Towards a Postsecular International Politics

The thriving debate on religion in international politics has recently seen the emergence of the postsecular as a new object of study. This is an attempt to move beyond the secular/religious divide, a foundational dimension of Western modernity, to account for a momentous transformation of the international system which affects existing forms of political community, identity, and power. At the heart of this transformation is the progressive blurring of the boundary between the secular and the religious; the clash of secular and postsecular formations; the emergence of new forms of political community characterized by a reconsideration of traditional secular and religious sources of authority, legitimacy, and power; and the emergence of new identities which challenge existing secular and religious formations by drawing on postsecular imaginaries.