ABSTRACT
This chapter considers "why International Relations (IR) theory had never considered the role of religion in society". For decades, the narrative of religious identity in the disciplinary canon of IR was a distinctive silence. Religion has been left behind in the discipline of International Political Economy (IPE), along with social forces and the role of ideas in general. A key precursor in IR that provided the theoretical framework for the religious turn was the "ideational turn" of the 1990s that challenged the dominance of positivism, which had demanded a parsimonious approach to international politics that limited the scope of IR to the study of states operating as if they were a "black box", insulated against social forces. The influence of positivism in IR gradually came under greater examination and reflection. The identity politics of Islam helps to better understand the behavior of Indonesia, and how it has integrated with other states, international organizations, and international markets.
