This book proposes a post–Cold War paradigm based on the interaction between the contemporary globalization of the political, economic, military, and communication (political plus EMC) systems and the significant role of religion in influencing politics. The first of the book's two sections, Chapters 1-4, explains the new paradigm. Chapter 1 presents the paradigm as a whole and then discusses each of the three EMC systems. Chapters 2-4 cover the second part of the paradigm, demonstrating the effect of the level of analysis and of the type of religion on the interaction between religion and politics.

THE NEW PARADIGM: POLITICS AND RELIGION WITHIN THE TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN EMC SYSTEMS

From the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) international political analysts and diplomats have focused on the alliances and the conflicts of sovereign nation-states, each acting on the basis of “national interest,” defined in various ways. Religion was thus relegated to the private individual and national ideological spheres. This Westphalian system hit bottom in the global, disproportionately European, debacle of World War I. At the end of World War II, the Cold War paradigm retained the centrality of the state system but modified it by aligning these sovereign states with one of the two ideological superpowers and by introducing a modicum of weak internationalism with the United Nations. In addition, transnationals like multinational corporations and global churches expanded their influence throughout the system by employing economic and expressive power.