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With Turkey playing a pivotal role in the Middle East, and a country that is often viewed as a model for democracy in the Islamic world, we take a look at this country’s history, politics, and civil society with Prof. Ani Sarkissian of Michigan State University. Are liberalizing reforms that are designed to make it easier to create civic associations having their intended effect? Or is there something to Turkey’s history and political structure that are creating some unintended consequences?

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On October 10, 2013, a distinguished panel of scholars gathered at Georgetown University to discuss the relationship between religious liberty and economic prosperity. Sponsored by the Religious Freedom Project of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and moderated by Prof. William Inboden, the panelists included Ilan Alon (Rollins College), Timur Kuran (Duke), Ian Linden (Tony Blair Faith Foundation), and Rebecca Shah (Religious Freedom Project). They discuss the various causal (and sometimes non-causal) pathways wherein greater religious toleration and freedom promotes an environment conducive to entrepreneurship, immigration, and the institutional expansion of othe civil liberties.

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On October 10, 2013, a distinguished panel of scholars gathered at Georgetown University to discuss the relationship between religious liberty to political freedom and social flourishing. Sponsored by the Religious Freedom Project of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and moderated by Prof. Timothy Shah, the panelists included Dan Philpott (Notre Dame), Nukhet Sandal (Ohio U), Ani Sarkissian (Michigan State), and Tony Gill (U of Washington). They examine issues whether democracies can suppress religious liberty and still remain democratic, whether increases in religious liberty can promote other civil liberties, and whether religious freedom can facilitate transitions from authoritarianism.

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Why and how do religious groups motivate generosity? We visit with Prof. Carolyn Warner (ASU) who is involved in a multi-national, cross-faith, and interdisciplinary investigation exploring why religious individuals give money and volunteer time to help others. As part of a larger team of scholars, she has conducted interviews with Catholics and Muslims in France, Ireland, Italy, and Turkey using both person-to-person interviews and an experimental design to see if there are differences across these to faith traditions. She and her team discover that Catholics tend to be motivated by “love of God” whereas Muslims are moved to give out of a “duty to God.” This sheds light on whether organizations need to provide close monitoring and sanctioning of volunteer behavior or whether individuals can be counted to be generous on their own.

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The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 heralded what many thought would be a new era of liberty in a region of the world that has known little freedom for most of its history. However, many of the new regimes that emerged from the Soviet rubble have slipped back into autocracy. We review these political developments and what this has meant for religious freedom in the region with Prof. Ani Sarkissian (Michigan State University). Interestingly, we observe a fairly wide variation in how governments react to religious organizations with some governments supressing all faiths whereas as others picking and choosing which religions to allow and which to repress. Albania, of all places, emerges as the most religiously free of the post-Soviet “competitive dictatorships.” Find out why.

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The notion of “the umma” — the community of Islamic believers — is often thought to be at odds with modern (post-Westphalian) notions of national territory. Islam, it is said, transcends the geographic boundaries of the nation-state and this may present unique problems for how societies understand and interact with one another. Prof. Matthew Derrick discusses the role of territory in history and how the umma fits into this, taking on scholars such as Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis who see a disjuncture between the umma and national territory. Prof. Derrick, a geographer, argues that territory is still important and often trumps transnational religious identity, or is at least a concept that cannot be discarded so easily.

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A week before the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Prof. Monica Toft of Harvard University joins us to discuss what we have learned about religiously-motivated violence over the past decade. She discusses findings from her new book “God’s Century” on terrorism, informal violence, and civil war. Our conversation covers a wide range of geographic territory and faith traditions, touching upon the IRA in Ireland, Hindu nationalism in India, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, as well as movements in the Arab Middle East.

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Is the global resurgence in public religiosity over the past 40 years linked in any way to the increase in democratic governance over the same period of time? Prof. Dan Philpott (Notre Dame) covers the historical trends of church-state relations and discusses how changes in political theologies and the increasing independence of religious organizations have provided a fertile ground for political democratization in some corners of the world. We examine how and why some religious traditions have been involved in promoting democracy under authoritarian conditions. Our discussion turns toward some speculation about the future of the “Arab Spring” at the end of our interview. This is the first part of a discussion of the book “God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics.”

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Prof. Ahmet Kuru of San Diego State Univeristy joins Research on Religion to discuss the increasing presence of Islam in Europe and how various European nations are accomodating Muslim immigration. We address the contemporary origins of this immigration and how countries such as Great Britain, Germany and Frane have had different responses to integrating Muslims into their political and cultural arenas. We cover the recent ban in the hijab (Muslim headscarf) in France and also talk about how the US response to Muslim immigrants differs than Europe. Prof. Kuru introduces us to his concepts of assertive and passive secularism.

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