On Religion and the Politics of Security: How Religion’s Involvement in Domestic Politics Affects National Securitymaking

This article explores how national security policies are influenced by national religious politics. First, the state's religious policy greatly influences which security interests the government pursues, as national-security policy is in part a continuation of government religious policy by other means. Second, the desire of decisionmakers to win the political competition against elites which differ in their religious affinities and vision for the state-religion relations steers them toward three possible securitymaking dynamics. Third, the political need of decisionmakers to accommodate the opinions on religion of the groups that secure their hold on power delimits their security policies.