Towards a New Christian Political Realism: The Amsterdam School of Philosophy and the Role of Religion in International Relations

Towards A New Christian Political Realism presents a new theoretical approach to understanding the role of religion in international relations, considering the strengths of Christian realism, classical realism, and neorealism, as well as the literature about the relevance of religion for IR.

The book discusses the resurgence of religion and how it has become ’public’ in the world since around the 1960s. It extensively describes the role religion plays in Hans Morgenthau’s classical realism and Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism and how both thinkers are indebted to an Augustinian way of thinking that has influenced political realism through Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism. The book presents an alternative approach inspired by the Amsterdam School of Philosophy: a new Christian political realism. It incorporates the theological inspiration of political realism and the necessity of theorizing while doing justice to the relevance and manifold manifestations of religion in international relations.

This book will be of interest to scholars and higher-level students of International Relations, the Amsterdam School of Philosophy, Classical Realism, Neorealism, Christian Realism, and Religious Studies, as well as practitioners working in the field of International Relations.

Simon Polinder is a Postdoctoral Researcher reimagining Religion, Security and Social Transformation in the Department of History of International Relations at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. His current research is on religious leaders and their response to violent extremism in Kenya and Nigeria. He is the co-editor of the volume Christian Faith, Philosophy and International Relations: The Lamb and the Wolf (2019). His dissertation received an Honorable Mention for the Mark Juergensmeyer Best Dissertation Award 2023.