As the Henry R. Luce Foundation brings its Religion in International Affairs Initiative to a close, the foundation’s Director of Policy Initiatives Toby Alice Volkman has penned an essay on the origins, development, and impact of the initiative. Volkman explores how the initiative’s 223 grants totaling over $60 million have significantly enhanced understanding of the role of religion in international affairs over the past 16 years.
Volkman highlights how the initiative sought to connect multiple disciplines and sectors, as it was “intended to bring informed analysis of religion into relevant policy conversations through interaction with academia and the media.” The Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy (TPNRD) is one outgrowth of the Luce initiative and its work has been generously supported by the foundation since 2015.
The essay includes some reflections from Peter Mandaville, the co-founder of the TPNRD and current co-chair of the TPNRD Advisory Council. Mandaville writes,
I have appreciated [the Initiative’s] willingness to support—sometimes simultaneously—projects with
very different dispositions towards the basic question of government engagement with religion. For the initiative to have in its portfolio scholars whose work is deeply skeptical of the government-religion interface alongside projects such as TPNRD (dedicating to building the capacity of governments to interface with religion!) just speaks to the breadth of vision and perspicacity that underpins HRLI.
Looking ahead, Volkman notes that the Social Science Research Council will launch a new digital platform in 2022 that will “serve as an accessible repository of the work of our grantees, as a forum for stimulating reflections on the field, and as a catalyst for new research and conversations.”
Photo credit: Toby Volkman (left), Dina Mahnaz Siddiqi, and Lila Abu-Lughod at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference in 2011 celebrating the publication of Women’s Rights, Muslim Family Law, and the Politics of Consent. Image courtesy of the Center for the Study of Social Difference.