Religion is back in IR but no one really knows what this means. Some argue that even the most elaborated approaches on religion in IR get it wrong because they do not question the term religion as such, which should rather be replaced by the term culture (Fitzgerald), while others argue that a footloose “holy ignorance” (Roy) beyond culture is a dominant experience of global religion.
As religion is rather a social practice and a convention than a “thing” (Kratochwil), the paper asked what religion can mean today in the context of globalization not as an essence but as a term in practice. World religion, a convention from the 19th century and the “empires of religion” (Bayly), is a good starting point. Drawing on religious sociology (Stark), we argue that what others call “strong religion” (Almond et al.) wins usually the ups and downs of religious decline and revival. But linking this with the concept of world religion, we dissent with the usual cleavage of liberal globalization vs. religious pocket of resistance – Jihad vs. McWorld (Barber) – but argue that strong religions are the driving force of global visions of world community (Bartelson).
