• Religion and Foreign Policy Symposia Series

  Staff:	Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy

  December 1, 2006 - Present

  Made possible by the generosity of the Henry Luce Foundation, the symposia series will not focus on just one religion or one set of issues. Topics to be addressed include: new trends in political Islam among Sunnis; the impact of religion on politics and society in Nigeria; the role that religious ideas and identity play in the ways that the worlds of Islam and the West understand (and misunderstand) one another; the impact of evangelical Christianity on American foreign policy; religion and politics in China; the rise of Christianity in the global South; and politics and religion in South Asia.

  
  

   

  Past Symposia

  May 8, 2007—New York, NY

  Religious Conflict in Nigeria Symposium

  Directors:	Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy

  Nigeria is the largest country in the world with an evenly split population of Christians and Muslims. According to research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, this population is perhaps the most intensely religious in the world. In a recent symposium hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, “Religious Conflict in Nigeria,” Nigeria experts and religious scholars examined the political compromises that maintain relative stability in Africa’s most populous country. “To understand where Nigeria is headed, we need to understand the religious dynamics in Nigeria,” said Timothy S. Shah, adjunct senior fellow for religion and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

  Organized by Shah and Walter Russell Mead, the Council’s Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, this event was the first in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposia Series at CFR. The series aims to integrate the study of religion and foreign policy and is supported by a generous contribution from the Henry Luce Foundation.

  Summary Report of Symposium: Downloadable PDF

   

  November 30, 2007—New York, NY

  Evangelicals and U.S. Foreign Policy Symposium

  Directors:	Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy

  A three-part symposium on the history of evangelicals, and their role in influencing U.S. foreign policy.

  This is the second symposium in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposia Series, which is made possible by the generosity of the Henry Luce Foundation.

   

  Summary Report of Symposium: Downloadable PDF

   

  March 25, 2008—New York, NY

  Religion and Open Society Symposium

  Directors:	Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy

  This symposium addressed how different forms of Christianity and Islam may have helped (and sometimes hindered) the development of free and open societies – not just in the narrow sense of democratic government but in the broader sense of openness to progress, innovation, an entrepreneurial spirit in economics, and a competitive marketplace of ideas. Directed by Walter Russell Mead and Timothy Shah, this symposium explored how both Christianity and Islam may foster freedom-friendly dynamism, but also considered powerful arguments that religion is essentially antithetical to freedom and the open society.

  This is the third symposium in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposia Series made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.

   

  Summary Report of Symposium: Downloadable PDF

   

  June 11, 2008—New York, NY

  Religion and the Future of China Symposium

  Directors:	Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy

  This symposium, directed by Walter Russell Mead and Timothy Shah, explored how China’s various major religious traditions (village-based folk religion, Buddhism, neo-Confucianism, Roman Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, Islam, and new religious groups such as the Falun Gong) are contributing to its economic, social, and political development – and stirring up controversy. It also addressed the ways in which religion is playing a stabilizing and destabilizing role in China at the moment, how Chinese government policy towards religion may be changing, and what the long-term consequences are likely to be for country’s social, economic, and political future.

  This event was the fourth in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposium Series at CFR and was funded through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.

  Summary Report of Symposium: Downloadable PDF

  to top

• The Global Finance Regime

  

  Explore the international finance regime with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.

  New Council Special Reports

  
  

  Enhancing U.S. Preventive Action

  Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.

  The United States in the New Asia

  For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.

  Complete list of Council Special Reports

  New Books

  Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.

  

  In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.

  In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.

  Complete list of CFR Books

  David Rockefeller Studies Program Contacts

  For more information on the David Rockefeller Studies Program, contact:

  James M. Lindsay
  Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
  +1.212.434.9626 (NY); +1.202.509.8405 (DC)
  jlindsay@cfr.org

  Janine Hill
  Deputy Director of Studies Administration
  +1.212.434.9753
  jhill@cfr.org

   

•  

Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.