Religion as poetic discourse and the theorization of international politics

Abstract

Scholars in the field of International Relations have recently sought to re-engage religion out of the recognition that the so-called global resurgence of religion has challenged the previously prevailing epistemological and ontological assumptions which implied that religion was at most a marginal factor to the study of international politics. This thesis enters into the renewed conversations regarding religion and international politics by arguing that in order to take seriously the real challenge presented by the global resurgence of religion there is need to understand religion as poetic discourse. Appealing to the thought of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, it characterizes poetic discourse as that which constitutes a world of desirability and in so doing speaks to human existence as effort and desire. So oriented according to characteristics of desirability, a poetically-disclosed world in turn brings into relief alternative ways of understanding the scope of possibility and impossibility, practicability and impracticability. Religion as poetic discourse thus presents important resources for the potential transformation of international political community. Recovering the legitimacy of poetic discourse in the face of critiques of religion that rightly bring into relief the challenges stemming from the disenchantment of the world, the thesis underscores that religion understood as poetic discourse is necessarily tied to the exercise of interpretive, practical judgment. What the global resurgence of religion most significantly raises, therefore, is a challenge to those approaches, two of which this thesis critiques, which would seek to attain to a science of praxis at the level of international politics by denying their own poetic character.