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Faith in the Balance

October 28, 2019

Across deeply diverse religious landscapes, states in Africa are seeking the right tools to manage religious affairs. Governments throughout the continent employ religious slogans, symbols, and doctrine to advance their political interests and to undermine religiously inspired sources of violence. Different contexts and different state capacities produce different outcomes.
 
Faith in the Balance analyzes the distinct ways that the governments of Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Burkina Faso attempt to manage religious affairs. The case studies aim to identify the objectives and consequences of state religious policies, as well as the constraints that each government faces when exerting control over the religious realm.
 
States that intervene too frequently in the religious realm risk undermining religious authorities who are critical allies; too little regulation can create a vacuum that is exploited by violent actors. Finding the right balance is an urgent task because how states manage and intervene in religious affairs has far-reaching consequences for politics, security, and social stability in Africa.
 
We are grateful to the Henry Luce Foundation for its generous support of this study.
 
Download the Book
Preface by Ellen Laipson
 
Introduction
Morocco: Islam as the Foundation of Power
Tunisia: Searching for a Postrevolutionary Religious Equilibrium
Nigeria: Between Formal and Informal Religious Regulation
Kenya: Cooperation, Co-optation, and Confrontation
Burkina Faso: State and Religious Authority in Turbulent Times
Conclusion by Haim Malka
 
 

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Morocco’s Language Politics
August 12, 2019
COMMENTARY
Beyond Tunisia’s Niqab Ban
July 30, 2019
COMMENTARY
The Perils of U.S. Support for Religion Regulation in Nigeria
August 16, 2019 | Judd Devermont
COMMENTARY
Kenya under Growing Pressure to Regulate “Spiritual Fraudsters”
September 23, 2019 | Richard Downie
COMMENTARY
Kenya’s Struggling Amnesty Experiment: The Policy Challenge of Rehabilitating Former Terrorists
October 26, 2018 | Richard Downie
ON DEMAND EVENT
Regulating Religion in Africa
October 23, 2019
Media Queries
Contact H. Andrew Schwartz
Chief Communications Officer
Tel: 202.775.3242

Contact Paige Montfort
Media Relations Coordinator, External Relations
Tel: 202.775.3173
Related
Africa, Middle East, Middle East Program, North Africa, Social and Political Change, Sub-Saharan Africa, The Maghreb
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Contact H. Andrew Schwartz
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Tel: 202.775.3242

Contact Paige Montfort
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Tel: 202.775.3173

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