Created by two of the field’s leading experts, this unique introduction to international religious demography outlines the challenges in interpreting data on religious adherence, and presents a contemporary portrait of global religious belief.Offers the first comprehensive overview of the field of international religious demography – detailing what we know about religious adherents around the world, and how we know itExamines religious freedom and diversity, includi...

The Price of Freedom Denied shows that, contrary to popular opinion, ensuring religious freedom for all reduces violent religious persecution and conflict. Others have suggested that restrictions on religion are necessary to maintain order or preserve a peaceful religious homogeneity. Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke show that restricting religious freedoms is associated with higher levels of violent persecution. Relying on a new source of coded data for nearly 200 countries and case studies ...

A fresh and illuminating perspective on the surge in religion"s political influence across the globe. Is religion a force for good or evil in world politics? How much influence does it have? Despite predictions of its decline, religion has resurged in political influence across the globe, helped by the very forces that were supposed to bury it: democracy, globalization, and technology. And despite recent claims that religion is exclusively irrational and violent, its political influence is in...

This volume examines, from diverse perspectives, what it means to be a Muslim in Canada. Is it a public or a private identity, and as an identity is it compatible with a secular democracy such as Canada? What relation does it bear to historical, cultural, and ethnic identities? Is a total agnostic or an atheist a Muslim? Is a person who disavows being a Muslim still a Muslim? How do Muslims cope with anti-Muslim bigotry, especially when it goes “official”? What alterations in social and re...

From Gandhi's movement to win Indian independence to the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, an expanding number of citizens have used nonviolent action to win political goals. While such events have captured the public imagination, they have also generated a new surge of scholarly interest in the field of nonviolence and civil resistance studies. Although researchers have produced new empirical data, theories, and insights into the phenomenon of nonviolent struggle, the field is still quite un...

Not so very long ago it seemed reasonable to assert that the influence of religion on global politics was on the wane. As the Western world became increasingly secular and the process of globalisation deepened, it seemed inevitable - on the surface at least - that the voice of religion was to be heard softly if it was to be heard at all.This has now changed, and changed perhaps irrevocably. As Jeff Haynes argues in this thought-provoking and important new book, various religious 'a...

This book documents recent and historical events in the theoretically-based practice of peace development. Its diverse collection of essays describes different aspects of applied philosophy in peace action, commonly involving the contributors' continual engagement in the field, while offering support and optimal responses to conflict and violence.

Religious discrimination is the norm in many countries around the world, and the rate is rising. Nearly every country which discriminates does so unequally, singling out some religious minorities for more discrimination than others. Religious tradition does not explain this complex issue. For example, Muslim majority states include both the most discriminatory and tolerant states in the world, as is also the case with Christian majority states. Religious ideologies, nationalism, regime, cu...

A comprehensive overview of the latest research in religion and conflict resolution, this collection of twenty three essays brings together leading scholars in the field examining the contribution religious actors have made and are making towards peace and resolving. The Ashgate Research Companion to Religion and Conflict Resolution is primarily aimed at readerships with special interest in conflict resolution, international security, and religion and international relations, and will also...

From the United States to the Middle East, Asia and Africa, religion continues to be an important factor in political activity and organisation. The second edition of this successful handbook provides the definitive global survey of the interaction of religion and politics.Featuring contributions from an international team of experts, it examines the political aspects of all the world's major religions, including such crucial contemporary issues as religious fundamentalism, terrori...

Are human rights universal or the product of specific cultures? Is democracy a necessary condition for the achievement of human rights in practice? And when, if ever, is it legitimate for external actors to impose their understandings of human rights upon particular countries? In the contemporary context of globalization, these questions have a salient religious dimension. Religion intersects with global human rights agendas in multiple ways, including: whether ''universal'' human rights a...

This is the first study to bring space into conversation with religious competition, conflict and violence in the contemporary world. Lily Kong and Orlando Woods argue that because space is both a medium and an outcome of religious activity, it is integral to understanding processes of religious competition, conflict and violence. The book explores how religious groups make claims to both religious and secular spaces, and examines how such claims are managed, negotiated and contested by th...