• Archeology as an uncharted dimension of Religion in International Relations by Durgesh Kasbekar

    Archeology plays a role in international co-operation and political relations between countries. Archaeological agencies of different countries often collaborate internationally across borders to restore and preserve historical sites. Nations lend workforce, financial resources, subject matter expertise, and technical knowledge to each other. Sometimes, archaeology may also function as an instrument of an international cultural and diplomatic strategy and assertion of civilizational identity. Th…

  • Sikh Nationalism by Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani

    (Blog about the new book: Sikh Nationalism by Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani (Cambridge University Press, 2021; ISBN: 9781316479940). The Sikhs are a distinctive cultural and religious community in South Asia, with a vibrant diaspora and a territorial homeland. There are approximately 26 million Sikhs globally of whom 23 million live India where they are less than 2 per cent of the 1.4 billion population. The vast majority, 18 million (78 per cent) live in the state of Punjab where they const…

  • Religious Minorities in Iran: Violence, Resistance and Hope by Fred Petrossian*

    It is enough just to take a look at the newborn babies in an Iranian hospital. The future of a child under the rule of the Islamic Republic, even with hard work and high intelligence, can be easily predicted in a few words. The child for the rest of his/her life will be deprived of the most fundamental human and civil rights because he/she comes from a family belonging to a religious minority. In the future, he/she may be called Najis, or unclean; he/she may be sent to prison and even forced to …

  • Misreading the Madisonian Theory of Religious Freedom by Luke M. Herrington

    As advanced by Thomas Farr (2008) and others,1 contemporary international religious freedom theory sees religious freedom as an essential component to international stability and domestic prosperity. Perhaps the leading proponent of this school of thought in American foreign policy circles, Farr grounds his personal ideas about religious freedom in the works of the American “Founding Fathers”—in particular, the works of James Madison. Although his invocation of Madisonian thought seems primarily…

  • The Biden Presidency and International Religious Freedom by Jeffrey Haynes, London Metropolitan University

    Jeffrey Haynes was interviewed on 20 April by Rupa Shenoy of "The World", US public radio’s longest-running daily global news program. The goal is to engage domestic US audiences with international affairs through human-centered journalism that consistently connects the global to the local and builds empathy for people around the world. Shenoy's story on International Religious Freedom will be broadcast on Monday 26 April. Question: To the extent you can say, what was the impact on the world …