Religion and Social Cohesion in Conflict-Affected Countries

Panel Discussion
October 4, 2012 at 12:00pm
Sié 150, Korbel School of International Studies

This panel will explore how development and peace practitioners manage the dilemmas that emerge in working with religious leaders and organizations, and will ascertain how development assistance policies and programs can more effectively involve them in the pursuit of development and conflict-mitigating social-cohesion outcomes in countries emerging from war. Under what conditions can engaging religious leaders and organizations in development and peacebuilding programming in conflict-affected countries foster “social cohesion” as a prerequisite to peace and development? A symposium on the same topic will be held immediately after in Vail, Colorado (see below).

Panelists

• Dr. Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Assistant Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies
• Susan Hayward,Senior Program Officer for the US Institute of Peace’s Religion and Peacemaking Center of Innovation
• Dr. Eugenia Piza-Lopez, Team Leader for the Crisis Prevention and Disaster Preparedness Programme of the UNDP Pacific Sub-Regional Centre

Symposium
October 4-6, 2012
The Vail Cascade Hotel and Resort, Vail, Colorado

The Symposium convenes the Steering Committee for a new research project of the Program on Fragile States at the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy, Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

This project is a two-year research and policy-dialogue initiative that explores how international peacemakers and development aid providers engage religious actors and institutions in dialogues to improve service delivery and to build social cohesion in conflict-affected countries. With the global development agenda increasingly focused on aid effectiveness in conflict-affected, or “fragile,” states, peacemakers and donors have learned that they must include in peace processes and indeed strengthen through development aid “informal institutions” in order to improve service delivery; in this pursuit, “social cohesion” is needed to more effectively strengthen the state as a long-term strategy to facilitating peace and fostering development. However, working with religious leaders and organizations has been problematic. Such leaders may legitimize illiberal views contrary to international human rights; strengthening faith-based service delivery may weaken the state; and the inclusion of externally identified religious leaders in dialogue does not automatically lead to more cohesive societies.

This project explores how development and peace practitioners manage the dilemmas that emerge in working with religious leaders and organizations and ascertains how development assistance policies and programs can more effectively involve them in the pursuit of development and conflict-mitigating social-cohesion outcomes in countries emerging from war. Under what conditions can engaging religious leaders and organizations in development and peacebuilding programming in conflict-affected countries foster “social cohesion” as a prerequisite to peace and development?

The project builds on a prior Luce Foundation-supported research, education, and policy program that produced in part the recently published volume Between Terror and Tolerance: Religion, Conflict, and Peacemaking (Georgetown University Press, 2011).

The project is led by co-principal investigators Fletcher Cox and Timothy D. Sisk of the Korbel School, with project administration led by Jennifer Wilson.