Description
Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man argued the triumph of secular liberal democracy after the Cold War. Yet subsequent developments have revealed religion’s renewed potency as a political and ideological force. Across both violent and non-violent movements, faith has reasserted itself as a source of identity and moral coherence in a fragmented, globalized world. The growing abstraction and moral vacuity of secularism, coupled with technological and social upheaval, have amplified the appeal of religious ideologies promising meaning and belonging. At its extremes, this dynamic is visible in both (religious) apocalyptic and irreligious nihilistic movements that reject secular order outright. This paper explores how such religious currents challenge the liberal international system and expose the limits of secularism as a foundation for global order and identity.
