CAIS Brownbag Seminar: Gregorio BETTIZA – State Might and the Almighty: Exploring State Power through Religion in 21st World Politics

We live in a world of states and religions whose mutually reinforcing entanglements in international relations are overlooked and poorly understood. Driven by the following question ‘how and when do states gain influence and exercise power globally through religion in 21st century world politics?’, this project seeks to develop a novel, inter-disciplinary and mixed-method, ambitious research program exploring particular forms of state-religion entanglements. Understanding how the current global resurgence of religion is contributing to empowering, rather than undermining as often argued, certain states in international relations today, makes this research especially relevant and urgent.