ABSTRACT
Through it will glance back as for as the nineteenth century, the focus of this chapter falls on the recent past, particularly the latter part of the twentieth century. The period has been characterized by particularly interesting developments in the relations between religion and politics across the world, developments still in train at the start of a new millennium. The 1980s and 1990s were, globally, an era of fundamental political, social and economic change. Many changes stemmed from, or were at least galvanized by, the ending of the Cold War (involving the Soviet Union and the US from the late 1940s to the late 1980s). Others were associated with the multifaceted processes known collectively, if somewhat vaguely, as ‘globalization’ (for clarification of the term see Chapter 14). Key developments in the period included not only the consolidation of a truly global economy and, some would argue, the gradual emergence of a ‘global culture’, but also a number of fundamental political developments including the steady if uneven advance of democracy-from Latin America to Eastern and Central Europe, Asia and Africa. There have also been myriad examples of the political involvement of
Introduction 365 Church-state relations Defining the ‘West’ and the ‘Third World’ TheWest The Third World Secularization Colonialism Religion and politics since the 1960s The West The non-Western world Conclusion Summary Key terms Further reading
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religious actors around the world-to the extent that some claim that a global religious revitalization, a ‘de-secularization’ of the world, as a third characteristic of the period (see Chapter 13). As this chapter will show, this does not imply only an apolitical respiritualization, but also widespread contemporary interaction of religion and politics.
