Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion Paperback - 2017

From the rear cover

"The defense and violation of religious freedom are intensely politicized but poorly understood. Hurd provides an important intellectual and practical service with this thoughtful and well-researched examination of the issues."--Craig Calhoun, director and president of the London School of Economics

"In this brilliantly argued book, Hurd shows why the stakes are very high and the dangers very real when governments set the standards for religious practice. Beyond Religious Freedom is intellectually courageous and deeply grounded in religious as well as political theory. There is simply no better guide to the contemporary global religious landscape."--Robert Orsi, Northwestern University

"In this important book, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd shows how the suffocatingly tautological language of policymakers today constructs religion and religious freedom as both problem and solution in the context of myriad challenges facing the world community. Mobilized alternatively to underwrite good religion on behalf of an agenda of reassurance and to thwart bad religion on behalf of an agenda of surveillance, religious freedom is repeatedly discovered to be the indispensable condition for peace in our times, always available to short-circuit understanding of complex social situations."--Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, author of The Impossibility of Religious Freedom

"Beyond Religious Freedom tackles a crucial topic, is compellingly structured, and has a powerful and highly critical line of argument. I learned an enormous amount from this fascinating book."--Christian Reus-Smit, author of Individual Rights and the Making of the International System

"This is a compelling, stimulating, and original book. Hurd argues that powerful Western democracies promote religious freedom in other societies in ways that privilege standard, recognized religious groups and marginalize personal religious or cultural practices that don't fit the model. Beyond Religious Freedom deals with a timely, politically charged topic in a thoughtful and well-informed way."--Jack Snyder, author of Power and Progress: International Politics in Transition