Egyptian activist Mohammed el- Sharkawi, (R), who said he was tortured by police after he was arrested for 3 months last year, shouts anti-police and anti-President Hosni Mubarak slogans during an anti-torture protest in Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 25, 2007.
AP Photo
Irreparable Damage
"The bottom line is that the damage caused by Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib is irreparable and the end of U.S. torture will not in itself make the United States safer from this generation of jihadists. Ending torture in the United States is obviously important, but it will only bring security benefits if it is part of a broader policy package that includes pressure on allied regimes to do the same."
FEATURED PUBLICATIONS
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October 2009
"Europe's New Security Dilemma"
Washington Quarterly, issue 4, volume 32
By Lorenzo Vidino, Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
Several Muslim countries have formulated various programs to fight extremism. From Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, authorities have devised more or less comprehensive measures to deradicalize committed militants and prevent the radicalization of new ones. This soft approach to counterterrorism has also been adopted by some European governments. The 2004 Madrid and 2005 London attacks, as well as the arrest of hundreds of European Muslims who had been involved in a variety of terrorist activities, have clearly shown that radicalization is a problem in Europe. Over the last few years, various European governments have decided to combat radicalization processes among their Muslim population by enacting various counterradicalization programs, acknowledging that they cannot simply arrest their way out of the problem.
AP Photo
June 2009
"The Changing Face of Israel"
Foreign Policy
By Richard Cincotta and Eric Kaufmann, Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
"...Ultra-Orthodox rabbis control access to marriage, conversion, and burial, effectively determining the status of non-haredi private lives across the varied Jewish community. In addition, ultra-Orthodox activists flex their political muscle by censoring advertising and movies, organizing consumer boycotts, mounting mass demonstrations, and harassing secular Jews who violate the Sabbath. Once peace-process-disinterested members of various coalition governments, ultra-Orthodox politicians now rank among the most hawkish in the Knesset, defending haredi settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Although less politically cohesive, Israeli Arab voters favor the flip side of the political spectrum, which makes moderate Israelis wonder how their democracy might function should these two groups grow to dominate the electorate."
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January 2009
"Shifting Trends in Suicide Attacks"
CTC Sentinel, issue 1, volume 2
By Assaf Moghadam, Associate, International Security Program/Initiative on Religion in International Affairs
"By far, the most dramatic trend related to the location of suicide attacks is the gradual shift of incidents from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Between July 2007 and June 2008, the last one-year period for which data on suicide attacks are available, 58.2% of suicide attacks struck Iraq, and 36.6% struck Afghanistan and Pakistan. This compares to a much wider gap between suicide attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan in the preceding year (July 2006 to June 2007), when 69.3% of attacks took place in Iraq, and 25.1% in Afghanistan and Pakistan...."
Photo by Jon Chase
February 2009
"The Meaning of Huntington"
Prospect, issue 155
By Eric Kaufmann, Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
"Both Wasp and Episcopalian, he spent nearly half a century at Harvard and is descended from several generations of Harvard men. But his nationalism was political, not ethnic, valuing institutions like the military and the constitution rather than a timeless landscape or heroic ancestors. In The Promise of Disharmony (1981), he writes of American identity as an idea. America lacked class conflict, so had no need for the mystical folk nationalism of Europe. Wasps and immigrants alike, he argued, were eager to throw off their past and forge a liberal nation. Not a word did he write romanticising puritans or pioneers."
Belfer Center
January 22, 2009
"The Origins of Global Jihad: Explaining the Arab Mobilization to 1980s Afghanistan"
By Thomas Hegghammer, Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
The Arab involvement in Afghanistan was the result of two main factors: the entrepreneurship of the Palestinian preacher Abdallah Azzam, and the rise of a "soft pan-Islamism" promoted since the mid-1970s by non-violent international Islamic organizations such as the Muslim World League.
This policy memo is based on Thomas Hegghammer's ISP brownbag seminar presentation.
December 13, 2008
"If We're Careful, Al Qaeda May Self-Destruct"
Boston Globe, Spiritual Life Column
By Rich Barlow and Nelly Lahoud, Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
Nelly Lahoud's recent seminar for Harvard's Islam in the West Program — "Will Al-Qaida Self Destruct?" — was the subject of the December 13, 2008, Boston Globe Spiritual Life column.
December 2008
The Globalization of Martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad, and the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks
By Assaf Moghadam, Associate, International Security Program/Initiative on Religion in International Affairs
This groundbreaking volume examines the rise and spread of suicide attacks over the past decade. Sorting through 1,270 terror strikes between 1981 and 2007, Assaf Moghadam attributes their recent proliferation to the mutually related ascendance of al Qaeda and its guiding ideology, Salafi Jihad, an extreme interpretation of Islam that rejects national boundaries and seeks to create a global Muslim community. This unflinching analysis provides new information about the relationship between ideology and suicide attacks and recommends policies focused on containing Salafi Jihadism.
October 2008
"Islamic Responses to Europe at the Dawn of Colonialism"
By Nelly Lahoud, Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
"Whether Renan's views of Islam were defined by a predisposition to an ideological and systematic framework or not is difficult to say, but they did nevertheless grow into an ideological worldview. Despite the numerous flaws in his ideas and the subsequent scholarship that has since discredited him, Renan's ideas have survived to the present day."
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2008
"Human Development and the Demography of Secularisation in Global Perspective"
Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, article 1, issue 4, volume 2008
By Eric Kaufmann, Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
Initiative on Religion in International Affairs Fellow Eric Kaufmann argues in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion that "religious belief becomes deregulated and increasingly varied in modern societies as religiosity takes on a self-conscious, rather than taken-for-granted, character. The demographic advantage that religious populations have suggests that the future of secularization, far from confirming a secular teleology, remains indeterminate."
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February 2008
"The Salafi-Jihad as a Religious Ideology"
CTC Sentinel, issue 3, volume 1
By Assaf Moghadam, Associate, International Security Program/Initiative on Religion in International Affairs
"To those who are disoriented by modernity, the Salafi-jihad provides a new sense of self-definition and belonging in the form of a membership to a supranational entity....the United States and its allies should grasp every opportunity to highlight the disastrous consequences that Salafi-jihadist violence has wrought on the everyday lives not only of Westerners, but first and foremost on Muslims themselves....It is a fact that al-Qa`ida and associated groups offer no vision for Muslims other than perennial jihad—hardly an appealing prospect."
AP Photo
June 2, 2008
"Why Islam Lies at the Heart of Iraq's Civil War"
Christian Science Monitor
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"...[N]ot until 2007 did the Pentagon acknowledge that Iraqi sectarian violence had crossed a threshold to become a civil war.
But policymakers still haven't come to terms with the implications of that fact. If they did, they'd see that a wisely executed withdrawal of US-led forces could well be the surest path to peace. That's because withdrawal is likely to transform the fighting in Iraq into a defensive struggle for power in a nation-state, as opposed to an offensive battle rooted in religion."
April 8, 2008
Monica Duffy Toft Named 2008 Carnegie Scholar
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
Monica Duffy Toft, associate professor of public policy and director of the Belfer Center’s Initiative on Religion in International Affairs, has been named a 2008 Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Toft is one of 20 scholars to receive the prestigious Carnegie Scholar designation for 2008 "for compelling ideas and commitment to enriching the quality of the public dialogue on Islam."
October 1, 2007
"Why Myanmar’s Monks Mix Religion and Politics"
Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Why am I not surprised that the latest spontaneous popular revolt against an authoritarian government -- in Myanmar -- has been sparked and led on the streets by religious figures? Because men and women of organized faith have regularly taken the lead in populist movements for political change throughout the world in recent decades. Myanmar should help clarify parallels in the Middle East and other regions, where religious and political forces are at play simultaneously in society. The people and institutions of religion are usually the last resort available to ordinary men and women who find themselves degraded by their own autocratic systems or foreign oppression. Prominent examples in our lifetime include Martin Luther King and the American civil rights movement, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the end of the South African Apartheid regime, Jaime Cardinal Sin who helped overthrow the Marcos regime in the Philippines, Hamas and Hizbullah's challenge to the Palestinian and Lebanese authorities, respectively, the Muslim Brotherhood's challenge to the Egyptian regime, and the collective role of the Catholic Church in overthrowing repressive regimes throughout Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Spring 2007
"Getting Religion? The Puzzling Case of Islam and Civil War"
International Security, issue 4, volume 31
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
This article argues that overlapping historical, geographical and, in particular, structural factors together with an absence of an internecine religious war, the proximity of Islam’s holiest sites to Israel, large petroleum reserves, and jihad account for Islam’s higher representation in civil wars.
August 20, 2006
"Religion's Flame Burns Brighter Than Ever"
Baltimore Sun
By Timothy Samuel Shah and Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
What happened to the world's transition to secularism?
yaznotjaz
July / August 2006
"Why God is Winning"
Foreign Policy
By Timothy Samuel Shah and Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"Religion was supposed to fade away as globalization and freedom spread. Instead, it's booming around the world, often deciding who gets elected. And the divine intervention is just beginning. Democracy is giving people a voice, and more and more, they want to talk about God."
AP Photo
January-March 2006
"Issue Indivisibility and Time Horizons as Rationalist Explanations for War"
Security Studies, issue 1, volume 15
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
This paper focuses on two rationalist explanations for war: issue indivisibility and time horizons. It argues that both types of bargaining problems have not only been undertheorized in the international relations literature, but that a non-trivial proportion of the violence witnessed since the end of the Cold War may be explained by these obstacles to non-violent conflict resolution. It uses the case of Russia's two most recent wars in Chechnya.
