Religion and Politics in the 2020s: The State of the Field

In recent years, religion has once again become a significant force in politics, with the electoral success of populist religious parties and legislatures informed by religion. Over the past decades, the role of religion in European and global politics has steadily increased: on the one hand, the role of faiths in politics and international affairs, because of migration and globalization processes, has become more relevant and more complex; on the other hand, religion has become a significant factor in domains where it was previously not considered. The increasing salience of religion is quite paradoxical, considering ongoing secularization processes that have often reduced the role faith plays in people's everyday life and the authority of religious institutions. Although 'religion and politics' is an established subfield of political science, with a growing and lively community within all the major national and international political science organizations, a broader reflection on the state of the studies is still lacking. This Section aims at both reflecting on and advancing the current state of research in the religion and politics field, also strengthening the dialogue across sub-disciplines of political science (i.e., study of democratization, study of political parties and political movements, policy analysis, international relations, etc.). The Section seeks to address the questions posed by the increasing role of religion in politics and contradictions and unpack the ties between religion and politics at the international and domestic levels by incorporating insights from different sub-disciplines.