Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik, edited by Douglas Johnston

Title: Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik
Author: edited by Douglas Johnston
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN:

Pro:
•  Essays from renown scholars and diplomats on the role of religion in international politics
•  Forces readers to think "outside the box" when it comes to international conflicts

Con:
•  Suggestions sound fine in principle, but may not be practical

Description:
•  Argues that because religion is at the heart of so many conflicts, it should be used to resolve them
•  Explores how religion might help in five major international conflicts
•  Follow-up to Johnston's Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft

Boook Review

In Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik, Douglas Johnston and the other contributors all aruge that if real solutions are to be reached in religious conflicts, they will require engaging people on a religious level. In other words, religion must be employed to help combatants achieve some sort of stable peace.

President and founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, Johnston brings together renowned scholars and diplomats for their insights into both how religion has contributed to five major conflicts and how peacemaking attributes of five world religions might be applied in these situations. The authors don't try to sugarcoat how religion contributes to violence and war, but they do emphasize that the negative attributes of religions which contribute to these conflicts are not those religions' only legacy.

In all cases, religions also have attributes which encourage peace and harmony. These may not be factors which receive the most attention or which get promoted by the loudest adherents, but they do exist. The question is, how can they be employed as a counter-balance to the more violent tendencies? Of course, that question assumes we pay attention to religion at all, which is the first hurdle that Johnston and the other contributors recognize must be overcome.

For much of the 20th century, Western diplomacy has been characterized by the principle of Realpolitik (although that term itself did not come into use until the latter 20th century), which stipulates that the "rational" concern of nation-state is the balance of power and influence on the international scene. While there may be other concerns, like religion or culture, they are deemed "irrational" — which means that they must be subordinated to more rational interests. If religion of culture must be compromised in order to achieve stability, so be it.

There is a long tradition of such a practical approach to international relations and national politics in the West. King Henry IV ended the French Wars of Religion on July 25, 1593 when he declared that Paris vaut bien une messe (Paris was worth a Mass) and permanently renounced Protestantism. This conversion to Roman Catholicism secured the allegiance most his subjects: rational political considerations forced a compromise of personal religious principles.

The Peace of Westphalia, which not only ended the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War but also formed the basis for diplomacy and relations among European states, formally established a similar principle. No longer would there be conflict among the European powers based upon religious differences; in a sense, the rulers agreed to disagree on religious matters and relegated them to the list of things not worth fighting over.

While Europe may have decided that religion shouldn't be the basis for conflict and shouldn't become a foundation for national or international policies, much of the rest of the world never followed suit. In many non-Western cultures, there is no separation of church and state: religious beliefs remain a principle motivation for political or social action. Western nations have long tried to ignore religious differences in order to achieve more "rational" goals, but other nations may ignore "rational" goals to pursue "irrational" ends like religious solidarity and religious purity.

Western diplomats who try to work in such regions thus may end up operating from a different set of premises and assumptions than everyone else; in the end, little gets done. Douglas Johnston hopes to change this by getting Western diplomats and political leaders to understand that while religion can't be excluded in how they relate to other nations and trying to exclude it may only exacerbate the problems they are trying to solve.While such observations may be fine in principle, is there any realistic hope that they can be applied in practice? Johnston thinks so.

Johnston also recognizes that he can't offer strong answers on how this may be achieved, but he and Brian Cox describe in broad terms what faith-based diplomacy might look like while other contributors explain how those principles could be used in conflicts in Kashmir, Sudan, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and Kosovo. It would be nice if peaceful religious ideas could be used to counter violent religious ideas, but I'm skeptical about how well it would work. First, it would be difficult to ensure that someone promoting peaceful religion isn't regarded by those personally involved as a lacky for the godless West.

Another problem is that if "faith-based diplomats" work for Western governments, those governments will have to make decisions about who represents the "right" kind of religion for their purposes — a task fraught with dangers. Does the United States government, for example, have the authority to decide what the "right" Islam or the "right" Buddhism really is? Even if such a decision is made, we are led back to the previous problem: how do we get those involved in religious conflicts to accept the person representing that "right" religion?

Despite my skepticism, I'm glad that Johnston is trying to get people to think about these conflicts differently. Even if it isn't possible to realize all his recommendations, it would be a good idea to take them seriously and consider how we might achieve the goals he outlines. Anyone interested in the role of religion in politics and international relations would do well to pick up this book and read it.