Sustainable Governance in a Postsecular Public Sphere: Re-assessing the Role of Religion as a Cosmopolitan Policy Actor in a Diverse and Globalized Age

Baker, Christopher. 2016. Sustainable Governance in a Postsecular Public Sphere: Re-assessing the Role of Religion as a Cosmopolitan Policy Actor in a Diverse and Globalized Age. Sustainable Development, 24(3), pp. 190-198. ISSN 0968-0802 [Article]

No full text available

Abstract or Description

This article nuances debates about the role and contribution of religion to sustainable forms of governance in respect of current policy and political debates. It lays out some of the definitional terms of reference around governance and sustainable development. It then locates these debates within a series of wider, interdisciplinary frameworks (primarily political philosophy, sociology, political geography and public theology), including concepts such as cosmopolitanism, the postsecular, progressive localism and spiritual and social capital. These concepts recognize the changing boundaries between the religious and secular in the public sphere. The article locates some of these theoretical discourses within two case studies of performative cosmopolitan religious governance and analyses their methodology and impact within the terms of governance and sustainable development. It concludes that performative spaces of religiously framed welfare provision and civic engagement potentially offer important pointers as to principles and structures of what sustainable governance looks like in complex, diverse and increasingly fragmented polities and localities.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1621

Keywords:

governance; cosmopolitanism; localism; postsecular; religion

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Social, Therapeutic & Community Engagement (STaCS)

Dates:

DateEvent
1 May 2016Published
24 October 2015Accepted

Item ID:

21846

Date Deposited:

09 Oct 2017 12:07

Last Modified:

09 Oct 2017 12:07

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/21846

Edit Record Edit Record (login required)