While social scientists, beginning with Weber, envisioned a secularized world, religion today is forthrightly becoming a defining feature of life all around the globe. The book as a whole explores the connections between religion and politics, and the ways in which globalization shapes these processes.

List of Figures Preface Don Handelman Chapter 1. After Understanding: A Memoir of Galina Lindquist Michael Jackson Chapter 2. Religion, Politics, and Globalization: The Long Past Foregrounding the Short Present - Prologue and Introduction Don Handelman and Galina Lindquist SECTION I: SHAPING RELIGION THROUGH POLITICS Chapter 3. Ethnic Identity and Religious Competition: Buddhism and Shamanism in Southern Siberia Galina Lindquist Chapter 4. The Global Constitution of Religious Competition: Hindutva and Globalization Henrik Berglund SECTION II: OPEN CONFLICTS OF RELIGION AND POLITICS Chapter 5. Church Confronts State: The 2004 Manifestasaun in Timor-Leste David Hicks Chapter 6. Religion, Secularism, Secularism, and Politics in Contemporary Spain: The Case of the Imam of Fuengirola Eva Evers Rosander SECTION III: THE TIGHT EMBRACE OF RELIGION AND POLITICS Chapter 7. Actors of History? Religion, Politics and ‘Reality’ Within the Protestant Right in America Simon Coleman Chapter 8. The Ambiguities of Islamism and a Century of Iranian Opposition David Thurfjell SECTION IV: OPENING NEW SPACE FOR RELIGION Chapter 9. Amazighite, Arab/Islamic Hegemony, and the Christian Evangelical Challenge Mira Amiras Chapter 10. Self-Exploders, Self-Sacrifice, and the Rhizomic Organization of Terrorism Don Handelman Chapter 11. Afterword: Fixation of Belief and the Dilemmas of Fallibility Robert Innis Notes on Contributors

“This edited volume is an excellent attempt to connect not just the concepts of religion and politics—a task  usually undertaken in a number of other publications—but also the forces of globalisation. The latter construct is of great significance to any current discussion of how religion and politics interact…this volume is to be commended for aptly translating the interactions of religion and politics in a globalised world, as diverse as they may be, in very clear terms.”  ·  Journal of Contemporary Religion "This volume is an important contribution to current rethinking of the sociological categories of religion and the secular. As a whole the collection demonstrates the development of new perspectives and presents a number of highly relevant case studies…It is significant as part of a growing discourse aimed at re-addressing old issues in a fresh and highly insightful manner."  ·  Bruce Kapferer, University of Bergen