Erin K Wilson

• PhD, Political Science
• Managing Director at University of Groningen

The introductory paper of this symposium compares the impact of “political secular” governing regimes in the countries of both the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Western Europe. The overall objective is to assess the impact of political secularism in both regions, as a key component of inter-religious and cultural discord and contention wi...

There are eight different factors, which – taken together – contribute to a better understanding of the place of religion in modern Europe. The eight factors are: role of the historic churches; change in the religious constituencies; new arrival into Europe; reactions of Europe's secular elites; privatization of social services; influence of neolib...

This article analyses the public significance of The Passion —a televised retelling of the Passion of Jesus, featuring pop songs and celebrities in the Dutch public sphere. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the authors demonstrate how performances like The Passion offer spaces in which the Dutch can reflect publicly on important identity issues,...

The right to Freedom of Religion of Belief (FoRB) is a focus of increasing concern in academia and policy. A key disagreement is whether a universally recognized right to FoRB actually exists. This article explores this disagreement by considering global, universalist narratives and local, context-specific application of FoRB in India and Indonesia...

Secularization and secularism are closely related concepts that attempt to explain processes and phenomena in politics and public life in the modern era relating, in part, to the differentiation of religion from other aspects of human activity. They are not, however, simply concerned with the distinction between the religious and the secular. Rathe...

This article explores the potential implications for the pursuit of global justice if certain non-secular ways of thinking, being in and responding to the world are devalued, marginalized and excluded by dominant secular norms that presently guide global justice theory and practice. I argue that pervasive assumptions about the nature of religion an...

Recent religious studies and international relations scholarship has highlighted secularism as a critical element in dominant modes of identity, power, and exclusion in global politics. Yet, the implications of these insights for global justice theory and practice have rarely been considered. This article suggests that the current dominance of secu...

What has become of secularism following the so-called postsecular turn? As a consequence of the demise of modern twentieth-century secularization theory (as per Peter Berger’s ‘sacred canopy’), we live in an interesting intellectual moment in which the so-called postsecular (understood descriptively rather than theoretically, see, e.g., Habermas 20...

This volume ethnographically explores the relation between secularities and religious subjectivities.As a consequence of the demise of secularization theory, we live in an interesting intellectual moment where the so-called 'post-secular' coexists with the secular, which in turn has become pluralized and historicized. This cohabitation of the secul...

Wilson and Mavelli argue that a deeply embedded yet under-theorized relationship between the politics of migration and religion lies at the heart of contemporary migration debates. While processes of secularization emphasize the bounded nature of political communities, many of the more progressive religious outlooks which have come to (re)populate...

This chapter notes that the Chapter 1 discussion of secularism tends toward a focus on state institutional processes, especially those engagements with religion governed by judicial decisions. It argues that an important turn in scholarship on secularism focuses on its Western ideological structure. As a corrosive ideology, the effects of secularis...

This article reconsiders the political dimensions of religious activity in light of a supposedly emerging post-secular society. I argue that limited understandings of both religion and politics restrict the capacity of scholars and faith-based actors alike to perceive the significant influence that religious actions and rituals can have in the poli...

The model of secularism as the overarching framework for managing the relationship between religion and politics has come under increasing scrutiny in recent International Relations (IR) scholarship, particularly in the wake of the so-called “postsecular turn”. Where once religion was thought to be an entity that was easily identifiable, definable...

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) are gaining increasing attention in International Relations (IR) scholarship, reflecting their growing role in contemporary global politics in areas such as development, conflict resolution, forced migration, and social welfare.1 The predominant focus of this research has been on the practical activities and service...

This article explores the interconnections between mounting global crises and the emergence of the post-secular. Specifically, the article argues that the post-secular is both a description of and a response to shifting global realities in the twenty-first century. It describes the crisis of secular rationalism, brought about in many ways by an ove...

Are political activists connected to the global justice movement simplistically opposed to neoliberal globalization? Is their political vision ‘incoherent’ and their policy proposals ‘naïve’ and ‘superficial’ as is often claimed by the mainstream media? Drawing on dozens of interviews and rich textual analyses involving nearly fifty global justice...

In Victor Hugo’s epic novel, Les Miserables, the central character, Jean Valjean, is forever changed by a brief encounter he has with a humble bishop in a remote country village in France. Although time and place differ, Valjean possesses many of the characteristics and receives similar treatment from political authorities and communities as many a...

Steger, Manfred B. and Erin K. Wilson. (2012) Anti-Globalization or Alter-Globalization? Mapping the Political Ideology of the Global Justice Movement. International Studies Quarterly, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00740.x © 2012 International Studies Association Globalization has unsettled conventional, nationally based political belief systems, o...

A relational dialogist approach to religion, incorporating equally its institutional, ideational, individual, communal, irrational and rational elements, provides a means for developing a nuanced analysis of the relationship between religion and politics. The relational dialogist conception of religion transcends the limitations of dichotomous thin...

The initial idea for this project came from a comment by historian Christopher Catherwood. In his book Why the Nations Rage, Catherwood (1997) makes the following curious observation, almost as a side note to his main analysis: In both Western Europe and the USA, society sees itself in secular terms, even if there are large minorities who are activ...

Proposing a new way of thinking about religion is of little use if it cannot be applied to real-world contexts. In this chapter and the next, I demonstrate how an understanding of religion based on relational dialogism enables a more nuanced appreciation for the ways in which religion influences politics in contexts that have been considered predom...

Understanding secularism as an ideological discourse rather than objective truth throws into question prevailing assumptions within International Relations about the nature of religion itself as well as assumptions about its importance for studies of Western and global politics. In Chapter 1, I argued that dualistic thinking inherent within secular...

In rethinking our understanding of religion within International Relations and its implications for how we understand global politics, a critical starting point is to unpack the assumptions associated with secularism that have been considered almost as absolute truth and how these ideas have pervaded International Relations theory and the practice...

Moving beyond the limiting effects of dualistic secularism on understandings of religion and its relationship with politics in International Relations requires a model of analysis that both circumvents secularism’s four cognitive moves and places value on religion’s traditionally excluded aspects — its ideational, communal and rational elements. Su...

This article provides an overview of the role faith-based organizations (FBOs) play in the politics of asylum in Australia. I suggest that an ethics of hospitality provides a useful way for theorizing the activities of Australian FBOs and their relationship with the Australian government. FBOs have used concepts and practices consistent with faith-...

The world’s religions have strong traditions of contributing to theories and practices around justice. Recent debates on global justice within International Relations (IR), however, have largely overlooked possible contributions from religion. This article explores why religion is neglected, despite its potential for constructive involvement in the...

Efforts to address social and global problems such as poverty, mass hunger and mass-atrocity crimes are hindered significantly by apathy and low levels of active civil and political engagement amongst populations in developed countries. Social change non-government organisations (NGOs), such as Oxfam Australia, Oxfam Hong Kong and Médecins Sans Fro...

International Relations (IR) scholarship has largely viewed the relationship between religion and politics in the West as irrelevant, owing to dominant perceptions of the West as secular. Yet this attitude is increasingly recognised as mistaken. I argue that the significant role of religion in Western politics has gone largely unnoticed because of...