How have the Modernization and Secularization Theses Shaped the Study of IR?

“Modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion”, says John Gray at the very outset of Black Mass (2007: 1). Gray’s particular claim is that modern teleological ideologies inherited the apocalyptic vision of conventional religious thought. Yet, this claim that modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion might be made to mean many other things. For instance, it may mean that religion survived long before, and will survive long after, modern politics; or that religion discounts itself from being perceived as a pre-modern phenomenon, as its norms began, at some point, to penetrate into those of modern politics. Common to all is the assumption of a “stubborn persistence of religion in the global arena” (Shupe, 1990: 17). Furthermore, like many others, Bech and Snyder (Bech et. al, 2011: 208) claim that “religion presents analytical challenges to all […] traditional international relations paradigms”. The question must then be asked: why was it neglected in mainstream international relations studies? The answer is hidden in the way that modernization and secularization theses have influenced the discipline.