Extras din seminar

Introduction

The book that I've chosen for for my review is entitled "Religie ?i putere în rela?iile interna?ionale contemporane" written by Constantin Buchet and published by Editura Didactic? ?i Pedagogic?, Bucure?ti in 1998. It has three chapters in which the author reveals the role of the religion durring the centuries, considering the external policy practised by different states.

Firstly, this book got my attention with its title which seemed to express a small shade of history. What I like most is that it combines scenes from the past with contemporary facts so that the evolution of different concepts and beliefs is obvious. It is a foray through history which points out the main religious conflicts that influenced the international relationships between the countries.

Chapter 1. RELIGION AND POWER.

In the first chapter, the author is considering the bilateral relationship between the two concepts, religion and power, in the system of the international policy. The theorization of this connection had been followed durring the centuries so that, one of the first analyst of the Ancient Times, Kautilya, has presented in his work "Artachastra" the fact that the international relationships express a dialectical report between the internal and the external policies.

On the other side, the christian theology showed that the supremacy of a state consisted in the kind of divine power the state was gifted with. Durring the Middle Ages and the modern period, the system of affiliation and of religious differences was really obvious.

The contemporary world system, in Alvin Toffler's opinion, is considering some other important pretenders to power like the multinational societies and the religions, whose importance and areas of action are permanently superposed.

After the Cold War, the organization of the international relationships presented a series of economical, political and religious developments, in which religion, as a power agent, can't be excluted.

In this chapter, the author presents a series of theories which are dealing with the connection between power and religion and also the atitude of the countries which are using a religious speech in their decisions considering the external policy.

The foundational theories, like the ones that were elaborated by Mitrany, are revealing an optimistic point of view based on the human nature, so that the man should be disposed to cooperate and ignore the conflicts.

The scientific theories after the Kaplan model tend to criticize the presence of the moral and the religious elements in the international relationships becouse they are deprived of theoretical precision. All the analyst who tent to identify the power with the violence (Max Weber, R,Mills) have taken over the ancient definition in which "the human opressed the human" and the christian tradition that used to urge on respecting the essence of the laws.

Placing the religion as a doctrine for the power, the religious antagonisms can generate different kinds of risks for the universal security and that's why the american writer Karl Magyar is blaming the religion for some famous conflicts in the world like the ones in the Northern Ireland, the dispute between the arabs and israelis or the Bosnian problem. The contemporary analysts also identify the regions with a great potential for the future religious conflicts, the studies revealing that 15% of the world's population live in peaceful areas and the rest of 85% live in turbulency.