About this Event
Why don’t Middle Eastern states initiate wars of religion? The question may strike you as odd but, as I will show, Middle East states do not, and have not, launched religiously-motivated wars. Religiously-motivated violence in the Middle East tends to be initiated by non-state actors, such as terror groups, secessionist movements, and national liberation movements. States are often drawn into these conflicts. But when they initiate wars against other states, they do not do so for religious reasons. This book seeks to explain that pattern by surveying a century and a half of Middle East conflicts. I also hope to show that religiously-motivated non-state actors undergo a process of religious moderation when they assume the responsibilities of statehood. Their religious identities do not disappear, but their religious ambitions weaken, are supplemented by nationalist and secular ideological concerns, and their wars take on new motivations and goals.
Ron Hassner is the Chancellor's Professor of Political Science and Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies at the University of California Berkeley. He is also the faculty director of the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Security Studies and editor of the Cornell University Press book series “Religion and Conflict.” Prof. Hassner studies the role of ideas, practices, and symbols in international security with particular attention to the relationship between religion and violence.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 67 Bay State Road, Boston, United States
USD 0.00
