Towards an International Political Theology
| Author | Vendulka Kubálková |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/03058298000290031501 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
© Millennium: Journal of Int ernational Studies, 2000. ISSN 0305-8298 . Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 675-704
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Towards an International Political
Theology
Vendulka Kubálková
Enlightenment publicists and philosophers wielded none of the torture
instruments of the Catholic inquisitions, nor did they burn dissenters under
some P rotestant dispe nsation. But when it came to religion in all its aspects,
they strang led free inqui ry just as effecti vely by the co mmanding force o f the
fashion they imposed.1
—Edward Luttwak
Can Internatio nal Re lations (IR) as a discipline contribu te to the stud y o f t he
worldwide resurgence o f religion? This is no t an idle question, be cause the
internatio nal context within wh ich this resurgence is t aking place is the prima ry
domain of IR exp ertise.
I answer th is question in the affirmat ive. In this paper I outline the foundatio n of
what I call Internationa l Political Theolo gy (IPT). Its acronym, IPT, quit e
consciousl y rhymes with IPE (In ternational Political Economy), the earlier sub field
of IR, at first also difficult to imagine or conceive. IPE was inten ded at the time of
its c onception to respond to the neglect of economic fact ors in the IR discipline.
IPT simila rly seeks to correct ano ther systematic omission in IR: th e neglect of the
role of religions, cultu re, id eas, or ideologies in ‘social scientific’ accounts of
world affairs.2
The parallel with the earlier c reation of IPE is very appo site. In the case of IPE it
was the fact th at suddenly, to paraphrase Rob ert Gilpin’s famous dictum, it was not
A number of colleagues an d friends helped me tremendously with thi s work in progress project. I would
like to thank Ralph Pett man and Joe Potts for editing my English prose, to Nick Onuf for going over my
rendition of his framework, to Henry Hamman for urging me to write on this subject in th e first place, to
Fred Frohock for the gift of his marvelous little b ook which influenced me very much . However, I have
written this essay for the Reverend Canon Henry N.F. Minich to whom I would like to ded icate it.
1. Edward Lut twak, ‘The Missing Dimension ’, in Religion, The Missing Dimension of S tatecraft, eds.
Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994 ), 8.
2. This extension is by no means n ew. For example E.H. Carr made a distinctio n amongst categories of
‘political power i n the international sphere’: as ‘military, economic, and over o pinion’ stressing the
importance of not neglecti ng the lat ter. See E.H. Carr, Th e Twenty Years Crisis (Lon don: Macmillan,
1962), 108. See also, Vend ulka Kubálková and A.A. Cruickshank , Marxism and International Relations
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 262 and Vendulka Kubálko vá, Nich olas On uf, and Paul
Kowert, eds, Internation al Relations in a Constructed World (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharp e, 1998), 37.
Millennium
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possible to sep arate the pursuit of po wer (as studi ed in the discipline of IR) a nd the
pursuit of wealth (left o ut of the IR discipline to the students of econo mics).
Similarly now, as M ark Juergensmeyer put it,
what appeared to be an anomaly when the Islamic revolutio n in Iran
challenged the supremac y of West ern culture and its secular po litics in 19 79
has become a major theme in i nternational politics in t he 19 90s. Th e new
world order t hat is replacing the bipo lar powers of the old Col d War is
characterized not only by the rise of new e conomic forces, a crumbling of old
empires, and the di screditing of communis m, but also by the resurgence of
parochial identities based on ethnic and religious allegiances.3
I use the te rm ‘theology’ in the na me of the frame work deliberately to sho ck and
also to indic ate the need to bring to an end what Lutt wak has called
a learne d repugnance to contend intellectu ally with all that is religion...[ba sed
on the] mist aken Enlightenment predi ction that the progress o f knowled ge and
the influence of religion were mutua lly exclusi ve.4
My use of the term theology does not go as far a s political theo logians’ claim that
political theorising should have it s ultimate ground in re ligious revela tions,
although their posi tion is c ompatible with my frame work. Nonetheless I have no
qualms about usin g the te rm. ‘Theolo gy’ was once synonymous wit h philoso phy
and scie nce. Following the u nderstanding of soc iologists of religion , I take ‘theos’
not in i ts co mmon secular meanin g as ‘erroneous beliefs in sup ernatural
extraterrestrial existence’, but I take ‘ theology’ and ‘theos’ to refer to the
systematic study of d iscourses and rel ations amongst th em concerning world
affairs that search for—o r cl aim to have found—a response, transcend ental or
secular, to the hu man need for meaning. My purpose is to find a way of bringing
the study of rel igion and IR together—possib ly for the first time—in a mann er
which would minimi se their d istortion and facilitate thei r understandin g. IPT can
accommodat e in one framewo rk the pi oneering but so far fragmented ‘micro’ and
‘macro’ attemp ts to come to grip s with the signi ficance of religion in IR.5
3. Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State
(Berkeley, CA: University of Califo rnia Press, 1993), 1-2.
4. Luttwak, ‘The Missing Dimensi on’, 9-10.
5. See, f or example, Add a B. Bozeman, Po litics and Cultu re in Internationa l History (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1960); Gerrit W. Gon g, Th e Stan dard of ‘Civilizatio n’ in Internation al
Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Susann e Hoeber Rudolph and James Pi scatori, eds.,
Transnationa l Religion and Fading States (Bou lder, CO: Westview Press, 199 7); Johnston and
Sampson, Religion, The Missing Dimension; Daniel Phi lpott, ‘The R eligious Roots of Modern
International Relations’, Wo rld Politics 52, no. 2 (2000): 206-4 5; Jeff Hayn es, Religion in th e Third
World (Bou lder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1994); Jeff Hayn es, Religion in Global Politics (Lond on:
Longman, 1998); and Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Relig ious Violence
(Berkeley, CA: University of Califo rnia Press, 2000).
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