Summary
Title: The Sacred and the Sovereign: Religion and International Politics
Author: edited by John D. Carlson, Erik C. Owens
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 0878409084
Pro:
• Offers a variety of perspectives on how people are pulled in different ways, unable to easily choose
• Essays from several prominent scholars in religion, government, and politics
Con:
• May make too much of a distinction between the "sacred" and the "sovereign"
Description:
• Analysis of how people's loyalty to "sacred" principles and state sovereignty can conflict
• Explains how conflict occurs in matters of human rights, war, tribunals, and more
• Argues that religion plays an important role in international relations
Book Review
Of particular concern to many is the way in which people have to balance their loyalties. On the one hand is religion - or, one might say, the sacred. Sacred obligations are those to which people typically believe they owe their greatest allegiance and in which they invest the most effort. On the other hand is the nation-state, a type of entity which only really came into prominence after the Peace of Augsburg and, a century later, the Treaty of Westphalia. These events were designed to suppress religious strife which had consumed Europe as people fought over religious loyalties.
Religious conflict was a major force behind the secularization of politics and society in Europe; but secularization is also an important influence behind the religious revivals which pose what many regard as the most serious threat to Western stability in a long time. Is there any way for people to balance their loyalties to religion and nation, to the sacred and the secular?
There are quite a few opportunities for conflict between the two, many of which are explored by the various authors in The Sacred and the Sovereign: Religion and International Politics, edited by ohn D. Carlson and Erik C. Owens. The most significant of these, and the one which prompted a conference which led to this book, seems to be that of armed "humanitarian" intervention against violent or oppressive governments.
Traditionally, national sovereignty has been treated as inviolable - a state risks attack if it acts against other states, but is considered safe no matter what it does against its own citizens. Lately it has been argued that certain ethical principles, often but not necessarily articulated in a religious context, may trump the principle of national sovereignty and thus permit or even require one state to launch a military attack on another for the purpose of protecting the targeted state's citizens. This is, for example, a commonly cited justification for the American invasion of Iraq.
This idea is one that has been adopted by many who don't even consider themselves particularly religious, and if they do, they may not even defend this principle in religious terms. Nevertheless, it can be classified as an example of preferring a "higher authority" to that of state sovereignty and the ideas of international political relations first articulated in the Treaty of Westphalia. Whether that "higher authority" is named God or simply "universal human rights," the process of asserting this authority over that of a nation-state will be much the same and presents the same problems.
