Since 1990, the study of religion has gained increasing prominence within political science and international relations. However, the authors of the three books reviewed here demonstrate that although assumptions of secularization have dominated the study of politics until recently, religious actors have a long history of political engagement around the globe, and religion provides an important basis for mobilization.

According to Manlio Graziano in Holy Wars and Holy Alliance, although the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia “eliminated religious issues from the confrontations between powers, the separation between politics and religion in the internal affairs of individual states proved more challenging” (p. 20). In Religion and the Struggle for European Union, Brent F. Nelsen and James L. Guth go back to the Roman Empire and its adoption of Christianity to explain general cultural tendencies in Europe. Ani Sarkissian, in The Varieties of Religious Repression, uses historical relationships between religious groups and the political establishment to study how particular religious actors and institutions are favored or not by states and why. However, the books as a whole do not, as Karsten Lehmann (Religious NGOs in International Relations, 2016) argues, open up the “black box” of religious actors by engaging in a deep exploration of belief systems per se, or the nature of religious actors as distinct from other civil society actors. Instead, they examine the rational decisions and political outcomes of the use of religion by political actors.

In contrast to the other two books, which have specific research questions, Holy Wars reads as a collection of essays demonstrating how religion is a key factor in international politics, and challenging Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” (Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993) thesis. The book is divided into four parts that each provide a historical overview and illustrations of religion’s role in the politics of that era: “Modernity and Religion,” “The Resacralization of Politics in the 1970s,” “The Holy War,” and “The Holy Alliance.” Graziano asserts that geopolitical changes, economic crises, and the migration of rural peoples with more traditional religious values to the cities have elevated the public visibility of religion, arguing that “the less effective states become at offering their citizens both meaning and social services . . . the more religions tend to reoccupy the public stage” (p. 30).

Graziano provides examples of this phenomenon from around the world, including Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, India, Pakistan, and Myanmar to demonstrate how religion has been used as an instrument of violence and/or alliance building by political actors. He documents how the definition of the “West” has evolved, illustrates the plurality found in Islam, and provides a history of treaties and other relations between “Western” and Muslim countries. In contrast to Huntington, Graziano argues that the defining feature of Western civilization is not religion but capitalism (p. 124). However, he cites Graham Fuller in observing that “the close affiliation of religion and the state over most of Western history has affected Christianity and Christian history vastly more than it has affected Islam and the Islamic world” (p. 152; italics in the original). Graziano rejects the idea of “religious” terrorism, suggesting that it is a secular phenomenon of desperation, although he notes the challenge of disentangling religious, territorial, and ethnic motives in the case of terrorism perpetrated by both sides of the Israeli–Arab conflict (p. 181). At the same time, he links economic insecurity with religious belief, emphasizing that people in less secure states tend to be more religious than those in more secure states.

The authors of Religion and the Struggle for European Union use a cultural framework to explain two rival conceptions of Europe—one advocating the idea of Europe as a single community and a second asserting that liberty is best preserved through sovereign nation-states. Drawing on functionalists, constructivists, stable peace theorists, and scholars of national identity, they assert that the historical legacy of confessional cultures—each with their own religious institutions, identity markers, and ideas about the interaction between the secular world and religious authority—continues to shape European customs and traditions. Nelsen and Guth provide a historical overview of Christianity in Europe, paying particular attention to the relationship between religious authority and political authority, through a consideration of imperial Rome, Frankish kings, and a range of popes. They argue that the Protestant Reformation “shattered” the universal Christian identity of medieval Europe (p. 100) and contributed to the formation of a distinct Protestant identity that was rooted in particular nation-state structures. The authors trace the ways in which these different Protestant and Catholic identities emerged and developed before World War I, between the world wars, and in the decades following World War II, providing snapshots of the experiences in different countries, including the rise of differing orientations toward European integration.

Nelsen and Guth argue that Catholic leaders, many of whom were associated with the Christian Democrats, were instrumental players in forging cross-border connections in an effort to “restore” a common European identity in the wake of World War II. Protestant majority-countries, with stronger affiliations to the idea of a sovereign nation-state, were less supportive of yielding power to a supranational identity and associated institutions. The argument also underscores the Christian nature of European identity as put forth by Christian Democratic leaders, which might partially explain the challenges faced by some European states in assimilating non-Christian refugees into the fabric of national identity, as well as some of the hesitation to accept Turkey as a full member of the European Union.

This portrayal of European identity supports Graziano’s argument that the West is internally diverse, but in contrast to Graziano’s identification of capitalism as the common denominator in Western identity, Nelsen and Guth assert that religion plays a key role in European identity, including its choice of symbols. Like Graziano, Nelsen and Guth highlight the role of the pope and the Catholic Church in appeals for cross-border dialogue, but also acknowledge that not all Catholic countries had the same preference for integration due to different internal political systems (i.e., the authoritarian nature of Spain and Portugal) or geopolitical realities (e.g., Austria was occupied by the Allies).

In recognizing the impact of varying degrees of electoral competitiveness on the political role of religion, Nelsen and Guth also engage with the focus of Ani Sarkissian’s book. As the authors discuss more recent times, the explanatory weight of the confessional-cultures argument declines. For example, the authors suggest that European divisions over the best policy options for the Eurozone debt crisis reflect confessional differences, rather than other factors (e.g., wealth, geography); and that the non-euro member states were Protestant as were the nonmembers, reflecting the tendency of Protestant states to resist fully integrating in EU structures. Further, the authors note that within the euro zone, the states with large Protestant majorities were supportive of fiscal austerity, in contrast to the more Catholic states requesting the bailout (p. 266). However, they observe that such confessional differences do not hold true for the states that have more recently joined the EU, opening up for debate the durability of such differences, particularly with shifts in educational curriculum, migration from outside Europe, and the rise in populist and nationalist movements.

In The Varieties of Religious Repression, Ani Sarkissian shifts focus from relations between countries with different religious identities to the internal politics of religion in states with differing degrees of religious diversity and political competition. In contrast to Nelsen and Guth’s focus on religion’s role in shaping national cultural identities, Sarkissian brackets the question of nationhood, differentiating religion from national markers of race, language, and ethnicity. Instead, she examines the ways in which state elites in 101 nondemocracies between 1990 and 2010 favor some religious entities and repress others. Basing her argument on differential degrees of political competition—and consequently the need to build alliances or stifle potential opposition—as well as the extent of religious division in the country, she points to the importance of the political and demographic characteristics of states and the historical interaction of institutions, rather than the inherent characteristics of the faiths themselves. Using a rational choice perspective, Sarkissian argues that state actors regulate and repress religion only when there is a political motivation, and that lower levels of political competition and the existence of salient religious divides in society make it easier for states to repress religious groups. Like Graziano, Sarkissian argues that there is nothing inherent in any religion that makes it more or less inclined to the use of violence.

Sarkissian engages directly with the literature on variations of authoritarianism by examining a wide range of mechanisms for regulating and restricting religious actors, including limits on building and maintaining houses of worship, discriminatory registration and/or monitoring requirements, and restrictions on clerical appointments. The book examines four different types of state religious–political interactions, with four country case studies in each category: those that repress all religions, those that repress all but one religion, those that repress only some religions, and those that repress no religious groups. The selected countries include geographic and religious diversity, although the majority of those studied are in Asia and the Middle East, and many are Muslim majority or have a history of communist rule. Sarkissian intentionally brackets the question of whether certain religions are more prone to democracy and acknowledges that most democracies are in Western, Christian societies (p. 13). Her aim is to understand the dynamics of nondemocratic rule and varieties of authoritarian rule so as to better target programs for democratization that fit the sociopolitical and institutional context of the countries in question.

Despite their very different aims and approaches, all three books raise important questions regarding the study of religion and politics. The broad geographic and religious coverage of the books—though North and South America and sub-Saharan Africa were featured less—suggests that it is the particular deployment of religion, rather than particular religions themselves, that leads to the contribution of religion to repression or freedom, wars or alliances. However, the books do not engage as much with the perspectives of religious actors themselves—largely focusing on the actions of the state and/or political elites. In the historical focus of Religion and the Struggle for European Union , for example, there is little discussion of the non-Christian populations in Europe, nor is there much discussion of secular political movements except in the last chapters, where the authors begin to engage with the limitations of their framework for analyzing current trends in Europe. Yet even here, they assert that “confessional cultures permeate the lives of individuals from birth, whether or not they believe, practice, or grow up in religious families” (p. 321). Does this hold true for Muslim families who have lived in Europe for generations? And if so, which confessional culture shapes their identity—their own Muslim faith or the dominant European-Christian frame?

The books also raise questions for further research regarding the interplay of religion and culture, particularly other forms of ethnic and national identity. Graziano suggests that tradition and religion are imperfectly connected (Holy Wars, p. 163), but Nelsen and Guth use the cultural studies literature to frame their study of religion. Sarkissian brackets the study of culture and ethnic identity in her book, but does differentiate between the treatment of ethnic Christian populations—for example, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans—who have their own ethnic/national identities from Christian communities that were connected to external churches, like the evangelical movement (Varieties, p. 60). By identifying the particular concern of states with religious groups tied to external organizations, particularly ones that prostlytize, Sarkissian indirectly raises questions regarding the linkage of religion to national security and national identity concerns.

Indeed, the books all point to a need to more fully examine the relationship among religion, race, and the construction of national identity, particularly in an era of massive cross-border flows of people, ideas, and goods and services and in cases in which ethnic and religious divides intersect and overlap. The books also raise questions regarding the role of gender and economic class in these debates. While Graziano explores the impact of economic crises, and discusses the relationship between economic class and degree of religiosity, he only minimally engages with gender through challenges of misperceptions regarding the role of women in Shariah law. Nelsen and Guth mention that those holding a “European” identity tend to be “upper class and educated, urban, well-traveled, male, and competent in a second language” (Religion and Struggle, p. 335), but issues of class and gender are not prevalent themes in the book, and are raised primarily in the last chapter. Sarkissian’s tight focus on institutional arrangements and degrees of political competition excludes other variables from her analysis, although she does mention cooperation between the state and religious groups in banning female genital mutilation in Senegal (Varieties, p. 172). Thus, while the books build a solid case for the importance of studying religion in domestic, regional, and international politics, they also point the way for further research in this area.