NOTES FOR A SUCCESSFUL ESSAY: none of these questions can be answered by relying on the readings of one lecture only. Each question REQUIRES that you integrate different materials from various...

Religion
How can religion be understood as a Cause and Solution to Conflicts
Abstract
Religion is considered to be a contentious issue and is highly sensitive, people across the world identify themselves with specific religious sects and therefore abide with their ideologies. Religion has often been the basis of conflicts since time immemorial and religious violence may be directed against religious institutions, people, cultural symbols or any authority figures. On the contrary religion has also played a crucial role in peacekeeping therefore the paper intends to explore the intricate relationship between humanitarianism, religion and politics and would unfold various aspects of religion as to how it forms the basis of solution or conflicts. Various international strategies and examples from the past have been included in the paper that reveal how religion has played role in bringing peace at one time and given birth to conflicts at the other time.
Introduction
Religion and religious believes are on rise around the world it is rapidly growing in the countries with the level of economic development. Religious resurgence is occurring through variety of reasons and practices as both done within the public and private sphere. Even the international politics in the present time is famed within dominant secular humanism paradigm. Religion is now playing decisive role in framing the international politics and building blocks of national identity and therefore relation between politics and religion continue to be an important theme in political philosophy. Religion has powerfully motivated the humans to fight over it and there is no denial to the fact that religion has been a major feature in some historical conflicts and has also given birth to the modern day terrorism.
Ironically religious fundamentalism has liberalized and authorized many people around the world for the propagation of conflicts that has lead to the disruption of world peace. Religion has become so significance because globalization is changing and challenging everything around us. The conflicts are not caused only because of religious ideology but there are several politically motivated factors behind it. Religious identity gains more prominence when national and political alliances spilt, as what happened in several European countries like Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. The religion thus has a dual role to play as it can defend the oppress and oppress the defenseless. On the contrary religion can also be used as a strong tool to establish peace and tranquility in the world.     
Religion and Its Affect on the World
The effect of globalization can be seen everywhere from trade to services no sector is untouched of the forces of globalization. Religious resurgence is not just defined by growth of fundamentalism but is also defined by the growth of fundamentalism. The religion is likely to affect the world order as demographics are reinforcing this trend, studies reveal that religion will also be increasingly a global phenomenon (M.Thomas, 2010 ). It is expected that there will be a massive shift in the population growth from developed countries of the North to the developing countries of the global South. Scott Thomas mentions in his article that North that accounted for 32% of the world population in 1900 will only have 10% of the population by 2050 and religion will be the driving factor for such population redistribution (M.Thomas, 2010 ).
The current international politics is framed within the dominant secular human paradigm due to which the modern world order is intertwined with religion, the history shows how religion has played dominant role in European expansion and colonialism. The colonialism was highly motivated move to establish economic and religious supremacy across the world. Colonizers were of the clear view that they would spread their roots in the country and establish their religious practices so that that they build strong identities. It is thus clear that there is an implicit relationship between politics, humanitarianism and religion. The international political decision making is therefore highly influenced by religious beliefs in the present day. Dijana Gres states that, “Secularization serves as an ideological cornerstone of modern international politics and also forms the building block of national identities” (Gres, 2006 ). Still we perceive that in the modern time religion is overlooked by IR Scholarship and is also portrayed as a source of evil. Jonathan Fox mentions that the most significant reason for this is the rejection of religion by modern social sciences which has lead to the official separation of church and the state (Jonnathan, 2001).
Religion is known to play a very dominating role in the world politics as there is complex link between the two. The political circumstances shape the political actions and the choices of the believers and all the faiths of the world have been associated with conceivable political agenda (Bruce, 2003). Prominent differences between the people from different sects of Hindu, Jew, Christians, Buddhist, Catholic, Protestants continue to remain there and due to which the political upheaval are on the rise in the different parts of the world. The idea of adhering with one’s ideology and rejecting others often results in violence and barbarism. M. Thomas mentions that, “the current global resurgence of religion is seen to be wider than the clash of civilization as it is driven by religious extremism”.
Religious Diplomacy
Religious diplomacy is seen as an interesting activity around religious engagement in policy making, the track records prove that the policy makers are now working both formally and informally to focus on religion and religious engagement in their work (Silvestri, 2015). Mandaville and Silvestri also emphasis that all the diplomats should get training and professional development efforts around religion will now need mandatory training before heading into the field. The people continue to manifest an attraction to...