Die Rückkehr der Religion in die politische Öffentlichkeit

The politicization of religion in armed conflicts is a global challenge that is being intensively researched within political science debates. But why do Western societies find it so difficult to engage in critical and differentiated forms of debate about religious justifications of violence? Based on a corpus-analytical longitudinal analysis of Western conflict debates (460,917 newspaper articles), the empirical findings show for the first time how religious identities become primary reference categories for describing non-Western collectives after the end of the Cold War. In this overall discursive context, religious justifications of violence unfold their particular impact.