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The study of religion holds great promise for the study of identity, institutional origins, the state, and the strategies of institutional actors in comparative politics. Doctrinal differences translate into distinct patterns of state institutions, economic performance, and policy preferences. Religious attachments affect voting and popular mobilization. Churches can become powerful institutional players that lobby, influence policy, and form effective coalitions with both secular and denominational partners. Finally, natural religious monopolies and (conversely) resolutely secular countries show how churches have played a central role in the struggle of nations and states. The relationship is thus mutual: religion influences political attitudes and institutions, and politics affects religious practice and political activity. Adapted from the source document.

The past generation has witnessed a resurgence of religion in global politics, but political science has been slow to catch up with it. The reason lies in the secularism embedded in the field's major theories, one that reflects actual secularism in world politics, beginning with the events surrounding the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 & growing steadily through the middle twentieth century. Today, a small but growing number of political scientists have begun to explore religion, doing so in ways that depart from secular assumptions & embrace religion's distinctiveness to greater & lesser degrees. Adapted from the source document.

This article examines the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework as a political project in tension with its universal and multilateral aspirations to serve as a counterbalance to narrow populist visions increasingly dominating global politics. Building upon Laclau and Mouffe's theory of populism and their notion of 'radical democracy', we conceptualise the SDGs as a struggle for hegemony and in competition with other styles of politics, over what counts as 'development'. This hegemonial struggle plays out in the attempts to form political constituencies behind developmental slogans, and it is here that religious actors come to the fore, given their already established role in organising communities, expressing values and aspirations, and articulating visions of the future. Examining how the SDG process has engaged with faith actors in India and Ethiopia, as well as how the Indian and Ethiopian states have engaged with religion in defining development, we argue that a 'radical democracy' of sustainable development requires a more intentional effort at integrating religious actors in the implementation of the SDGs.

Brazil has faced a health, economic, and political crisis related to the Covid 19 pandemic since mid-March 2020. From that period onwards an opposition towards governmental initiatives for closing trade, industry, churches and services broke out in several states, initiating a public debate on the effectiveness of social isolation in dealing with the pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, evangelical churches, the second largest religious group in the country, have raised numerous controversies over their political alliance with the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, in opposition to the sanitary measures of social distance and closing of religious temples; calling for the recognition of religions as "essential services" by the State. Such controversies became even more acute when Bolsonaro began to openly defend the use of chloroquine in the prophylactic treatment of Covid-19, denouncing social isolation measures as part of a plot against his government. This article is an analysis of the intersections between religion, politics, and health, presenting public positions of pastors, bishops, and other Pentecostal leaders regarding the policies dealing with the epidemic. More than classifying these conducts simply as forms of denial of science, we see here the case of religious incursion into the academic field and an appropriation of the scientific vocabulary with the attempt to usurp the legitimate discourse. When thinking about how the circulation of this knowledge is entangled with political and religious debates, our final objective is to analyze how such processes reinterpret the relationship between religion and science, as well as the relationship between religion and the Nation State.

How would God vote?: an introduction E.J. Dionne Jr. and Kayla M. Drogosz -- PART I. FAITH AND POLITICS IN PUBLIC OFFICE -- In the American Catholic tradition of realism Mario Cuomo -- A conservative Christian's view of public life Mark Souder -- Continuing the conversation -- PART II. EXPANDING THE DIALOGUE -- What is a Christian to do? Doug Bandow -- Religion, politics, and the American experience Michael Barone -- The conservatory of virtue Gary L. Bauer -- The religious left, too often left out Paul E. Begala -- American politics and the dissenting Protestant tradition Robert Bellah -- How Niebuhr helps us kick the secularist habit: a six step program David Brooks -- Once more, the cross and the flag Harvey Cox -- Common grace, natural law, and the public arena Michael Cromartie -- Faithful consensus John J. DiIulio Jr. -- Rendering to Caeser and to God Terry Eastland -- God talk and the citizen-believer Jean Bethke Elshtain -- The politics of religion in a sinful world Richard Wightman Fox -- Cuomological fallacies Robert P. George

Abstract
This article deals with the transformation of Catholic politics in Italy between 1942 and 1945 and the emergence of Christian Democracy as the dominant political party in the postwar years. It analyzes how Catholic politicians turned from reactionary critics of democracy to its champion. The article foregrounds a dimension that has not been given sufficient attention in scholarly works on political Catholicism and Christian Democracy, namely the religious content of thought. In the experiences of politicians and thinkers living through Fascism and war, transcendence and spirituality emerged as new markers of certainty that came to re-direct and ground democracy. Our conceptual argument is that Christian Democracy can be understood as a distinct form of "political spirituality," pace Foucault. The article further shows how this political spirituality became "applied" in a series of ways in the immediate postwar period.