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Articles by Peter Mandaville
Essay: Building on 25 years of religious freedom advocacy
RNS Something that by current standards would seem truly remarkable happened 25 years ago today: Washington worked in a bipartisan fashion to pass groundbreaking legislation to make the world a better place. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 equipped the United States with unprecedented tools to defend freedom of belief and conscience, set captives free and encourage reforms.
Building on 25 years of religious freedom advocacy
(RNS) — Something that by current standards would seem truly remarkable happened 25 years ago today: Washington worked in a bipartisan fashion to pass groundbreaking legislation to make the world a better place. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 equipped the United States with unprecedented tools to defend freedom of belief and conscience, set captives free and encourage reforms.
Dislodging Putin’s Foothold in the Balkans
Moscow reaches the region’s population mainly through political proxies, local media outlets and the Orthodox Church, all of which work to exploit divisive issues and deepen existing cleavages in the various societies. The alleged threats posed by NATO expansion, EU reforms and “Muslim extremists” in Bosnia and Kosovo are often exaggerated and manipulated by Moscow to exacerbate tensions and create a sense of insecurity within the general population.
The Latest: Three Things to Know About Religious Engagement in U.S. Foreign Policy
Related Publications Religious actors have an immense capacity to enhance the quality and integrity of elections around the world. And religious leaders’ moral authority within communities can help bridge gaps between the state and its citizens, offering credibility to any electoral process.
Maintaining International Religious Freedom as a Central Tenet of US National Security
In 2021–22, USIP’s Religion and Inclusive Societies Program convened a bipartisan working group of advocates, academics, and former government officials to discuss how the United States can advance global peace and stability by embracing international religious freedom as a major pillar of its diplomatic engagement.
The Role of Religion in Russia’s War on Ukraine
On March 6, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill stood to deliver the sermon that traditionally ushers in the beginning of the Orthodox Lent. However, the most notable theme of his sermon had little to do with the annual period of Christian fasting. Instead, the patriarch chose to address a subject at the forefront of everyone’s minds: the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A woman lights a candle at the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. March 12, 2022.
How Putin Turned Religion’s ‘Sharp Power’ Against Ukraine
Long before Russia positioned military forces along Ukraine’s border or menaced its neighbor with cyber-attacks and economic pressure, Moscow deployed another, under-appreciated weapon increasingly used by rising global powers: the transformation of religious soft power into what is known among some scholars of authoritarianism as “sharp power.” A worshiper enters the basement of the Church of the Archangel Michael in Rivne, Ukraine, where the Moscow-led Orthodox branch holds services.
Book Review Roundtable: The Muslim Brotherhood and the West
1. Introduction: The Muslim Brotherhood and the West — The Antagonism that Defines a Movement Ryan Evans It’s impossible to discuss the influence of political Islam without discussing the Muslim Brotherhood. As Martyn Frampton makes clear in his 2018 comprehensive history of the organization, it’s similarly impossible to discuss the Muslim Brotherhood without discussing its engagement with the West.
Analysis | Will the pandemic spark a religious revival in the Muslim world?
Times of strain often lead to explosions of religiosity, as people turn to faith as a balm against misfortune. The coronavirus pandemic, with more than 2.8 million lives lost to date, certainly qualifies as one of the most cataclysmic events in recent memory. Faced with the major disruptions of the past year, did people turn to faith, or do we instead see evidence of a “religious recession”? To find out, we conducted a unique study on the effects of the pandemic in the Muslim world.
Why the Biden administration should stay out of the global “Muslim engagement” business
Editor's Note: The new U.S. administration should appeal to Muslim communities around the world through the substance of its policies rather than through awkward and misplaced public relations schemes, argue Peter Mandaville. This piece first appeared on Georgetown University's Berkley Forum. On the face of it, the central thrust of my argument here will seem counterintuitive.
Why the Biden Administration Should Stay out of the Global “Muslim Engagement” Business
On the face of it, the central thrust of my argument here will seem counterintuitive. Surely in the aftermath of Donald Trump advocating in 2016 for a total ban on Muslims entering the United States and then staffing the upper echelons of his administration with figures associated with aggressively Islamophobic rhetoric, the incoming Biden team will want to go out of its way to signal very clearly that it welcomes engagement and partnership with Muslim communities around the world?
Islam and Politics (3rd edition)
3rd Edition First Published 2020 Islam and Politics (3rd edition) ISBN | Quantity: Shopping Cart Summary Items: Routledge & CRC Press eBooks are available through VitalSource. The free VitalSource Bookshelf® application allows you to access to your eBooks whenever and wherever you choose. Mobile/eReaders – Download the Bookshelf mobile app at VitalSource.com or from the iTunes or Android store to access your eBooks from your mobile device or eReader.
Salafism in the Maghreb
A dynamic region amidst great change, the Maghreb (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) is also home to the conservative, literalist interpretation of Islam known as Salafism, which has emerged as a major social and political force. Join scholars Frederic Wehrey and Anouar Boukhars for the launch of their new book, Salafism in the Maghreb: Politics, Piety, and Militancy.
The Arab Winter on Apple Podcasts
43 min With new protests in Sudan, ongoing conflict in Syria, and continued regional tensions, the legacies of the Arab Spring are everywhere in the Middle East. Peter Mandaville joins us to discuss. Peter Mandaville bio Kamron Bohkari and Peter Mandaville, The Muslim Brotherhood and American Muslims, Center for Global Policy, August 11, 2018 Peter Mandaville and Shadi Hamid, "Islam as Statecraft: How Governments Use Religion in Foreign Policy," Brookings Institute, November 2018 43 min
Islam as statecraft: How governments use religion in foreign policy
Twitter Join the conversation on Twitter using #IslamAsStatecraft In nearly every major Muslim-majority country, Islam is an important—and sometimes the only ideological currency that mixes effectively with realpolitik. The discussion of Islam in world politics in recent years has tended to focus on how religion is used by a wide range of social movements, political parties, and militant groups.
How Muslim Countries Use Islam in Foreign Policy
Sign in and save to read later Print this article Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Get a link Page url Request Reprint Permissions Islam has become a major, even obsessive, topic of public debate over the past two decades.
Islam as statecraft: How governments use religion in foreign policy
Editor's Note: This report is the inaugural publication from a larger project on “The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power” that Brookings is undertaking in partnership with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs at Georgetown University. This initiative will focus on the various ways governments incorporate religion and religious outreach into their broader foreign policy conduct.
The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power
The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power explores the global impact of religious propagation activities sponsored by several countries in the Middle East—including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and Morocco—which for decades have deployed religion as a form of soft power in pursuit of foreign policy objectives.
Educating Americans to defuse Islamaphobia
Americans are obsessed with Islam as an idea, as a mystery and as an existential threat to the West. As a result, our debates over Islam and Muslims aren’t really about “them” as much as they are about “us”—and the supposed battle between the two. In his new book, “What the Qur’an Meant: And Why It Matters,” historian Garry Wills shows how some Americans use Muslims as a way to define who they themselves are and what they stand for, and to sharpen their definition of Western civilization.
How America Changed Its Approach to Political Islam
Sometimes Islamist groups succeed. Sometimes they underperform. But they almost always matter. This means that the United States needs answers for questions not just about the nature of Islamist movements, but also about the more politically thorny question of what the U.S. should do about them. How the U.S. and Europe should respond—or even if they should treat Islamist parties as distinctive in the first place—has been a contentious question since at least the early 1990s.
A Coup too Far: The Case for Reordering U.S. Priorities in Egypt
With the Egypt’s transition effectively on ice after the military coup and anti-Americanism at new heights, hopes of the United States playing a positive role in nurturing Egyptian democracy have all but died. Citing the limits of its influence and a lack of resources, Washington has, since the start of the Arab Spring, fallen back on an approach that resembles the “authoritarian bargains” of the past.
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