Faith-Based Diplomacy Trumping Realpolitik

by Johnston, Douglas

• ISBN13: 9780195160895
• ISBN10: 0195160894
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

For most of the twentieth century, the most critical concerns of national security have been balance of power politics and the global arms race. The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the motives behind them, however, demand a radical break with this tradition. If the United States is toprevail in its long-term contest with extremist Islam, it will need to re-examine old assumptions, expand the scope of its thinking to include religion and other "irrational" factors, and be willing to depart from past practice. A purely military response in reaction to such attacks will simply notsuffice. What will be required is a long-term strategy of cultural engagement, backed by a deeper understanding of how others view the world and what is important to them. In non-Western cultures, religion is a primary motivation for political actions. Historically dismissed by Western policymakers as a divisive influence, religion in fact has significant potential for overcoming the obstacles that lead to paralysis and stalemate. The incorporation of religion aspart of the solution to such problems is as simple as it is profound. It is long overdue. This book looks at five intractable conflicts and explores the possibility of drawing on religion as a force for peace. It builds upon the insights of Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (OUP,1994)--which examined the role that religious or spiritual factors can play in preventing orresolving conflict--while achieving social change based on justice and reconciliation. The world-class authors writing in this volume suggest how the peacemaking tenets of five major world religions can be strategically applied in ongoing conflicts in which those religions are involved. Finally,the commonalities and differences between these religions are examined with an eye toward further applications in peacemaking and conflict resolution.

Author Biography

Douglas Johnston is President and Founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He has served at senior levels in government, the military, and the private sector, including Harvard University, where he founded and directed the University's Executive Program in National and International Security and taught international affairs. He is the editor and principal author of Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (OUP, 1994) and Foreign Policy into the 21st Century: The U.S. Leadership Challenge (1996).

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Lee H. Hamilton
Contributors	xix
Maps	xxiii
I Faith-Based Diplomacy
Introduction: Realpolitik Expanded	3	(8)
Douglas Johnston
Faith-Based Diplomacy and Preventive Engagement	11	(22)
Douglas Johnston
Brian Cox
II Applications
Kashmir: Has Religion a Role in Making Peace?	33	(43)
Ainslie Embree
Religion and Conflict: The Case of Buddhism in Sri Lanka	76	(15)
H. L. Seneviratne
Judaism and Peacebuilding in the Context of Middle Eastern Conflict	91	(33)
Appendix: Peacemaking Qualities of Judaism as Revealed in Sacred Scripture	102	(22)
Marc Gopin
Christianity in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo: From Ethnic Captive to Reconciling Agent	124	(54)
David A. Steele
Conflict Resolution as a Normative Value in Islamic Law: Handling Disputes with Non-Muslims	178	(32)
Khaled Abou El Fadl
Conflict Resolution as a Normative Value in Islamic Law: Application to the Republic of Sudan	210	(21)
Sulayman Nyang
Douglas Johnston
III Closure
Retrieving the Missing Dimension of Statecraft: Religious Faith in the Service of Peacebuilding	231	(28)
R. Scott Appleby
Index	259