Author Archives: Ricardo M. Barrera

Aaron Wildavsky Award – 2018 – Call for Nominations

From the Chair:

The Aaron Wildavsky Award recognizes the best dissertation in the field of religion and politics. Eligible dissertations have been defended in the last two years, and should make a distinctive contribution to the study of religion and politics, broadly understood. Please submit nominations to the chair of the committee – self-nominations are welcome!

Submission deadline: April 15, 2018.

Committee Members:

Dr. Daniel Bennett (chair), John Brown University, dbennett@jbu.edu

Dr. Jonathan Agensky, Ohio University, agensky@ohio.edu

Dr. Michelle Margolis, University of Pennsylvania, mmargo@sas.upenn.edu

Weber Best Paper Award – Nominations Open

From the Chair:

The Weber Best Conference Paper Award recognizes the best paper dealing with religion and politics presented at the previous year’s APSA Annual Meeting. The paper should address a timely and relevant topic, within the discipline and beyond, in a theoretically innovative and methodologically thorough manner.

Please submit nominations to the chair of the committee (below).
Deadline for nominations: 15 April 2018 – Self nominations welcome!

Dr Stacey Gutkowski (Chair)
Senior Lecturer in Conflict Studies
Department of War Studies
King’s College London
stacey.gutkowski@kcl.ac.uk

Dr Jonathan C. Agensky
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Ohio University
agensky@ohio.edu

Dr Amelie Barras
Assistant Professor
Social Science Department
York University (Toronto, Canada)
abarras@yorku.ca

Dr Ben Gaskins
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Lewis & Clark College
bgaskins@lclark.edu

Do you teach a course on religion and politics? Survey from Paul Djupe

Dear Section Members,

Do you teach a course on religion and politics, public life, or law? Could you please click to the (anonymous) survey posted on the Section APSA Connect Forum and tell us about it? It will take you 3 minutes or less (and has been approved by my IRB).

We just want to know some basic facts — who has taught one, to how many students, and approximately how frequently – that would serve a useful function for potential R&P authors. We are always asked about this sort of thing for book prospectuses and we always have to wing it; wouldn’t it be nice to have some statistics to share? This is our chance to gather that. We’ll prepare a report that you can use to help motivate interest in your work.

Second, we would like to create a syllabus archive for R&P courses that the community can draw upon. These will be posted on religioninpublic.blog as they roll in. Whether you wish to share a syllabus or not, we encourage you to share some basic facts about the course(s) you teach. Doing so should engender no risks to you. Of course your participation is voluntary and you can skip any question you wish, including uploading a syllabus. Clearly your syllabus will not be anonymous, but your replies to the first six questions will be held in confidence and will be anonymous if you do not provide voluntary contact information.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at pdjupe@gmail.com

Best Wishes,

Paul Djupe, Denison University

Kenneth D. Wald Best Graduate Student Paper Award – Deadline: 15 April 2018

From the Chair:

Dear Religion and Politics Section Members,

The Kenneth D. Wald Best Graduate Student Paper Award is now open for nominations

The Award will be given annually to a conference paper studying any aspect of religion and politics presented by a Ph.D. student in political science. The conference can be affiliated with any of the US-based political science associations or a conference affiliated with another association, such as the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the American Academy of Religion, the Middle East Studies Association, or the International Studies Association, as long as the paper was written by a student or students enrolled in a graduate program in political science (at the time of the presentation). Papers written with faculty will not be considered. Papers presented at poster sessions are welcome. The award will be announced and presented at the annual APSA conference during the business meeting. The award committee is under no obligation to make an award if no submissions merit such recognition.

Deadline: 15 April 2018

Please send nominations (self-nomination is okay) including an electronic copy of the paper and an electronic copy of the conference program listing to the committee chair.

Committee Chair:

Dr. Jacob Neiheisel
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
University at Buffalo
SUNY 422 Park Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260
jacobnei@buffalo.edu

Committee:

Dr. Quin Monson
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Brigham Young University 745 SWKT
Provo, UT 84602
Quin.Monson@byu.edu

Dr. Michele Margolis
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
University of Pennsylvania, 243 Stiteler Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104
mmargo@sas.upenn.edu

Dr. Amanda Friesen
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Faculty Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Cavanaugh 417A
Indianapolis 46202
amfriese@iupui.edu

 

Religious Regulation as Foreign Policy: Morocco’s Islamic Diplomacy in West Africa

Section Journal | Volume 11, Issue 1 | March 2018 , pp. 1-26

Religious Regulation as Foreign Policy: Morocco’s Islamic Diplomacy in West Africa
Ann Marie Wainscott

Abstract
Studies of religious regulation tend to examine how states manage the domestic religious market. This article extends this research program by analyzing a state that regulates the religious markets of foreign countries. The Moroccan case demonstrates the circumstances under which a religious bureaucracy designed to manage domestic religion can be turned outward, and employed to achieve foreign policy goals. Unlike other cases of foreign religious regulation, however, Morocco’s efforts have been welcomed at the same time that the policy advanced Morocco’s interests. What explains the success of Morocco’s religious foreign policy? Building on interviews with religious elites from a recipient country, this article argues that Moroccan religious foreign policy has been successful because it was perceived as having historical and cultural legitimacy, it built on pre-existing institutions, and it was paired with renewed economic collaboration, three factors that have broader theoretical relevance to the study of religious foreign policies.