Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3080: The International Politics of Religion

This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.

Overview

NQF Level	6
Credits	30	ECTS Value	15
Term(s) and duration	This module ran during term 1 (11 weeks) and term 2 (11 weeks)
Academic staff	Dr Gregorio Bettiza (Convenor)
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
Available via distance learning	No

The ‘death of god’ was proclaimed by Friedrich Nietzsche in the nineteenth century and modernization theorists in the twentieth. Yet the twenty-first century opened with the 2001, September 11, attacks on American soil by a group of fanatics claiming to be guided by religious principles. One does not have to look exclusively at these extreme cases to see that religions have not only survived, but their social and political salience is growing in the contemporary world. All across the globe, religious actors, beliefs, identities, communities, symbols, practices and places of worship have become ever more entangled with domestic and international politics. These developments raise a number of questions that this module addresses: Why has this happened? What tools do we have, as social scientists and students of international relations, to understand religion and its apparent resurgence? How does religion influence, and is itself influenced by, world politics?

There are no pre-requisite or co-requisite modules required to take this module.

Module created	10/06/2014	Last revised	08/09/2020