UPCOMING EVENTS
February 13, 2012
Equality, Freedom, & Religion
February 15, 2012
Education and Social Justice International Summer Research Fellowships 2011 Report Launch and 2012 Call for Applications
March 1, 2012
Religious Freedom: Why Now? Defending an Embattled Human Right
April 11, 2012
Religious Freedom and Equality: Emerging Conflicts in North America and Europe
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RELATED PUBLICATION
June 7, 2010
Report of the Georgetown Symposium on Religion, Democracy and the Foreign Policy of the Obama Administration
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RELATED PROGRAM
Religion and US Foreign Policy
Both the practice and analysis of US foreign policy has traditionally marginalized religious questions. With the support of the Henry Luce Foundation, the Berkley Center explores the role of rel...
RELATED PROJECT
Religion, Democracy, and US Diplomacy
This project explores the intersection of religion with US efforts to promote democracy around the world, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities facing the Obama administration. Key issue...RECENT MEDIA
CENTER NEWS
February 8, 2012Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum Signs Religious Freedom Pledge Drafted by RFP Director Tom Farr
February 8, 2012
Jose Casanova Giving Ensign Lecture at Yale
February 7, 2012
Katherine Marshall at the UN for World Interfaith Harmony Week
February 6, 2012
Fitchburg State University Invites RFP Scholar Monica Duffy Toft for International Studies Speaker Series
February 3, 2012
Katherine Marshall Blogs: Women at Risk in an Unequal World
February 2, 2012
Research on Forgiveness Begins in Uganda for RFP Scholar Daniel Philpott
February 1, 2012
Call for Applications: Education and Social Justice International Summer Research Fellowships 2012
February 1, 2012
Catholic News Agency Quotes RFP Director Tom Farr on the Obama Administration's Stance Towards Religious Freedom
January 30, 2012
Taking Women and Religion Seriously: Intersecting Paths
January 27, 2012
Between Culture and Religion: The Case of Female Genital Cutting
January 23, 2012
RFP Scholar Will Inboden on the Obama Administration and Religious Freedom
January 10, 2012
Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide
January 9, 2012
RFP Director Tom Farr Quoted in The Globe and Mail Editorial
November 3, 2009
Symposium on Religion & Democracy in the Foreign Policy of the Obama Administration
This day-long event consisted of four panels, each of which examined the question of religion and democracy in U.S. foreign policy from a different perspective. The panels addressed the role of religious actors in U.S. democracy programs and policies, the "twin tolerations" and democratic stability in highly religious societies, emerging trends in the data concerning the relationships between religion and democracy, and the relationship between Islam and democracy in key Muslim countries.
The conference was made possible through the support of the Luce/SFS Program on Religion and International Affairs.
Symposium Agenda
9:00 am Opening Remarks
Thomas Banchoff, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
9:10-10:30: The "Twin Tolerations" As a Model for Foreign Policy Thinking
Alfred Stepan, Columbia University
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
Timothy Samuel Shah, Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, Boston University
Moderator: Thomas Farr, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
10:45-12:00: New Trends in the Data on Religion and Democracy
Brian Grim, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Harris Mylonas, George Washington University
Daniel Philpott, University of Notre Dame
Moderator: Allen Herztke, University of Oklahoma and Guest Scholar, Brookings Institution
12:15-1:00: Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar
1:15-2:45: Religion and Democracy Promotion in the Obama Administration
Gerald Hyman, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Thomas Melia, Freedom House
Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University
Eric Patterson, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
Moderator: Jennifer Marshall, The Heritage Foundation
3:00-4:30: Thinking About Islam and Democracy
Hassan Abbas, Harvard University
Emile Nakhleh, Former Senior Intelligence Officer
Jennifer Bryson, Witherspoon Institute
Moderator and Discussant: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
Symposium Agenda
9:00 am Opening Remarks
Thomas Banchoff, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
9:10-10:30: The "Twin Tolerations" As a Model for Foreign Policy Thinking
Alfred Stepan, Columbia University
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
Timothy Samuel Shah, Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, Boston University
Moderator: Thomas Farr, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
10:45-12:00: New Trends in the Data on Religion and Democracy
Brian Grim, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Harris Mylonas, George Washington University
Daniel Philpott, University of Notre Dame
Moderator: Allen Herztke, University of Oklahoma and Guest Scholar, Brookings Institution
12:15-1:00: Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar
1:15-2:45: Religion and Democracy Promotion in the Obama Administration
Gerald Hyman, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Thomas Melia, Freedom House
Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University
Eric Patterson, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
Moderator: Jennifer Marshall, The Heritage Foundation
3:00-4:30: Thinking About Islam and Democracy
Hassan Abbas, Harvard University
Emile Nakhleh, Former Senior Intelligence Officer
Jennifer Bryson, Witherspoon Institute
Moderator and Discussant: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
Featuring
Thomas Farr
Thomas F. Farr is Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. A former American diplomat and leading authority on international religious freedom, Farr has published widely, including "Diplomacy in an Age of Faith" in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2008), and World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security (Oxford University Press, 2008). Farr received his BA in history from Mercer University, and his Ph.D. in modern British and European history from the University of North Carolina.
Participants
Hassan Abbas
Hassan Abbas is Quaid-i-Azam Chair Professor at Columbia University's South Asia Institute. He is also a Senior Advisor at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, after havin...
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University, where he focuses on cross-cultural human rights issues, with an emphasis on Islam. He is also a faculty member of the Emory College of Arts and Sciences and E...
Jose Maria Aznar
José María Aznar is the former Prime Minister of Spain, a position he held from 1996–2004; he was chair of Partido Popular from 1990-2004. He is currently the President of FAES (Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis), founding chairman of the...
Daniel Brumberg
Daniel Brumberg is an Associate Professor of Government and Co-Director of Democracy and Governance Studies at Georgetown University. He also serves as Acting Director of the United States Institute of Peace's Muslim World Initiative, where he dir...
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she also has appointments in Political Science and the Committee on International Relations. Her works have focused ...
Brian Grim
Brian J. Grim is Senior Researcher and Director of Cross-National Data at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and a principle investigator for the international religious demography project at Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion...
Allen Hertzke
Allen Hertzke is Presidential Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. He has written extensively on religious advocacy in politics, and in particular faith-motivated activism in foreign policy. He is the author of Freeing...
Gerald F. Hyman
Gerald F. Hyman is a Senior Adviser and President of the Hills Program on Governance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He provides assistance to the Hills-affiliated network of centers in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, manag...
Jennifer Marshall
The Director of Domestic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, Jennifer A. Marshall oversees research in education, marriage, family, religion, and civil society. Marshall directs the think tank's DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society a...
Thomas Melia
Thomas O. Melia is Deputy Assistant Secretary in the US State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor since August 2010. He came to State after serving as Deputy Executive Director of Freedom House since May 2005. He was previo...
Harris Mylonas
Harris Mylonas is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. His forthcoming book, The Politics of Nation-Building: The Making of Co-Nationals, ...
Emile Nakhleh
Emile Nakhleh is an expert on Middle Eastern society and politics and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served in the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993-2006, first as scholar in residence and chief of the Regional An...
Eric Patterson
Eric Patterson, Ph.D. is Associate Director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Government. His research and teaching focuses on religion and politics, ethics and inter...
Daniel Philpott
Daniel Philpott is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Philpott is the author of Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern Inter...
Timothy Shah
Timothy Samuel Shah is Associate Director of the Religious
Freedom Project at the Berkley Center For Religion, Peace, and World
Affairs and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Government Department,
Georgetown University. He is a political scie...
Alfred Stepan
Alfred Stepan is Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion and Wallace Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia University. His current work focuses on religion and politics, and he is expanding his 2001 article ...
