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Discussion Paper Katharina McLarren

Religion, War, and International Relations

How does the field of study of International Relations (IR) engage with questions of religion and war? This paper addresses the long neglect the field experienced in terms of including religion in its research agenda and presents the increase of interest and approaches which has emerged in the last two decades. By including work from closely related disciplines, such as history and religious studies, it addresses the potential of interdisciplinary work and identifies points of departure for future IR research. The literature is classified into four categories: “Religion, War, and History”; “Religion, War, and Political Science”; “Religion, War, and Theology”; “Religion and Peace”. The contributions of each of these categories are loosely structured according to the Just War criteria of jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. Overall, the state of the art indicates that the juxtaposition of religion, war, and IR lends itself extremely well to interdisciplinary research and can contribute valuable insight into changes in international society.

Author: Katharina McLarren, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg)
Year of publication: 2024
Language: English