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Today, religion has great social and political influence. Religion `returned' to politics and international relations following the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. The case study focuses on a key expression of religion's influence: `religious soft power'. Religious soft power is the ability to wield influence in politics and international relations, despite the fact that religion has few conventional or `hard' attributes of power and influence (such as, financial, diplomatic or military resources). The research sets out strategies to enhance public understanding of religious soft power, including broadcast and internet dissemination, publishing ventures, and research seminars and conferences open to the public.
Publications analysing political mobilisation during the English revolution, widely disseminated through sales of the book God's Fury, England's Fire, reviews, and in public engagement activities, have shaped public understandings of how popular support for radical politics can be mobilised. The book's central arguments have made a significant contribution to contemporary political and social debates and have shaped the work of programme makers and other creative artists. The widespread use of the book in teaching in higher education and at A Level in the UK and internationally means that it has played a central role in shaping student understandings of this key period of English history.
LSE research has contributed to institutional capacity building and to the renewal of the study of religion in the former Soviet Union. More specifically, the LSE anthropologist Mathijs Pelkmans has contributed to the training of a new generation of local scholars in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia; he has helped introduce these scholars to contemporary research and to innovative methodologies, and has mentored them in critical social science. As stated in one of the testimonials: "the ultimate value of Mathijs' engagement has been to intensify dialogue between different research, educational, and broadly scholarly traditions, and thereby to facilitate our own efforts to develop a discipline which is relatively new in Central Asia".
This case study describes an iterative cycle of research and impact in relation to work in the area of religion and peacebuilding in Nepal. King's and Owen's research in Buddhism and conflict transformation, Islam and gender violence, and their work on developing a framework for analysing the potential of religion for peacebuilding in a given context, has informed the development of a participatory workshop on the role of religious actors in peacebuilding which has been delivered to a number of communities in the Terai region of Nepal, and the facilitation of a larger networking event in Kathmandu in June 2013 which resulted in the formulation of an action plan to which participating religious groups and faith-based NGOs have committed.
Research at Oxford funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) showed that countries with highly unequal resource distribution between culturally defined groups (`horizontal inequality') are more likely to experience conflict. This key insight contributed to changes in: DFID strategy towards conflict-affected areas; UNDP policy on post-conflict reconstruction; the work of the World Bank towards conflict; and OECD guidance on state-building in fragile states. The research also made a contribution to national policy discussions in a number of developing countries, including Nepal, Malaysia and Kenya.
Research on mediation practice and conflict regulation contributed to the development of resources to enhance professional training standards and democratic participation in conflict-ridden societies. The researchers' work has focused on: a) post-genocide diaspora groups emphasizing the transformative effects of new social networking facilities; b) professional standards in conflict resolution practice; and c) power-sharing arrangements addressing gaps in minority-group representation. Scholarly work on conflict resolution capacity has had an impact on intergovernmental bodies, the media and transnational communities and has demonstrably produced innovative training methods for NGOs and conflict practitioners as well as resources to safeguard inclusivity in divided societies.
Professor Benjamin Kaplan is a pioneer of what has been called `the new history of toleration', which is of great significance to the public's understanding of the possibilities for peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths in the post-9/11 world. More than any other work in this revisionist school of historical writing, Kaplan's book Divided by Faith has been read and discussed by journalists, human rights organisations, churches and other non-academic audiences in North America, Britain and The Netherlands; it has also widely been used in university teaching. Kaplan's research has thus profoundly influenced public discourse and academic education regarding the history and character of religious toleration.
The History Department's Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture (CSCC) employed its research expertise in religious history to improve the understanding and sustainability of historic churches and cathedrals. These together form England's largest single 'estate' of built heritage with over 11 million visitors each year. From 2008 the Centre developed an extensive programme of national partnerships, which have led to significant and wide-reaching impact:
(i) creating new aids to help visitors engage with sacred sites
(ii) encouraging tourism and enhancing access to these national and international heritage sites for people from all cultural and faith backgrounds
(iii) delivering professional development activities for clergy, lay leaders, church architects, diocesan staff, heritage staff and volunteers
Dr Matthew Nelson's research challenges superficial accounts of the relationship between religious education and political violence in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Rooted in extensive fieldwork, in-country interviews and a careful study of religious/non-religious, elite/non-elite, primary/secondary education, as well as extracurricular religious groups targeting upwardly mobile university students, Nelson debunks numerous myths regarding the sources of `religious extremism' in South Asia. His research shows how religious ideas and political action (both peaceful and violent) are related, underpinning advice to governments and other organisations concerned with countering Islamic radicalisation through educational reform and targeted allocations of development aid.
This case study assesses the impact of a series of knowledge exchange and public engagement projects undertaken in London and Northern Ireland between 2009 and 2013. These projects have made innovative applied use of a substantial body of research into modern British and Irish religious history conducted in the Unit.
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