Special Forum: Religion and violence

From Islamist insurgencies to the role of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, the interconnectedness of religion and violence has become a phenomenon to consider in international relations. After more than ten years of fierce debate about the role played by religion, we do however still lack clarity about how to understand, conceptualize and study the relationship between religion and violence.

This special section of the journal Millenium critically engages with dominant ideas about the religion violence-nexus: either that religion is particularly prone to violence and the cause of violence or, alternatively, that it is an epiphenomenon that plays no role at all in the occurrence of violence. The four contributors of this special section take religion seriously and in various ways grapple with the question of how religion matters and how to study the religion-violence nexus.