian. Most Western and Southern (though fewer Eastern) Europeans shared the cultural residue of the Roman Empire, most notably in the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. … At a very minimum it suggests that the preexistence of a common culture among the units of a system is a great advantage in stimulating the formation of an international society earlier than would otherwise occur…. (Buzan: 1993 p.333)
As historical sociology, this provides a crucial component in doing theory, but whether it should actually be considered theory is debatable according to the American positivists. Buzan (2004) builds upon previous work in concluding that in the light of the structural Americans, the English School does not really hold up as a theory in stating, “Many Americans, however, often demand that a theory strictly explains and that it contains or is able to generate testable hypotheses of a causal nature.” (Buzan 2004: p. 24) Recent scholars of the English school have tended to concede that the work of founding English school scholar Martin Wight should not be considered theory in the strict sense of the word. But how this really matters in the broad scheme is irrelevant, for the American positivist constructivist school has embarked on this direction in studying globalization. Alexander Wendt, one such theorist, has developed the theoretical framework to pursue this: “[i]t is collective meanings that constitutes the structures which organize our actions. Actors acquire identities – relatively stable, role specific understandings and expectations about self – by participating in such collective meanings.” (Wendt 1992: p.397) International systems are thus incorporating new directions, one that the English School has given much attention. This same conclusion questioning “real theory” is also found in relation to international society. “Despite its long gestation, international society remains better developed as a historical than a theoretical concept.” (Buzan:1993 p.329) As research is oriented more toward historical events in the English school, American structural liberalism is a contemporary pursuit, and focuses more on the International Political Economy (IPE). At the core to this understanding are international institutions which are strengthened due to globalization’s acceleration. …the twentieth century’s obsession with nationalism as the link between the inter human and the interstate domains has to be broadened out to incorporate the wider forms of inter human society - interstate agenda, whether in human rights, democracy or economic interdependence/ globalisation. (Buzan 2004: p.197)
Following from this are questions of what is actually meant by world society, and how it relates to globalization. World society bears heavily on the most important debates within the English school, so much so that even the relatively well-developed concept of international society cannot be properly understood without taking world society into close account. For all of its shortcomings, the English school approach to world society does show exactly why the concept is important, and also shows where (if not yet how) it fits into a theoretically pluralist approach to IR theory. (Buzan 2004: p.62)
State-centric assumptions are not primary, and the trans-nationalism of modern European state system which has evolved into the European Union (EU) is kept in view by the founding scholars as the concept of world society has developed. Here, the unique twist of the English school within a “revolutionism” construct show how ideas generate across global society. World society has evolved into what is known today as group of states allowing for domestic influences made up of highly organized intra and non-governmental organizations (IGOs; NGOs), transnational in their scope and local in their activities. His [Bull] world political system includes firms, states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), a bundling together which blurs any distinction between international and world system, and feels close to what Americans once labeled a world politics paradigm, and now goes more under globalization. (Buzan 2004: p. 38)
In holding the English school to the strict American scientific confines, the matter of religion and ideas continues to have a force all its own. In today’s world of diverse actors, the English school has certainly provided a description of the new non-state actors contributing to international politics in the form of IGOs and NGOs. This is where the prescriptive possibilities are sought from the descriptions of the organized actors of world society, the aforementioned NGOs, and particularly those of a faith based orientation. Religious NGOs and institutions are creating transnational advocacy linkages and coalitions with new social movements on a variety of global issues that can be interpreted as a part of a growing cosmopolitan ethos that might underlay a global civil society. (Thomas 2005: p.115 )
Something the Americans have addressed in another theoretical approach through structural liberalism, which focuses on institutions and regime theory, yet with the developing school of constructivism the validity of such influences are no longer questioned as they once where. However, it has not kept inquisitive international relations scholars across the globe struggling with the confines of their own empirical demands.
Although constructivism developed in American institutions under structural or neo-realist and liberalist theorists, it has a found a great affinity with European based research. As the state-centric system dominates most other theories, these societal approaches have furthered dialog between constructivism and the English School. Further contributions of a more religion specific focus are pursued in the work of Scott Thomas. Thomas, a constructivist, has also addressed previous arguments concerning the exclusion of religion in International Relations because of the modernist project, and looking at the globalizational phenomena of various sub and trans-state actors, such as NGOs. His contribution in tracing the modernist project in International Relations involves the strictly private religious affair promoted within the principle of state sovereignty for the purpose of promoting loyalty among its people. This relegated religion to a separate set of beliefs to keep ecclesiastical authorities out of matters of the state. (Thomas 2003: p.28). Furthermore in criticizing the positivistic modern approach of the rationalistic American school and some constructivists in missing the significance of “religion for social action” in international relations, Thomas draws upon social theory. This puts the individual story within the broad community where an identity is formed. In constructing this larger narrative of collective states, individual and communities, the interpretative function is the key factor. Many scholars of international relations are often frustrated by the fact that interpretative theory does not produce the kind of general conclusions or law-like propositions that emerge from explanatory theory in the social sciences. There is an absence of predictive capacity in interpretative theory, but this does not mean it is irrelevant to policy analysis. Interpretative theory, at least in its narrative form, does help to locate those points of decision where different actions might have produced different results or a different ending, and so it can show up in areas where more information is useful, and where possible policy interventions may help to produce different outcomes. (Thomas 2005: p. 73) Thomas has contributed an examination of the necessity in dealing with religion. Secular reason or social theory do not provide a kind of objective or non ideological space, a view from no where, from which to study the world or from which competing paradigms can be compared; and nor does theology or any religious tradition, many social theorists would quickly add.
The elusive nature of objectivity continues to stand as a stumbling block in theory construction. This is true for the English school approach and the anti-positivist constructivists as the complexity of humanity diverts one from making cause and effect connections of ideas and religion to certain actions. Other constructivists such as Vendulka Kubálková suggest the development of an International Political Theology (IPT), as one would study the IPE. As a social constructivist and rejecting the mainstream constructivism held hostage to scientific positivism, her approach is helpful in distinguishing a number of important methodological approaches. First, she argues the validity of certain type of studies. Modern social scientists, including the majority of IR scholars, have reduced religion to religious organizations and have categorized them as elements of transnational civil society or even as cultural ‘civilizations.’ The faithful are presumed to act in accordance with rational choice theory; if they engage in violence, then it must be because they believe the ends justify the means. (Kubálková 2003: p.81) Instead of looking at actions immediately, she follows linguistic/rule oriented constructivism, and views religions as systems of rules that make them rational for the believers. This is because the reality of a believer is impossible to understand without interpreting the representations of that reality as it is communicated through language. She argues against a state-centric focus, because to analyze International Relations this exclusive emphasis clearly misses dimensions of social activity impacting foreign relations, since most religions take texts as their core, for it is essential to have an approach that takes texts seriously, rather that just relying upon observable facts and actions. (Kubálková:2003: p.94) In other words, “speaking is doing.” Following the theory of Nicolas Onuf she states: Onuf recognizes abduction as a category of reasoning in addition to induction and deduction. Abduction is reasoning by reference to the resemblance of wholes; metaphors and articles of faith make sense as wholes or not at all. IPT recognizes rationality, but it acknowledges different forms of rationality, none of which are universal to all humanity. There are, therefore, other forms of rationality—not just that based on the Western concept of rational choice, which draws on economics to define what is rational in material terms. (Kubalkova: 2006 p.144)
Kubalkova, in pursuing the constitutive elements of religion from the perspective of a believer, goes beyond the assumptions of trying to prove the God of religion behind a confession, and simply observes the reality of collective belief within a people. The object of God is therefore found in societal constructs, as expressed in colloquial language and expression. Obviously, positivistic science has a problem with God in claiming that the concept or person is empirically unobservable, and thus unverifiable, but Kubalkova argues there is now a way of understanding religion when one employs an interpretive methodology, similar to Thomas, who utilizes the narrative approach from social theory. Therefore, social theory’s value consists in how it constructs the interpretative aspects, which are derived from a narrative. Postmodern approaches generally work from the other direction in deconstructing the narrative of a culture or society from their texts. This process is certainly helpful, yet the difficulty comes when postmodern assumptions of relativity are applied and the search for an absolute truth is looked upon as impossible, so truth itself is something constructed. Nevertheless, this also highlights the precarious nature of positivist neo-realists and liberals descriptive constructions of the international system. Critical theorists can now challenge their objective positivist claims because of methods that trace their construction from select empirical data. Therefore, objectivity implies “objects” that are studied through the exclusion of others which are just as valid in describing the state.
The strict confinement of positivist science notwithstanding, the development of theory which includes religion is a new direction for International Relations study in the age of globalization. Moved by theoretically divided International Relation approaches to begin a new dialog out of postmodern critical research, it has precedent in the English school’s historical sociological method and has attracted scholars who have traced the reasons for religion's exclusion, while arguing for a broader approach from the traditional schools. However, it is necessary to consult interdisciplinary approaches in sociology and history and incorporate various approaches from critical and postmodern theory to legitimize dialog between the divided methodologies.
[i] Weber, Max. (1977) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Prentice Hall, New York, New York.
[ii] Barrett, D.B. Kurian, G.T. Johnson, T.M. eds., (2001) World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[iii] Thomas, Scott. (2005) Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century. Gordonsville, VA, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. p 224.The rise of the Pacific Rim also contributed to a change in the role of culture in development. The old debate, initiated by Max Weber and R. H. Tawney over the way religious values, such as The Protestant Ethic, can help to shape, direct, or even be a barrier to economic development, had come full circle with the rise of East Asian countries, and the end of the Third World as a coherent idea. Culture and religion matter for economic performance. Protestantism and Confucianism were now thought to encourage the entrepreneurial attitudes necessary for economic growth and prosperity. The East Asian countries, whose peoples remained faithful to their values, showed that it was possible to develop [prosper] without losing your soul after all.
[iv] General definitions from Buzan, Barry. (2004) From International to World Society : English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. West Nyack, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. p 7.International system (Hobbes/ Machiavelli/ realism) is about power politics amongst states, and puts the structure and process of international anarchy at the centre of IR theory. This position is broadly parallel to mainstream realism and neorealism and is thus well developed and clearly understood. It also appears elsewhere, as for example in Tilly’s (1990: 162) definition that states form a system to the extent that they interact with each other regularly, and to the degree that their interaction affects the behaviour of each state. It is based on an ontology of states, and is generally approached with a positivistepistemology, materialist and rationalist methodologies and structural theories.International society (Grotius/ rationalism) is about the institutionalization of shared interest and identity amongst states, and puts the creation and maintenance of shared norms, rules and institutions at the centre of IR theory. This position has some parallels to regime theory, but is much deeper, having constitutive rather than merely instrumental implications (Hurrell 1991: 12-16; Dunne 1995: 140- 3). Check citations. International society has been the main focus of English school thinking, and the concept is quite well developed and relatively clear. In parallel with the international system, it is also based on an ontology of states, but is generally approached with a constructivist epistemology and historical methods.World society (Kant/ revolutionism) takes individuals, non-state organizations and ultimately the global population as a whole as the focus of global societal identities and arrangements, and puts the transcendence of the states-system at the center of IR theory. Revolutionism is mostly about forms of universalist cosmopolitanism. It could include communism, but as Weaver (Weaver) (1992: 98) notes, these days it is usually taken to mean liberalism. This position has some parallels to transnationalism, but carries a much more foundational link to normative political theory. It clearly does not rest on an ontology of states, but given the transnational element, neither does it rest entirely on one of individuals. Critical theory defines some, but not all of the approaches to it, and in Wightian mode it is more about historically operating alternative images of the international system as a whole than it is about capturing the non-state aspects of the system.
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