In the Spring 2022 edition of the Journal of Middle Eastern Politics & Policy beginning at page 17, Jeremy Barker, Director of RFI’s Middle East Action Team, authored an article titled, “Toward a Stable and Inclusive Iraq? Individual and Institutional Religious Freedom Can Help.” In it Barker “seeks to provide some context to Iraq’s political and social dynamics since 2003…” and to “consider how religious freedom, in both its individual and institutional dimensions, may have something to contribute toward supporting a more stable and inclusive Iraq.”

“This institutional dimension,” Barker writes, “was the focus of the Freedom of Religious Institutions in Society (FORIS) Project of the Religious Freedom Institute.” Barker proceeds to outline key elements of the scholarship from the FORIS Project before turning to conditions in Iraq and what institutional religious freedom might offer toward fostering greater stability and peace there.

Barker contends:

The influence of religious institutions writ large can be brought to bear in addressing many of Iraq’s most significant issues, not through cooptation into the political process but through the lived practices of religious communities and the institutions which shape and respond to them.

Read the full article: “Toward a Stable and Inclusive Iraq? Individual and Institutional Religious Freedom Can Help.”