The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue: Religious Change, Citizenship and Solidarity in the Middle East
Michael Driessen (John Cabot University, Rome)
Why have states and foreign ministries across the Middle East invested in interreligious initiatives over the past 15 years? Why have European and International governmental and non-governmental organizations supported them in doing so? What kind of religious or political vision might these initiatives be advancing? And what does this all mean for the prospects of peace and religious and political development in the region?
In this lecture, Michael Driessen draws from his new book, The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2023), to explore the growth of state-sponsored interreligious initiatives in the Middle East and their use as a policy instrument for engaging with religious communities and ideas. Rooted in case studies and fieldwork in Algeria, Lebanon and Qatar, Driessen examines both the geopolitical interests framing dialogue in the region and the new ideas and practices of citizenship, religious pluralism and social solidarity that they seem to bring forward. In doing so, he presents interreligious initiatives in the region as reflecting new modes of religion operating in contemporary global politics and as offering important lessons about the development of alternative models of democracy, citizenship and modernity.
Michael Driessen is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the MA program in International Affairs at John Cabot University. He also directs the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics. Michael received his doctorate from the University of Notre Dame and has been a post-doctoral fellow at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar as well as a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He also holds a research affiliation with Cambridge University’s Von Hügel Institute and serves as an advisor for the Adyan Foundation in Lebanon. Driessen’s books include The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2023), Human Fraternity and Inclusive Citizenship: Interreligious Engagement in the Mediterranean (ISPI, 2021; co-edited with Fabio Petito and Fadi Daou), and Religion and Democratization (Oxford University Press, 2014). He has published scholarly articles in Comparative Politics, Sociology of Religion, Politics and Religion, Constellations and Democratization and essays in America Magazine and Commonweal.
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