Religion and Post-Conflict Statebuilding

In considering the role of religious institutions in post-conflict statebuilding it is not unreasonable to ask whether this line of enquiry remains relevant. The prescriptive nature of Western foreign policy towards developing countries and its recurring liberal agenda suggests that it isn’t. Built upon the foundations of modernization theory from the 1950s and 1960s international development and statebuilding policies are largely efforts aimed at replicating Western modes of progress in which there was no formal role for religion. Lant Pritchett et al. refer to this phenomenon in the development context as ‘isomorphic mimicry’, in that aid agencies replicate Western institutions without allowing unique indigenous systems to develop organically.1 Religion, as understood through modernization theory or isomorphic mimicry, is seen as unnecessary or even an inhibitor to progress.