Bloody, Intense, and Durable

A growing number of scholars argues that we are witnessing a resurgenceof religion in world politics, accompanied by an increasein religiously inspired conflict. Empirical studies demonstrate thatreligious conflicts more violent, intense, durable, andmore difficult to resolve through negotiated settlements than theirsecular counterparts. In this paper, argue these conclusionsare unreliable, because they fail provide convincing criteria forseparating religious from non-religious ones. Our mainconcern is with the categorization problem. What characteristics orfactors make conflict party, issue, or identity religious, andwhat factors frame issue,or as non-religious? basic assumption behind much thisresearch contested idea universal phenomenonembodied various forms such Islam and Christianity. The majorityof simply assume sharp division between andthe secular without problematizing justifying distinction. Inthis article, ideologically chargedconcept, study religion-conflict nexus reinforcesthe neoliberal status quo current systems power.