ATTEMPTS TO DECLARE an end to the era of revolutions have proved as futile as the efforts to develop a consensual model for their study. Unexpected turns of history have brought revolutionary phenomena back to attention and, at the same time, have raised fundamental questions about definitions and demarcations in the field. That applies, in very different ways, to the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the collapse of Eastern European Communist regimes a decade later. In both cases, aspects indicative of a properly revolutionary dynamic (such as the exceptionally high level of popular mobilisation in Iran, or the liquidation of an entire ideological, political and economic order in Eastern Europe) seemed to combine with more disconcerting features (hierocratic politics in Iran, proposed adaptation to an older and globally dominant order in Eastern Europe). More recent developments have also underlined how far the mythologisation of revolution can outrun real history. The changes brought about by the ‘Arab Spring’, at first grossly exaggerated by Western liberals and radicals alike, now appear very insignificant. Only two cases can at all be claimed as evidence. In Tunisia, a fragile parliamentary regime still faces unsettled questions about the place of Islam in political life; as for the upheaval in Egypt, where the military state seems to have survived and given its main rivals just enough time to stalemate themselves, the only question is whether we want to describe the whole process as abortive or illusory. Another example is the imagery of ‘colour revolutions’ in post-Soviet states. The events in question did not amount to more than skirmishes within the ranks of unstable power elites, and the main reason for mythologising them is that it helps to justify a revival of cold war politics. But such vicissitudes may also serve to remind us of further sides to the problematic of revolutions. The revolutionary imaginary is a significant part of the story, and not only because of its impact on revolutionary processes; its disembodied offshoots include sectarian subcultures and quixotic adventures as well as geopolitical masquerades of the kind just mentioned.

The following discussion does not aim at a broad overview of current debates. Its main purpose is to highlight some basic points of dispute in the historical and sociological research on revolutions;…

PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL Revolutions and/or transformations belong to the classical agenda of social inquiry, as well as to the most prominent real and potential challenges encountered by contemporary societies. Among revolutionary events of the last decades, particular attention has been drawn to the changes that unfolded at the turn of the 1990s and brought the supposedly bipolar (in fact incipiently multipolar) world to an end. The downfall of East Central European Communist regimes in 1989 and of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the beginning of a new era, originally characterised on the one hand by the relaxation of international tensions and on the other by the ascendancy of Western unilateralism.

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soviet collapse prompts the authors of this book to reflect on revolutions and transformations, both from a long-term historical perspective and with regard to the post-Communist scene. The social changes unfolding in Eastern and Central Europe are not only epoch-making historical turns; their economic, social and political aspects, often confusing and unexpected, have also raised new questions and triggered debates about fundamental theoretical issues. Moreover, they have had a significant impact on developments elsewhere in the world, in both Western and developing countries.

In another context, military actions of the United States after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 have also had a major and controversial impact on the global arena. More recently, the economic crisis that began in 2007–8 can be seen as a historical watershed; it caused a series of breakdowns and provoked demands for social and political transformation, so far unfulfilled. The wave of protests and mostly abortive revolutions, known to optimists as the Arab Spring, is certainly not unconnected to crisis dynamics in the centres of the world economy, but it also reflects regional trends of a specific kind. Finally, internal and external transformations linked to the rise of new powers (such as the BRICS group, to which we could add Turkey, Indonesia and Mexico, and possibly others) are altering the patterns of international and global relations.

All these processes have unfolded within the framework of unchallenged global capitalism, whose reproduction on an expanding scale involved multiple economic, political, ecological and civilisational transformations.

TheAnnual of European and Global Studies (AEGS) is an independent scholarly periodical, based in the Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies at the University of Wrocław (Poland). Its aim is to publish once a year a collection of articles with a shared thematic focus, dealing with European and global issues. The main goal of AEGS is to present wide-ranging scholarly reflections on paradigms, theories and problems concerning European and global developments and their background. In so doing, the Annual will strive for a genuine global dialogue of scholarly perspectives from different regions around the world. Willfried Spohn played a central role in establishing the Annual during his time at the Willy Brandt Centre (2010–12). His intellect, experience and collegiality were essential for the formulation and realisation of this project. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Willfried.

It seems fitting to begin this series with a volume on religion and politics, and all the more so because it links up with Willfried Spohn's published work and unfinished research projects. There are several weighty reasons to treat this theme as a key connecting link between European and global affairs. Debates on religion, its role and its prospects in the contemporary world have to a high degree focused on contrasts between Europe and other parts of the world; the long-established assumption that modern societies are on a secularising path seems, whatever the problems arising on closer examination, to have a stronger claim to validity in Europe than elsewhere.

Introduction: Willfried Spohn on religion and politics

It is a commonplace that the question of interaction between religion and politics has come back to haunt both academic and broader public debates. Less frequently noted is the inherent ambiguity of the trends and events in question: what some observers see as a return of religion to the political arena is portrayed by others as a stepped-up politicisation of religion. Samuel Huntington's work on the clash of civilisations (Huntington 1996) has become a standard illustration of the former view. For Huntington, religion is the most important objective determinant of civilisational identity, and as such, it is the main driving force behind the shift from national and ideological to civilisational politics. Huntington's critics, as well as many other authors with different concerns, have argued that the invocations of traditionalist or fundamentalist principles are better understood as new ways of drawing religious resources into power struggles that have not undergone any basic change. Disagreement on this point does not, however, preclude a common emphasis in another regard: the regained importance of religion is believed to undermine some well-established assumptions about the modern world. On this view, the idea of a fundamental tension between religion and modernity – or, in other words, a secularising dynamic as a defining feature of modernisation – is no longer tenable. The apparent historical evidence for that claim can then be explained away in various terms.