From Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) advocacy to interreligious engagement in foreign policy

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Western governments have strengthened their foreign policy tools, global advocacy efforts and international coordination to protect Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB). There is, however, a growing feeling that the current FoRB promotion approaches appear overall to be failing, as religious persecution and discrimination continue to increase in many parts of the world. Criticizing the secular policy mindset embedded in the current approaches, this article argues for a new postsecular foreign policy of religious engagement and advocates a distinctive strategy of “interreligious engagement” illustrating how interreligious dialogue and collaboration can be crucial policy tools to promote FoRB. This strategy is designed to break away from the predominant view among politics-makers in which religious actors are seen either as perpetrators or victims of FoRB violations. Instead, I argue, they should also be seen as responsible partners in combatting intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief.

KEYWORDS:

• Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB)
• post-secularism
• religious engagement
• interreligious dialogue
• foreign policy

Acknowledgments

The ideas of this article were presented in different forms as a conference paper entitled “FoRB and Religious Engagement in International Relations” at the 2018 European Academy of Religion Annual Conference, 7 March, Bologna, Italy and as the keynote address “Religious Engagement in International Relations: Overcoming Secular Blind Spots and Building a Postsecular Sensitivity in Foreign Policy” at the International Conference “Secularism as a Challenge for Politics and Political Science”, held at The Institute of Political Science, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland, 12–13 December 2019. The article also benefitted from a year-long policy consultation on “FoRB and Interreligious Engagement” funded by the ESRC Sussex Social Science Impact Fund that I run with Stephanie Berry under the patronage of the 2018 Italian OSCE chairmanship. I would also like to thank Pete Newell, Silvio Ferrari and Scott Thomas for their comments and help in developing the argument of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Fabio Petito is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex, where he leads the Freedom of Religion or Belief & Foreign Policy Initiative. He is also Head of the ISPI-Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Programme on “Religions and International Relations” and member of the OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 “Religion, foreign policy and development: making better policy to make a bigger difference”, Wilton Park, 5–7 February 2014, https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/conference/wp1311/ (accessed 10 July 2020).

2 It is interesting to note that, with the new Trump administration, the Office of Religion and Global Affairs was closed because – contrary to the argument developed in this paper – it was perceived as a threat to the work of the US State Department Office for International Religious Freedom, even if the overall strategy still remains operational as part of the broader set of tools of US foreign policy and development assistance. See https://www.usaid.gov/faith-and-opportunity-initiatives/us-strategy (accessed 10 July 2020).

3 PaRD: http://www.partner-religion-development.org/ (accessed 10 July 2020).