Online publication.
International Religious Freedom’s Christian “Soft Spot”: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions, 2021
International Religious Freedom’s Christian “Soft Spot”: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions, Berkley Forum: Recommendations for the Incoming Biden Administration, 2021
Since the end of the Cold War, religion has increasingly been operationalized across a range of American foreign policy domains, including attempts to advance religious freedom internationally, deliver humanitarian and development aid through faith-based organizations, fight global terrorism by reforming the Muslim world and Islamic theologies, and engage with religious actors to solve global crises. Much of this activity has emerged thanks to the advocacy efforts of a wide range of actors, many religiously based. As I show in my recent book Finding Faith in Foreign Policy, these actors have come forward since the 1990s to suggest that American foreign policy suffered from a problematic secular bias, which overlooked and under-appreciated the role of faith in world politics. One of the most striking shifts occurring in the process has been the replacement of America’s bemoaned secular “blind spot” with a Christian “soft spot.” This has been especially notable in the policy area of international religious freedom (IRF).
» https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/international-religious-freedom-s-christian-soft-spot-causes-consequences-and-solutions
News
Invited Talk. New Approaches to Religion in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Domestic-External Nexus. Harvard Divinity School, 2022
Blog post. 6+1: Finding Faith in Foreign Policy, 2021
Publication. An Encounter in Three Phases with an Intellectual Giant, 2021
Invited Talk. Civilizational Identity and Politics in Europe and Eurasia, UppsalaUniversity, 2021
Review. A Secular Age Beyond the West: Religion, Law and the State in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, 2021
Online publication. International Religious Freedom’s Christian “Soft Spot”: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions, 2021
Publication. ‘Turning’ everywhere in IR: on the sociological underpinnings of the field's proliferating turns, 2020
Book Award. Honorable Mention, International Studies Association Religion Section 2020
Blog post. Has the Clash of Civilizations Thesis Influenced America’s War on Terror? 2020
Invited Talk. Sacred Capital: Reflections on Religion and Power in World Politics -- A Conversation with Gregorio Bettiza, 2020
Blog post. Pandemipolitics and the (Potential) Unmaking of the Liberal World Order, 2020
Working Paper. States, Religions, and Power: Highlighting the Role of Sacred Capital in World Politics, 2020
Publication. Authoritarian Powers and Norm Contestation in the Liberal International Order: Theorizing the Power Politics of Ideas and Identity, 2020
Conference. The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power: How States Use Religion in Foreign Policy, 2020
Book Award. Special Mention of Excellence, Alberigo Award European Academy of Religion, 2019
Blog post. Why does the United States have a Christian ‘Soft Spot’ and what to do about it? LSE Blog: Religion and Global Society, 2019
Book events. Presenting and debating the findings of my book at the University of Exeter, LSE, and Georgetown University, 2019
Edited Forum. Teaching Religion and International Relations: Disciplinary, Pedagogical, and Personal Reflections, 2019
Invited Talk. 2nd Global Summit on Religion Peace and Security, United Nations, Geneva, 2019
Book review. The Review of Faith and International Affairs, 2019
Book. Finding Faith in Foreign Policy: Religion and American Diplomacy in a Postsecular World, Oxford University Press, 2019
Publication. ISIS’s Clash of Civilizations: Constructing the “West” in Terrorist Propaganda, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2019
Invited Talk. US Foreign Policymakers Understanding and Engagement with Religion, Council on Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament (CCADD), 2018
Workshop Organized. World Order(s) in Crisis? Centre for Advanced International Studies, Exeter University, 2018
Publication. Why (Clash of) Civilizations Discourses Just Won’t Go Away? Understanding the Civilizational Politics of Our Times, E-IR, 2018
Publication. What do academic metrics do to political scientists? Theorizing their roots, locating their effects, 2017
Visiting Scholar. Visiting Scholar with the Global Theory and History Program at SAIS Johns Hopkins, Washington DC, June 2017
