Take a look at the recently published God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (2011), by Monica Duffy Toft (Harvard), Daniel Philpott (Notre Dame) and Timothy  Samuel Shah (Georgetown). The authors are political scientists, but the book’s discussion of religion’s influence on global politics will be important for law and religion scholars, particularly those whose work is comparative.

“Over the past four decades,” the authors write, “religion’s influence on politics has reversed its decline and become more powerful on every continent and across every major world religion.”  They attribute religion’s growing sway not so much on a rise in piety, but to the fact that religion today enjoys more independence from political control than ever before.  This independence has allowed religious leaders to act on behalf of liberal public goods like democracy and conciliation.

Of course, some religions support liberal democracy more than others.  For example, the authors write, “religious leaders from the Catholic Read more