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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Religious Peacebuilding and State Context

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In this chapter, Steen-Johnsen outlines how academic debates on religious peacebuilding have moved from focusing on opportunities toward being increasingly critical of the potential of such initiatives. A few theorists, like Brewer, Higgins and Teeney, have acknowledged that religious peacebuilding initiatives must be considered as interlinked with, and influenced by, the political context in which they are situated. In this chapter, Steen-Johnsen expands the discussion of how political context affects religious peacebuilding. She suggests that understanding how the political strategies of state authorities aimed at regulating the civil sphere are affecting religious peacebuilding initiatives should be included in any analysis of religious peacebuilding initiatives in order to understand the scope of opportunities of such initiatives.