I review Lee Marsden’s Religion and International Security in the latest issue of Global Change, Peace and Security. You can read it here.

My forthcoming article in Terrorism and Political Violence is now available online- https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ZEGMZY5FC8SJGURGBHAK/full?target=10.1080%2F09546553.2019.1632833& . The print version will be available in the future.

I wrote a commentary piece for the Brookings Institute/Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs’ “geopolitics of religious soft power project.” This project explores how states use religion in their foreign policies, and my contribution looks at America and Russia, drawing on research for my new book project. It is available here.

I’m excited to announce that I have a new article forthcoming in Terrorism and Political Violence. “Assessing the impact of the Global War on Terrorism on terrorism threats in Muslim countries” uses data from my book to assess whether Muslim states’ cooperation with America on counterterrorism helped or hurt when it came to terrorist threats. I find that it actually seemed to help; states that cooperated with the United States experienced a drop in deaths from terrorist attacks. I have a working paper available on my website, and will update it when the final article becomes available.

I’m excited to receive one of the project launch grants from Notre Dame’s Global Religion Research Institute. This is a great initiative supporting new research on religion around the world. The grant will support my work applying social network analysis to assess the state of Islamic and secular politics in the Middle East. I presented preliminary work on this project at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, and will present more of this work at the Political Networks conference and the American Political Science Association annual meeting.

I have a chapter in the new Oxford Research Encyclopedia, focusing on religion and terrorism. I survey the literature, highlighting key findings and continuing debate. I also provide some suggestions for future research. It is available here.

I have an article on The Big Q, a New Zealand site, on nationalism. I look at what scholars of nationalism may say about Donald Trump’s appeals to nationalism, and French President Macron’s suggestion of patriotism as an alternative.

I have a new article in the Journal of Church and State . I analyze the relationship between states’ activity in the UN Human Rights Council and their domestic religious repression and find they’re connected. I argue this is because states can use their activity on the council to deflect criticism of their rights record, with religious repression being particularly easy to mask.

I appeared on WCAX this week, discussing the current state of US-Saudi relations in light of the apparent murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

I have an article today in the Washington Post’s Monkeycage feature, analyzing the recent deal between Russia and Turkey over Syria. I argue this represents an attempt at great power management, which may signal a new model for regional order.