TEHRAN - Professor Friedrich Kratochwil, chair in international Politics at the European University Institute in Florence says “I am, in a way, skeptical about the need of a religious theory of IR.”

Author of “Rules, Norms and Decisions” adds that “I cannot see how that will help us to deal with issues of nuclear proliferation, or questions of counteracting the increasing gap in wealth between countries and within countries, not to speak about the issues of digitalization for “normal” transnational interactions or of dealing with cyber-attacks, or issues of the environment (the fouldsing of the seas and global warming).”
Following is the full text of the interview:

Q: When did the religious issues has been a matter of great in Theorizing of International Relations?

A: It is obvious that for the establishment of the European international system the Wars of Religion were instrumental in bringing about the “Westphalian System” and its religious compromises. They did so by first creating sovereign states and “state churches” which the sovereign could establish but which led over the centuries to the “toleration” of other creeds (such as e.g. the “Charter” of what later would become the US state of Maryland, allowing Catholics as inhabitants with equal rights) and the even later occurring “privatization” of religion, making issues of “faith” a matter of individual conscience rather than a political issue. This type of order was the exception  as Empires had frequently insisted on a religious legitimization - but even here both the ancient Persian empire had for long periods followed a different path: requiring its subjects to have the “same friends and enemies” as the Great King (or Rome) and to pay tribute but disiting from institutionalizing an orthodoxy.

The close identification of a certain “true faith” with the political order led during the Middle Ages not only to conflicts between rulers (as “representatives” of the political association and its people) and the defenders of the faith who claimed to provide the single authoritative  interpretation of the holy “texts” but was historically not always incompatible with good deal of autonomy between church and state,  or ruler and clergy as the European example or the development of Islamic law show. 

In modernity, of course the “secular” version of the international system,  cast by the end of the 18th century in the language of contract law and custom was extended to the “rest of the world” either by imposition (colonialism, imperialism) or through cooperation (as in the case of the Latin American colonies that were recognized as independent states).  Nevertheless, while those two options seemed to be exhaustive, some strange forms of being “in-between” sovereign autonomy and being subjected to external powers came into existence (suzerainty, spheres of influence etc.). Important was that a supposedly neutral language of “law” was the necessary precondition - although the “standard of civilization” which came with it showed -  aside from the formal hierarchical elements just mentioned (suzerainty, unequal treaties)-   that even among the legal equals,  some were more equal than others.  

This leads me to the second part of your question, which I understand, addresses the issue whether a “theory” of international relations can accommodate “religion” or what the difficulties are that exist between these two concepts that belong to two different semantic fields. Here two issues arise. First, “theory” belongs obviously to the semantics of epistemology, not to the field of “revealed truth” or “commanded allegiance” that characterizes many religions. To that extent “theory” is a form of knowledge that claims for itself universal validity for its assertions which have been subjected to “critical” examination through some (empirical) “tests”, and inferential or deductive logic. While there seems to be widespread agreement that what a field needs is some “good theory” I think that analogy from the success of the natural sciences to matters of practice is unwarranted, as I have tried to show in my last work (Praxis: On Acting and Knowing , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2018) There is an old tradition from Aristotle to Hume,   the modern pragmatists, to Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophers, that practical issues are badly misdiagnosed when they are subjected to “theoretical” criteria. The second issue is then, that even if we reject the idea that “theory” is the “solution”, we cannot thereby conclude that ultimate authority for all questions can be vested in “religion”, because religion is not a philosophers stone, providing us with a unique and ultimate test of what the right and only way of for understanding what its message actually is.   Even if all commands are written down or credited with care,  issues of interpretation arise as to the authoritative “sources” of  the canon of accepted texts is, what the weight of tradition and custom in interpreting the divine “message” should be,  or  who can claim to be the authoritative interpreter in case of disagreements. It needs no further elaboration that those are important issues for the community of believers, but it also should be clear that those issues are therefore not central to the concerns of others, who are not part of that community. To that extent the categorical distinction between “believers” and “non-believers” is a bit too facile as it does not come to terms with the fact that we are all sitting in one boat and that everybody is somewhere and at some time an “outsider” or non-believer, quite aside that the experiences of wars fought for “ultimate purposes” - be it religion, the nation, or whatever- are dismal indeed (which brings me back to the religious wars with which I began). 

Q: Some argue that if the theory of International Relations means a constitutive and critical theory, then bringing religion into International Relations is possible, but if the theory of International Relations is an explanatory-empirical theory, the theorizing religion in International Relations is not possible and, in fact, there is not theological positivism theory in International Relations. What is your opinion?

A: Following up on this your second query whether there is no “theological positivism” in IR theory the answer is clear. There can be as little a theological positivism in IR theory as there can be a “theological theory of music” or architecture. Theology is, after all, not a “science of science” as little as the physical world can be the “house” or box whining which everything is contained. In the physical world we have mountains and rivers, animals and elements,  quarks and photions but there is no “trust”, no melody, no “trespass”,  no "future options” etc.  There might be “death” but there are (contrary to the saying of Benjamin Franklin about the “sure things”) there are no “taxes”. Those considerations however, also shoot down the idea that “everything” can be explained by using “science”, since “science deals with the “real” (material). “Theft” and “fraud”,  and “markets”, even gains and losses,  are also “real” only that they are part of the social and legal, or economic  world, not of the physical one and thus the notion that there is “one world” needs to be re-thought.   

Q: Some scholars such as “Michael Allen Gillespie” in the book “The Theological Origins of Modernity” believe that modernity was not initially against religion, and in later years, as a result of social, cultural and political conditions, it has led to secularism. So Based on this conception, religion is not conflict with modernity, so can it be said that religion is not conflict with the International Relations theory stemming from modernity?

A: I think the above remark also speaks to your third point in which you try to construct a “conflict” in terms of a genesis, so that if modernity and religion are not in conflict, then religion is not in conflict with IR. The issue is not one of genesis it is about different fields with different semantics and logic. The way the market functions has nothing or little to say what the problems of astronomy are or whether or not Michelangelo was a good artist. Here the traditional conceptualizations lumping all things together in different epochs (modernity etc.) are not helpful. 

Q: Some argue that the current International Relations theory cannot explain some of the current phenomena of international relations and we need a religious theory of International Relations, especially with regard to religious issues. What is your opinion? In general, theorizing Religion in International Relations is feasible?

A: For the reasons above I am, in a way, skeptical about the need of a religious theory of IR. I cannot see how that will help us to deal with issues of nuclear proliferation,  or questions of counteracting the increasing gap in wealth between countries and within countries, not to speak about the issues of digitalization for “normal” transnational interactions or of dealing with cyber attacks, or issues of the environment (the fouldsing of the seas and global warming). To take just the example of the rich/poor divide: while we obviously have a problem with the existing economic order-m which bestows on a few billionaires the created wealth while leaving more than 90 % of the world population “outside” in the cold - it is no comfort that no religion has ever mastered the problem either - not to mention the feeble attempts of “philosophy and IR” to come up with a “theory of justice” which are of interest mainly to armchair philosophers. One of the issues is that the problems of an institutional order are different from those of individual choices so that there is no easy transfer from prescribing the “right” action to individuals (which religion and ethics do) to the next level of the state or the third level of a “world community” which all interact and are only analytically separate.  

In one way you are right however that the prevailing ideology in the “West” dealing with religion as an entirely “private affair” and as a deficient form of knowing was seriously problematic, as we had no way of adequately understanding what happened e.g. in the Islamic revolution of Khomeini or in the Middle East in general. Here probably more “local knowledge” would have been much more helpful than some IR “theory" conceived mainly in the cloisters of US universities. 

Q: If theorizing Religion in International Relations is possible, can this religious theory in International Relations explain all the unresolved issues and problems?

A: NO; but then look at the bright side:  how many things there are still to be done and which cannot be preempted by some new doctrine, religious or otherwise.