Recognizing religion in global politics is neither neutral nor benign. This book reveals how recognition operates to reinforce hierarchies, reify religious difference, and deepen political divisions. Maria Birnbaum reframes religion as a historically contingent category of knowledge and governance. She shifts the question from whether religion should be recognized to how it becomes recognizable. Through the entangled imperial histories of British India and Mandate Palestine, the book traces how colonial and anti-colonial governmental logics shaped the politics of religious minorities, representation, and border-making-dynamics that continue to shape postcolonial states like Pakistan and Israel. Offering a timely critique of the epistemic assumptions underpinning global discourses on religion, sovereignty, and political order, Before Recognition challenges conventional understandings of religion in international relations. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

‘Maria Birnbaum skillfully unpacks the many conceptual and historical antecedents that made it possible to speak of religion as a distinct category of knowledge in world politics and analyzes how its meanings have been shaped by incessant struggles for power. Full of fascinating insights, ‘Before Recognition' is a major contribution to the study of religion in international relations.'

Jens Bartelson - Lund University

‘The existence of religious minorities and religious states is often taken for granted in international relations. Not anymore. This book unpacks the political processes by which religious differences are naturalized. Birnbaum shows how this imperial logic took on a life of its own, reverberated across the globe, and downloaded itself into state constitutions and legal norms, leaving in its wake a series of bewildered and beleaguered religiously defined states and minorities. A must-read for scholars of religion and IR.'

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd - Northwestern University

‘In this remarkable book, Maria Birnbaum demonstrates how religion is mentioned in international relations without being conceptualized. She brilliantly analyses two case studies, Palestine and Pakistan, to propose an original approach on how to give full recognition to the very concept of religion.'

Olivier Roy - Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute