Timothy Shah

Shah received his A.B. in Government (magna cum laude with Highest Honors in major field) in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Political Science in 2002, both from Harvard. While pursuing his doctoral studies, he served as a volunteer for a development NGO in Bangalore, India (1994-1995), and was a Visiting Graduate Student in Theology at Christ Church, Oxford (1997-1998). His doctoral dissertation on the natural law theory and political theology of early-modern Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius won the 2003 American Political Science Association’s Aaron Wildavsky Award for Best Dissertation in Religion and Politics.

Since arriving in the Washington area in 1998 with his wife Rebecca, a demographer and economic development analyst, Shah has served in senior research positions in several institutes and think tanks, including the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (2003-2007) and the Council on Foreign Relations (2007-2009). In 2007, with Peter Berger and James Wallace, he launched an ongoing study of the emergence of an “Evangelical Intelligentsia” in American life. In 2009, he was awarded one of the first Joseph R. Crapa Fellowships with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. In 2010, he served as a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Shah’s articles and book chapters explore the intersection between religious ideas and actors, on the one hand, and social and political freedom, on the other. Most recently, a chapter with Rebecca Shah, “How Evangelicalism—Including Pentecostalism—Helps the Poor: The Role of Spiritual Capital,” appears in Peter L. Berger and Gordon Redding, ed., The Hidden Form of Capital: Spiritual Influences in Societal Progress (Anthem Press, 2010), and a chapter with Daniel Philpott, “The Fall and Rise of Religion in International Relations: History and Theory,” appears in Jack Snyder and Alfred Stepan, eds., Religion and International Relations Theory (Columbia University Press, 2011). Other contributions have appeared in numerous other volumes, including Church, State and Citizen: Christian Approaches to Political Engagement (Oxford University Press, 2009); Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion (Oxford University Press, 2009); Religion in an Expanding Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2006); World Religions and Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005); and Religion and Democracy (Basil Blackwell, 2000).

At the Berkley Center, Shah is focusing his intellectual energies on developing a robust concept of religious freedom that centers on both expanding the autonomy of religious actors and safeguarding their full and equal participation in social and civic life. He is currently working on a monograph on this topic that will be published in a short form by the end of 2011 and a longer form by the end of 2013.