Prioritizing Faith: International Religious Freedom and U.S. Policy Choices (1993-2017)

Ashlyn’s book project entitled Prioritizing Faith: U.S. Foreign Policy and the International Religious Freedom Act (1993-2017) analyzes the first two decades of implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), passed in 1998. Using semi-structured interviews, content analysis, and archival research, I compare the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations’ varied approaches to promoting freedom of conscience abroad.

Through structured, focused comparison case analysis of U.S. policy in China, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam across all three administrations, this dissertation traces how geopolitics alter an administration’s policy options vis-à-vis international religious freedom. Moreover, it surfaces internal and external policy constraints. Given the international religious freedom community’s internal struggles and the large number of issues vying for presidential and bureaucratic attention, the incomplete institutionalization of the IRFA necessitates the work of policy entrepreneurs. Without them, the issue falls off the agenda.

Prioritizing Faith connects two distinct bodies of academic literature, combining new research on international religious freedom efforts with broader theories of the U.S. foreign policy process. As the responsibilities of the executive branch continue to balloon, the relative importance of institutional design increases, especially for often neglected policy issues such as human rights. This dissertation also identifies ways to lessen political volatility, resulting in more durable policies in a space that demands long-term vision and persistence. These include the honest appraisal of the geopolitical landscape, the reinvigoration of bipartisan consensus, and the empowering of the bureaucratic institutions charged with promoting the religious freedom of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

Weapon of the Strong: Government Support for Religion and Majoritarian Terrorism

Peter Henne, Nilay Saiya and Ashlyn Hand Journal of Conflict Resolution | 2020

This article addresses a puzzle in terrorism studies. That terrorism functions as a “weapon of the weak” is conventional wisdom among terrorism researchers. When it comes to religious communities, however, often it is those groups favored by the state—rather than repressed minority communities—that commit acts of terrorism. We argue that this is because official religious favoritism can empower and radicalize majority communities, leading them to commit more and more destructive terrorist attacks. We test this claim using a statistical analysis of Muslim-majority countries. Our findings support the idea that the combination of state support of religion and discrimination against minorities encourages terrorism from majority religious groups.