The Religion Gap: Why Europe Dechristianizes and the U.S. Remains True to the Faith
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Tocqueville's insight still holds: America and Europe are both children of the Enlightenment, but modernity has not pushed aside
religion on this side of the Atlantic as it has in the "Old World." Why the
gap, and why does it persist almost 200 years later?.
Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit. Previously he was columnist/editorial page editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung (1985-2000).
Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit. Previously he was columnist/editorial page editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung (1985-2000).
Abroad, his essays and reviews have appeared in: New York Review of Books, New York Times Book Review, Times Literary Supplement, Commentary, New York Times Magazine, New Republic, Weekly Standard, Prospect (London), Commentaire (Paris). Regular contributor to the op-ed pages of Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post; Time and Newsweek.
CISAC Conference Room
Josef Joffe
Speaker
Seminars
Defeating Islamist Radicalism: Building a Global Counter-extremism Network
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C. Holland Taylor is an expert on Islam and the process of Islamization in Southeast Asia, having lived, studied and worked in the Muslim world, from Iran to Indonesia, over a period of more than four decades.
Mr. Taylor established LibForAll Foundation (www.libforall.org) in 2003, together with former Indonesian president Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, whom the Wall Street Journal has called "the single most influential religious leader in the Muslim world" and "easily the most important ally the West has in the ideological struggle against Islamic radicalism." Under their leadership, LibForAll has grown into the leading NGO developing and operationalizing successful counter-extremism strategies worldwide.
Their inspiration lay in the heroic example of President Wahid's own 16th century Javanese ancestors, whose deft use of soft and hard power defeated Muslim extremists, and guaranteed freedom of religion for all Javanese, two centuries before the Bill of Rights led to the separation of church and state in the U.S.
Based on lessons derived from this struggle, LibForAll is forging a Global Rahmatan lil ‘Alamin ("Blessing for All Creation") Counter-Extremism Network of top Muslim opinion leaders in the fields of religion, education, pop culture, government, business and the media, who are joining to proclaim, with one voice, that radical Islam has no theological validity, and thereby mobilize the "great silent majority" of moderate, peace-loving Muslims to reject the extremists' ideology of hatred and violence.
This strategy has resulted in a number of world-class achievements, causing Wall Street Journal foreign columnist Bret Stephens to proclaim: "LibForAll is a model of what a competent public diplomacy effort in the Muslim world should look like."
In his presentation, Mr. Taylor will explain key elements of LibForAll's ground-breaking strategy and present examples of world class achievements, including: a "musical jihad" against religious hatred and terrorism; development of the first part of a unique 26-episode counter-extremism television/video series (Ocean of Revelation); and convening an historic religious summit where top Muslim leaders condemned the evils of Holocaust denial - generating worldwide publicity that effectively countered the December 2006 Holocaust denial conference in Tehran.
Mr. Taylor's work with LibForAll follows a career as a successful entrepreneur and global telecom executive, during which he served as CEO of USA Global Link, and was credited by numerous leading publications as one of the essential catalysts in the deregulation of the global telecommunications industry.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
C. Holland Taylor
Chairman and CEO
Speaker
LibForAll Foundation
Seminars
The New Transatlantic Agenda
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Ambassador Eliasson sets out the current status of Europe-US relations and acknowledges the wide range of daunting problems the world must face today. He emphasizes the need for an enhancement of the transatlantic relationship, as well as the need for multilateral cooperation. Mr. Eliasson also reinforces the importance of a continued awarenesss of the economy, the environment, and ethics.
Synopsis
Although unsure whether there will in fact be a new transatlantic agenda, Ambassador Eliasson repeatedly highlights that it is crucial that it does happen if we are to challenge the ‘huge’ issues of today. Mr. Eliasson notes the current financial climate and its possible effects on the social and political spheres as worrying. He also expresses particular concern at what he calls ‘fortress building,’ which involves protectionism and intolerance. Mr. Eliasson goes on to explain that as it stands, current US-Europe relations are dominated by mutual interest on security and the economy. However, to Mr. Eliasson, this relationship is marred by several issues. Inside the EU, democracy is in a predicament with politicians being accountable nationally while the issues are international. Moreover, Mr. Eliasson feels that the nature of the US and Europe relationship is not representative of the responsibility it should carry by being the most prosperous regions of the world.
How is this transatlantic relationship to move forward? If we are to arrive at what Mr. Eliasson describes as ‘scenario 1,’ which involves long term thinking, regulation, an emphasis on ethics, and a realization of interdependence in an internationally cooperative system, then Mr. Eliasson argues this requires reform. Mr. Eliasson argues it is urgent not to separate politics and economics. In dealing with a financial crisis, we must employ a multilateral approach and learn lessons for the future, particularly not fearing international regulation in a globalized economy. Mr. Eliasson also explains we can avoid this protectionist ‘fortress building’ by embracing ‘multipolarity.’ Mr. Eliasson underscores the importance of tolerance and good governance as central to progress. In addition, Mr. Eliasson reinforces that the problems of today are on such a massive scale that they must be dealt with internationally, as well as regionally and in the private sector.
Dealing with such issues, which involve collective engagement in Afghanistan and a cooperative approach in Africa, is what Mr. Eliasson believes must be added as a ‘third pillar’ to the US and Europe’s relationship. Mr. Eliasson also stresses concrete action on poverty by the US and Europe as central to this effort. In particular, he places emphasis a program for education of women and the establishment of clean water access. Mr. Eliasson believes that such efforts, which would add a pivotal ethical dimension to the transatlantic agenda, would enhance the reputation of democracy across the globe through concrete action.
In engaging with the audience in a question-and-answer session, one of the most emphasized subjects was diplomatic standards for international relations. Mr. Eliasson strongly reinforced the notion that the transatlantic agenda should stand with clear ethical standards. Other issues addressed included Iran's nuclear capabilities, religion, and the role of Russia.
About the Speaker
Ambassador Jan Eliasson was until July 1, 2008 Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for Darfur. Previously, Jan Eliasson was President of the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly 2005-2006. He was Sweden’s Ambassador to the United States, 2000-2005. Mr. Eliasson was Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden in 2006.
Mr. Eliasson served from 1994 to 2000 as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a key position in formulating and implementing Swedish foreign policy. Earlier, 1988-1992, he was Sweden’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York. During this period, he also served as the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative for Iran/Iraq.
In 1992, Mr. Eliasson was appointed the first United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and was involved in operations in Somalia, Sudan, Mozambique and the Balkans. He also took initiatives on landmines, conflict prevention and humanitarian action.
1980-1986, Mr. Eliasson was part of the UN mediation missions in the war between Iran and Iraq, headed by former Prime Minister Olof Palme. In 1993-94 Mr. Eliasson served as mediator in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). He has been Visiting Professor at Uppsala University and Göteborg University in Sweden, lecturing on mediation, conflict resolution and UN reform.
During his diplomatic career, Mr. Eliasson has been posted to New York (twice) Paris, Bonn, Washington (twice) and Harare, where he opened the first Swedish Embassy in 1980. He served as Diplomatic Adviser to the Swedish Prime Minister 1982-1983, and as Director General for Political Affairs in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs 1983-1987.
Mr. Eliasson has authored and co-authored numerous articles and books and is a frequent lecturer on foreign policy and diplomacy. He is recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from i. a. American University, Washington, D.C., Uppsala University and Göteborg University, Sweden. He has been decorated by a number of Governments.
He is the Chairman of the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund of Sweden and is Member of the Advisory Group to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Geneva.
Born in Göteborg, Sweden, in 1940, Mr. Eliasson was an exchange student in the United States 1957-1958. He graduated from the Swedish Naval Academy in 1962 and earned a Master’s degree in Economics and Business Administration in 1965.
Oksenberg Conference Room
Jan Eliasson
Former Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for Darfur; Former President of the United Nations General Assembly; Former Minister for Foreign Affairs for Sweden
Speaker
Lectures
Democratization in the Middle East: A Provisional Assessment
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Agenda
| 8:15-8:45 am | Coffee, light breakfast for participants |
| 8:45-8:50 am | Opening remarks; goals of the workshop (Olivier Roy, Larry Diamond) |
| 8:50-10:30 | Stable Autocracies?
Commentator: Moulay Hicham (CDDRL, Stanford) |
| 10:30-10:40 | Break |
| 10:40-12:00 | Liberation Movements: The Roles of Religion and Nationalism
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| 12:00-1:30 | Lunch - Attending Don Emmerson talk on Islam;
Philippines Conference Room, 3rd Floor, Encina Hall Central |
| 1:45-3:00 | Framework on Democratization in the Arab World
General Discussion lead by Olivier Roy and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss |
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Larry Diamond
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
ldiamond@stanford.edu
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.
Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).
During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.
Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.
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Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Kathryn Stoner
FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
kstoner@stanford.edu
Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.
Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.
In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997); and "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021).
She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.
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Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
CV
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Moulay Hicham
CDDRL
Commentator
Stanford Univeristy
Shadi Hamid
CDDRL
Panelist
Stanford University
Olivier Roy
Research Director
Commentator
CCNRS/EHESS/IEP, Paris
Lahouari Addi
Professor of Political Sciology
Panelist
IEP, Lyon
Nicholas Pouillard
PhD student
Panelist
EHESS, Paris
Stephane LaCroix
Abbasi Program
Panelist
Stanford University
Workshops
The Spread of Islam in West Africa: Containment, Mixing, and Reform from the Eighth to the Twentieth Century
Paragraphs
The history of Islam in West Africa can be explained in three stages, containment, mixing, and reform. In the first stage, African kings contained Muslim influence by segregating Muslim communities, in the second stage African rulers blended Islam with local traditions as the population selectively appropriated Islamic practices, and finally in the third stage, African Muslims pressed for reforms in an effort to rid their societies of mixed practices and implement Shariah. This three-phase framework helps sheds light on the historical development of the medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay and the 19th century jihads that led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate in Hausaland and the Umarian state in Senegambia.
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Secondary - Community College
Claire Adida
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
cadida@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science
Claire Adida is Senior Fellow at FSI (CDDRL), Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science, and faculty co-director at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) group, the Policy Design and Evaluation Lab (PDEL), and the Future of Democracy Initiative at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). She is an invited researcher with J-PAL’s Humanitarian Protection and Displaced Livelihoods Initiatives and an international advisory board member with CFREF’s Bridging Divides research program.
Adida uses quantitative and field methods to investigate how countries manage new and existing forms of diversity, what exacerbates or alleviates outgroup prejudice and discrimination, and how vulnerable groups navigate discriminatory environments. She has published two books on immigrant integration and exclusion: Immigrant exclusion and insecurity in Africa; Coethnic strangers (Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Why Muslim integration fails in Christian-heritage societies (with David Laitin and Marie-Anne Valfort, Harvard University Press, 2016). Her articles are published in the American Political Science Review, Science Advances, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Population Economics, the Journal of Experimental Political Science, and Political Science Research & Methods, among others.
Prior to joining Stanford, she was Assistant Professor (2010-2016), Associate Professor (2016-2022), and Professor of Political Science at UC San Diego, where she also served as the co-Director and Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (2018-2024). In 2021-2022, she served as Research Advisor to the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. Government’s Department of Health & Human Services. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 2010, her Master's in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (2003), and her Bachelor's in political science and communication studies from Northwestern University (2000).
CDDRL Visiting Scholar, Summer 2016
CDDRL Hewlett Fellow, 2008-09
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Science and Secularity: Rethinking Religous Reform
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This series of talks explore a number of issues which have arisen from a study of ethnogenesis, identity formation, state building, religious reform, and socio-economic "modernization" in selected regions of insular and peninsular Southeast Asia in the (late) modern period (late 19th century to the present).Clearly, none of these broad thematic areas can be adequately studied on its own.
The final talk examines the relationship between religion and secularisation, and specifically the implications of the so-called religious revival that is said to have taken place in different parts of Southeast Asia in recent years. The main aim here is not, however, to engage in the normative debate over what constitutes a ‘proper’ relationship between religion and the modern (secular) state in modern societies – that is to contribute directly to current debates about the modern ‘public sphere’. Rather by focussing on the formation of alternative publics, he proposes to investigate relations between religion and secularity from a broadly phenomenological or experiential – rather than from a naturalist or socio-historical – perspective.
Among Joel S. Kahn’s many books are Other Malays (2006), Modernity and Exclusion (2001), Southeast Asian Identities (ed., 1998), Culture, Multiculture, Postculture (1995), and Constituting the Minangkabau (1993). His other writings include State, Region, and the Politics of Recognition (forthcoming in National Integration and Regionalism in Indonesia and Malaysia). He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and has held appointments at Monash University and University College London, among other institutions. He serves or has served as an editorial board member of Critique of Anthropology, Current Anthropology, and Ethnicities. His doctorate is from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
A technical problem prevented the recording of Professor Kahn's third lecture.
Philippines Conference Room
Joel Kahn
2008 NUS-Stanford Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Lecturer and Professor of Anthropology Emeritus
Speaker
La Trobe University, Australia
Lectures
Southeast Asia in Political Science: Terms of Enlistment
Paragraphs
Co-published by the East-West Center, this book originated in a 2004 conference convened by the Southeast Asia Forum (SEAF) at Shorenstein APARC.
The book in which this chapter appears—Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis (ed. Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu—argues that Southeast Asian political studies have made important contributions to theory building in comparative politics through a dialogue involving theory, area studies, and qualitative methodology.
The book provides a state-of-the-art review of key topics in the field, including: state structures, political regimes, political parties, contentious politics, civil society, ethnicity, religion, rural development, globalization, and political economy. The chapters allow readers to trace the development of the field of Southeast Asian politics and to address central debates in comparative politics. The book will serve as a valuable reference for undergraduate and graduate students, scholars of Southeast Asian politics, and comparativists engaged in theoretical debates at the heart of political science.
Reviews
"The scholarship here is excellent. These people know their region and its literature cold. This collection demonstrates the potential of qualitative Southeast Asian area studies to contribute to the broader accumulation of knowledge in political science, including the development of disciplinary theory."
-Jack Snyder, Columbia University
"This collection consists of elegantly written, carefully crafted, intelligent, and interesting essays that will be of enormous value to scholars of the politics of Southeast Asia."
-John Sidel, London School of Economics
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Stanford University Press in "Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis"
Number
9780804758109