Drawing on the work of leading scholars as well as policy makers and analysts, this volume offers the most comprehensive and accessible exploration to date of the major puzzles, issues, and questions surrounding the complex and increasingly visible role of religion in world affairs. There is an increasing recognition across the social sciences that the dominance of an epiphenomenal approach to the study of religion in world affairs has produced inadequate research and scholarship. This volume speaks creatively to that lack, exploring the key themes that arise when discussing religion in international affairs, focusing its six sections thematically on secularization, human rights, conflict and peace-making, civil society, media, and foreign policy.