scholarly journals U.S. Foreign Policy and the Defense of Religious Freedom in India

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina M. Teater
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
Advocacy Effort ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
The Government ◽  
Compassion International

The defense of religious freedom around the world is a U.S. foreign policy initiative upheld by successive administrations since the passing of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). Supported by various religious constituencies that advocate for the freedom of religion of like-minded individuals across borders, the U.S. government engages with foreign governments, human rights groups, and NGOs to preserve an individual’s right to freedom of religion or belief. Their results, however, are mixed, especially in diverse contexts where religious rights are deeply contested. This paper explores the advocacy effort in response to the Government of India’s crackdown on the inflow of foreign funds to NGOs, many of which are faith-based. Using the revocation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license of faith-based NGO Compassion International as a case study, this paper finds that U.S. involvement in defense of religious freedom meets counter-narratives. These counter-narratives include the preservation of state sovereignty, the protection of national interest, and the privileging of religious tolerance over religious freedom.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Gregorio Bettiza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Policy Regimes ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Regime Complex ◽  
Religion And State ◽  
The Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War religion has increasingly become an organized subject and object of American foreign policy. This has been notable with the emergence of four religious foreign policy regimes—International Religious Freedom, Faith-Based Foreign Aid, Muslim and Islamic Interventions, and Religious Engagement—which together constitute an American foreign policy regime complex on religion. The introduction poses the book’s three guiding questions. First, why and how did these different, yet closely related, religious foreign policy regimes emerge? Second, have the boundaries between religion and state been redefined by these regimes, and if so, how? Third, what are the global effects of the growing entanglement between faith and American foreign policy? The chapter introduces the concepts and arguments that are central to answering these questions. It also highlights the contributions made to the existing literature, discusses some definitional and methodological issues, and presents the plan of the book.

India’s Proxy War in Sri Lanka

Proxy War ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 182-200
Author(s):  
Tyrone L. Groh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Proxy War ◽  
The Government ◽  
War Policy

This chapter presents a case study for how India initially supported the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) covertly to protect ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka and then later had to overtly intervene to stop LTTE’s operations during efforts to broker peace. For the duration of the conflict, India’s support remained covert and plausibly deniable. Inside Sri Lanka, the character of the conflict was almost exclusively ethnic and involved the government in Colombo trying to prevent the emergence of an independent Tamil state. Internationally, the United States, the Soviet Union, and most other global powers, for the most part, remained sidelined. Domestically, India’s government had to balance its foreign policy with concerns about its sympathetic Tamil population and the threat of several different secessionist movements inside its own borders. The India-LTTE case reflects history’s most costly proxy war policy.

Freedom of Religion

2020 ◽  
pp. 229-264
Author(s):  
Adam S. Chilton ◽  
Mila Versteeg
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Minority Religions ◽  
Russian Constitution ◽  
The Face ◽  
Constitutional Protections ◽  
Organizational Character

This chapter analyzes the freedom of religion. It first describes the doctrinal aspects of religious freedom, and how it is organizational in nature. It also theorizes why religious groups are particularly well equipped to protect religious freedom, and how the constitution can help them to protect their rights. It then presents results from a global statistical analysis, which reveal that constitutional protections of religious freedom are systematically associated with higher levels of respect for religious freedom in practice. It attributes this finding to the organizational character of religious rights. Religious groups have tremendous capacity to protect their own rights in the face of transgressions of power, especially when they can rely on the constitution. This chapter further illustrates how this can play out with a case study on religious rights in Russia, which tells the story of how religious groups have used the Russian Constitution to mitigate the worst consequences of proposed constitutional violations. Finally, this chapter draws attention to the differences between majority and minority religions.

Forcing the President's Hand: How the US Congress Shapes Foreign Policy through Sanctions Legislation

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-416
Author(s):  
Jordan Tama
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Us ◽  
International Diplomacy ◽  
Foreign Governments

Abstract Given the US president's leading role in many areas of American foreign policy, one might expect the president to prevail in executive-legislative clashes over economic sanctions. In this paper, I show that, with surprising frequency, US legislators overcome presidential opposition to their sanctions proposals and induce the president to take foreign policy actions that he or she would not otherwise take. My argument explains why the president often signs and implements sanctions legislation despite considering it inadvisable, as well as how sanctions legislation can influence foreign policy actions, the behavior of foreign governments, or international diplomacy in other ways. I support the argument with descriptive statistics based on an original data set of over a hundred legislative sanctions proposals and a case study of the effects of legislative initiatives targeting Iran over a period of two decades. The paper's findings show that legislative activity is more important than some previous research on sanctions and US foreign policy suggests.

Religious Liberty in Indonesia and the Rights of “Deviant” Sects

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfitri
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

AbstractAlthough Indonesia has acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and freedom of religion is a mandate of the 1945 Constitution, there is a significant difference between the promise and the practice of religious liberty, especially regarding the rights of sects in Indonesia. The article explores this theme in the context of the Congregation of Ahmadiyah Indonesia, a minority Islamic sect which is not considered as an agama, or official religion, as a case study. This designation has had various discriminatory effects on its adherents, which waters down significantly the guarantee of religious freedom in Indonesia.

Freedom of Religion in post-secular Australia

2021 ◽  
pp. 003776862110147
Author(s):  
Adam Possamai ◽  
Alphia Possamai-Inesedy
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Social Tension ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Social

Habermas coined the term post-secularism to reflect a time period in which religions are given a more central part in social and political life. Even if there is more openness to religion, many religious groups would claim that Western societies are nevertheless still dominated by secularism and want to ensure that freedom of religion and belief remain protected and promoted. This article explores the recent Australian Religious Freedom Review as a case study of the social tension between freedom for and from religion to argue that we might have moved beyond a post-secular sphere in this country. In this phase, what is meant by freedom of religion has shifted from a focus in having all religious groups being able to freely practice their faith to a focus by some mainstream religions to remain free to discriminate on the basis of their faith.

Responses to Offensive Speech

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-78
Author(s):  
Nicholas Hatzis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Offensive Speech

This chapter discusses whether there is a non-religious justification for limiting religiously offensive speech. The most commonly used argument is that the right to freedom of religion includes a more specific right to be protected from offence to one’s religious sensibilities. If this is correct, it provides a non-religious reason for censorship: even those who are hostile to religion can accept that religious freedom is an important right and that the government is justified in giving effect to rights. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly upheld restrictions on expression which insults religious feelings, reasoning that religious freedom, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, protects the religious sensibilities of believers from offence. I suggest that this interpretation is mistaken. After exploring how rights give rise to claims, I argue that there is no right-based claim to be protected from the unpleasant feelings caused by religious insults. Therefore, it is unpersuasive to describe cases of religious offence as involving the conflict of two fundamental rights—speech and religion—which require a balancing exercise to decide which one will prevail each time.

KERUKUNAN UMAT BERAGAMA VS KEBEBASAN BERAGAMA DI INDONESIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Delmus Puneri Salim
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Religious People ◽  
Interreligious Relations ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right

Abstract. Relations between religions have been formulated in terms of religion in Indonesia. Often interreligious relations are formulated in 'religious harmony' and often the understanding of the term is influenced by the concept of 'religious freedom'. Indonesia launched Tri Harmony in preventing people from getting caught up in unnecessary conflicts, namely Inter-Religious Harmony, Religious Harmony and Harmony between Religious People and the Government. A political formula that is practically expected to be able to manage religious people. Although this formulation is not a theological formula, this formula is intended not to be involved in conflict with one another, or so that in the religious community there is no attempt to tackle each other. However, the term religious freedom is often understood as a major part of religious harmony. Freedom of religion emphasizes the right of every citizen individually to be able to believe and practice the teachings and beliefs of a trusted religion. Both of these terms affect relations between religions in Indonesia. Keywords: Harmony, Freedom, Religion, Indonesia,. Abstrak. Relasi antar agama telah dirumuskan dalam istilah yang beragama di Indonesia. Seringkali relasi antar agama dirumuskan dalam bahasa ‘kerukunan agama’ dan sering juga pemahaman istilah tersebut dipengaruhi oleh keonsep ‘kebebasan beragama’. Indonesia mencanangkan Tri Kerukunan untuk mencegah agar orang tidak terjebak dalam konflik-konflik yang tidak perlu, yaitu Kerukunan Antar-Umat Beragama, Kerukunan Intern-Umat Beragama dan Kerukunan Antara Umat Beragama dengan Pemerintah. Suatu rumusan politik yang secara praktis diharapkan dapat mengelola umat beragama. Meskipun rumusan ini bukanlah suatu rumusan teologi, tetapi rumusan ini dimaksudkan agar tidak terlibat konflik satu sama lain, ataupun agar di dalam diri umat beragama tidak ada upaya saling menjegal. Namun demikian, istilah kebebasan beragama sering dipahami sebagai bagian utama dari kerukunan umat beragama. Kebebasan beragama menekankan hak setiap warga secara individu untuk bisa meyakini dan mengamalkan ajaran dan keyakinan agama yang dipercaya. Kedua istilah ini mempengaruhi relasi antar agama di Indonesia. Keywords: Kerukunan, Kebebasan, Beragama, Indonesia.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MYORGANIC: A CASE STUDY OF KOPERASI ABSB

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (Number 2) ◽  
pp. 78-87
Author(s):  
Sabariyah Hoyaeli ◽  
Zakirah Othman ◽  
Iswandi Anas ◽  
Shafini M. Shafie
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
Staple Food ◽  
Farming Practices ◽  
Organic Farms ◽  
External Audit ◽  
Agriculture Industry ◽  
The Government ◽  
Organic Standards

Rice is a staple food and daily routine for Malaysians. Currently, the increasing population in Malaysia has led to the need to increase rice production with more quality. Therefore,the government established a scheme with national organic standards, MS 1259: 2015 which is myOrganic certification to recognize organic farms. Koperasi ABSB is the first rice farm that obtained this certification. Thus, the aims of this study are to explore the implementation of myOrganic in Koperasi ABSB and the barriers faced by this cooperative to implementing myOrganic certification. Qualitative method is used in this case study through interviews and observation. The finding showed that the implementation of myOrganic is as follows, by register myGAP, register myOrganic, Department of Agricultural Malaysia (DOA) will send a supervisor, prepare nine files or records, perform internal and external audit, and renew myOrganic. This study is expected to increase awareness of organic farming practices and promote the implementation of myOrganic in agriculture industry especially for the new farmer who wants to register and obtain myOrganic certification.

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