“This volume presents an original and erudite analysis of the influence of religious transnational actors, ideas, organizations on conflict resolution and peace. It pushes the boundaries of the field…. It is a must read for students of international relations and conflict resolution.”—Jocelyne Cesari, author of We God's People: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism in the World of Nations

“[This] volume is what the areas of religion and peace needs most: a careful, honest, social scientific treatment that confronts ignorance and romanticization. The authors instead ask the hard and essential questions—when religious actors promote peace (and justice, and human rights) best, and when they are coopted, politicized, or steered awry by policies such as those of the U.S. government—and answer them through cases drawn from around the world and in settings where analysts are not accustomed to looking. The result is a well-integrated volume that makes the case for religion’s capacity to increase peace and justice precisely by subjecting this effort to close, sober scrutiny.”—Daniel Philpott, author of Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation

“Religion and Peace masterfully moves the conversation beyond the ‘religion can be good or bad’ paradigm that has run its course in theory as well as practice. The chapters highlight the enduring relevance of the legacies of colonialism on contemporary praxis of peace and justice' the need to engage dialogically and relationally in imagining religious and political ethics; the persistence of secularist and modernist assumptions in analytic approaches to understanding the relations between religion and exclusionary populisms; religion and governance in the African postcolonies; liberationist, autocratic, and strategic deployment of religiosity in maneuvering complex political terrains in the MENA region; the failure of religious leaders to deescalate violence produced in moments of national martyrs’ death and burial during The Troubles in Northern Ireland; the misguided scaffolding of the post 9.11 security discourse; religiously literate foreign-policy making; the intersections of indigeneity and humanitarianism; and many other fruitful and thought provoking sites of interrogation. The volume offers generative and fresh insights at a critical moment of reassessment of the religion and peace field upon its often-siloed pathways.”—Atalia Omer, author of When Peace Is Not Enough: How the Israeli Peace Camp Thinks about Religion, Nationalism, and Justice