Encounter, Dialogue, and Knowledge: Italy as a Special Case of Religious Engagement in Foreign Policy

Petito, Fabio; Thomas, Scott M.

doi:10.1080/15570274.2015.1039303

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…religion as a security problem)to the concept and practice of religious engagement, is not easy. There is also a degree of unavoidable ambiguity at present regarding the notion of religious engagement, which will hopefully be overcome as more conceptual work is done on the topic (see, for initial attempts, Birdsall, Lindsay, & Tomalin, 2015;Brown, 2020;Mandaville & Silvestri, 2015;Petito & Thomas, 2015). I would argue, however, that the predominant understanding of this new policy strategy and practiceespecially among policy-makershas, unfortunately, been an instrumentalist one.…”

Section: The Post-secular Turn In Global Affairs and The New Religioumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Often unaware, religious non-state actors, through encounter, dialogue and the daily experiences of lived religion, access the poor, the marginalized, the ignored and the forgotten on the periphery of societies: they are de facto constructing a new, radical form of knowledge from below on how the international system works (Petito & Thomas, 2015). In any case, the new policy strategy of religious engagement requires a new set of skills and mindset for both governments and religious actors as preconditions for building new capacity aimed at delivering innovative government-religious partnerships (Ferrara and Petito, 2016;Birdsall et al, 2015).…”

Section: The Post-secular Turn In Global Affairs and The New Religioumentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Petito

2020

Global Affairs

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Section: The Post-secular Turn In Global Affairs and The New Religioumentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Post-secular Turn In Global Affairs and The New Religioumentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Petito

2020

Global Affairs

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“…Other ostensibly secular countries have also shown a willingness to engage with religion in their approaches to foreign policy including the United Kingdom, Canada and France (Annicchino 2014;Mandaville and Silvestri 2015), Italy (Petito and Thomas 2015) and post-communist countries (Simons and Westerlund 2016). The Woolf Institute based in Cambridge, UK has delivered training courses on religion, policy and diplomacy to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence and the European External Action Force since 2013.…”

Section: Faith-based Diplomacymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Golden Rule: Interfaith Peacemaking and the Charter for Compassion

Marsden

2018

The Review of Faith & International Affairs

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In 2008 the organisers of Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Talks honoured religious historian Karen Armstrong with the opportunity to change the world through launching her vision in a TED Talk. Armstrong's vison was for a (re)turn to compassion as the guiding principle underpinning the global order. Working with leading thinkers within the three Abrahamic faiths, Armstrong launched the 'Charter for Compassion', envisioning a world where 'everyone is committed to living by the principle of compassion'. The Charter has been signed by over two million people from around the world and partnered with hundreds of interfaith organisations and cities seeking to put into practice the 'Golden Rule', common to the main faith traditions, of doing unto others as you would be done by.While few would argue that compassion is sorely needed in contemporary society, this article explores the efficacy of the Charter, setting it in the context of a post-secular international society, in which religious and interreligious initiatives emerge as primary, rather than peripheral, actors in developing sustainable peace making through bottom up approaches. I argue that the Charter's claim that 'any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate' is a flawed but wellintentioned construction, which can encourage meaningful inter-religious dialogue and peace building efforts. The Charter itself emerges as a rhetorical device encouraging compassion rather than a practical tool to mobilise and facilitate peacemaking.This article begins by conceptualising the increasing salience of a post-secular international environment for secular audiences desirous of peaceful resolution of conflict. Second, the role of faithbased diplomacy in engaging religious actors in peacemaking is considered as a precursor to, thirdly, examining Armstrong's advocacy of the Golden Rule and religious peacemaking. Fourth, this article explores peace initiatives inspired by signatories of the Charter for Compassion before concluding that Armstrong's initiative remains largely aspirational, affirming principles of compassion rather than developing practical peacemaking efforts based on the Charter.

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“…Contribution of religious and faith-based actors, constituting a crucial share of the civil society sector, has thus increasingly been perceived not only as a type of "first-aid", but also as a premise of reshaping the relationship of power and authority of the state in contemporary global politics (Wilson 2014). Eventually, based on the assertion of the critical role of the religious and faith-based actors in improving the level of comprehension and mutual understanding in an increasingly culturally pluralistic and politically fragmented global setting, the concept of religious engagement has been proposed (Appleby et al 2010;Petito and Thomas 2015;Mandaville and Silvestri 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Engagement and the Migration Issue: Towards Reconciling Political and Moral Duty

Kulska

2020

Religions

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The increasingly acknowledged post-secular perspective has resulted in the emergence of some new approaches theorizing this phenomenon. One such approach has been the concept of religious engagement, which calls for the redefinition of the perception of religious non-state actors towards including them as important partners in the process of identifying and realizing political goals. According to this view, due to the multidimensional role played by religious communities and non-state religious actors, they need to be recognized as pivotal in creating a new form of knowledge generated through encounter and dialogue of the political decision-makers with these subjects. Among numerous others, the challenge of migration calls for enhanced debate referring to both political and ethical issues. When such a perspective is applied, the question is raised of the duties and limits of nation-states using more or less harsh political measures towards refugees and migrants based on the concept of security, but also short-term political goals. In the face of a state’s lack of will or capacity to deal with the problem of migration, the question of religion serving not only as the service-provider but also as the “trend-setter” with regard to fundamental ethical questions needs to be considered.

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Encounter, Dialogue, and Knowledge: Italy as a Special Case of Religious Engagement in Foreign Policy

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

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

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

The Golden Rule: Interfaith Peacemaking and the Charter for Compassion

Religious Engagement and the Migration Issue: Towards Reconciling Political and Moral Duty

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