Description:
The early twenty-first century has witnessed a global resurgence of religious activity and identification. In particular, numerous examples of the growing political influence of religion can be cited, not least in Europe, once thought to be an inexorably secularizing continent. In India, meanwhile, officially a secular state, the Bharatiya Janata Party has served in several coalition governments and, until 2004, was the leading party in government. In the USA, religion continues to have a major impact on both domestic politics and the country's international relations. More obviously perhaps, in the Middle East, religion plays an enormous part in political life, both domestically and internationally, while the Roman Catholic Church has played a leading role in the turn to democracy in Spain, Poland, and several Latin American countries.