The Prospect of Processing a Religious Theory in the International Relations

In recent decades, the presence and the role of religion in the public sphere of societies and at large in the international environment have become so evident that the abolishment of former beliefs about the inevitable decline of religion and the causal relationship between modernity and secularization have been substantiated. Therefore, today, the debate over whether religion and religious actors can be influential at various political levels seems to be over and unnecessary. Rather, the discussions of experts are now focused on the question of ‘How religion should be treated and interpreted. Is religion in international relations objects that can be examined and explained by various IR theories, or can religion itself act as a subject and provide an independent perspective and worldview in the form of a scientific theory for understanding and interpreting the world?’ There are two views that will be discussed in this article. Some believe that it is possible to address religion in the form of existing IR theories, and others argue for the need to process independent theories by emphasizing the inadequacy of existing theories when referring to religion. While accepting the second view, this paper proposes that in the current state of IR discipline and given the inherent failure of existing theories of this knowledge to understand and interpret the behavior of religious actors caused by fundamental meta-theoretical differences, it is completely possible to develop a religious theory that can provide researchers with an independent perspective and worldview. This hypothesis, if proven, would underpin the formation of the religious theory of International Relations.