Finding Faith in Foreign Policy: Religion and American Diplomacy in a Postsecular World - Hardcover

Bettiza, Gregorio

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0190949465 ISBN 13: 9780190949464

Publisher: OUP USA, 2019

Synopsis

Since the end of the Cold War, religion has become an ever more explicit and systematic focus of US foreign policy across multiple domains. US foreign policymakers, for instance, have been increasingly tasked with monitoring religious freedom and promoting it globally, delivering humanitarian and development aid abroad by drawing on faith-based organizations, fighting global terrorism by seeking to reform Muslim societies and Islamic theologies, and advancing American interests and values more broadly worldwide by engaging with religious actors and dynamics. Simply put, religion has become a major subject and object of American foreign policy in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago.

In Finding Faith in Foreign Policy, Gregorio Bettiza explains the causes and consequences of this shift by developing an original theoretical framework and drawing upon extensive empirical research and interviews. He argues that American foreign policy and religious forces have become ever more inextricably entangled in an age witnessing a global resurgence of religion and the emergence of a postsecular world society. He further shows how the boundaries between faith and state have been redefined through processes of desecularization in the context of American foreign policy, leading the most powerful state in the international system to intervene and reshape in increasingly sustained ways sacred and secular landscapes around the globe.

Drawing from a rich evidentiary base spanning twenty-five years, Finding Faith in Foreign Policy details how a wave of religious enthusiasm has transformed not just American foreign policy, but the entire international system.

About this title

About the Author

Gregorio Bettiza is Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Exeter. He received his PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2012 and was Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy between 2012-14. Gregorio has also held Visiting Fellowships at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC in 2011 and 2017. His work has been published, among others, in the European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and Oxford Bibliographies.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0190949465
• ISBN 13: 9780190949464
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336