Biography
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 holds a research affiliation with Cambridge University’s Von Hügel Institute and serves as an advisor for the Adyan Foundation in Lebanon.
Research
Michael’s research focuses on the role of public religions in Catholic and Muslim societies, and he teaches courses on Religion and Global Politics, the politics of the Middle East and Mediterranean, and War, Peace and Conflict Resolution. His main interests include the relationship between religion and democratization processes in the Mediterranean region; Interreligious Engagement and Peacebuilding; political Islam and political Catholicism; and theories of religious humanism. He is also a longtime member of the communities of L’Arche and is working on the Disability and Knowledge research project co-sponsored by the Von Hügel Institute.
Publications
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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