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BOOK REVIEW
Weapon of Peace: How Religious Liberty Combats Terrorism, by Nilay Saiya, Cambridge, UK,
Cambridge University Press, 2018, $110.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781108474313
Weapon of Peace is a rigorous, multimethod test of the claim that religious liberty is a crucial
component in the fight against terrorism. Saiya deploys high-quality quantitative analysis, broad-
ranging case studies, and a systematically argued theory to validate this claim: religious liberty does
correspond to lower levels of terrorism, while its absence results in the reverse. The book will be of
interest to scholars working on religious politics and political violence, and is written in a manner
that makes it accessible to those outside of academia. Its one drawback is not really a problem with
the book, but rather the broader academic field: it, like many similar works, may struggle to make an
impact beyond those who already think religious liberty is important.
Scholarly studies have examined the general relationship between religious liberty and political
violence. Grim and Finke tested the relationship between religious repression and social religious
hostilities in their book, while a slew of other scholars have conducted similar quantitative analyses
(Akbaba and Taydas 2011; Basedau, Fox, Pierskalla, Struver, and Vullers 2017; Grim and Finke
2011). Daniel Philpott presented a theoretical framework, which he later expanded in a book with
Toft and Shah (Philpott 2007; Toft, Philpott, and Shah 2011). This author has also explored this
relationship in a few works (Henne 2012,2017,2019; Henne, Hudgins, and Shah 2012; Henne and
Klocek 2019; Kolbe and Henne 2014).
What has been missing is a test of this claim that is both book-length and methodologically
rigorous. Saiya’s book provides such a test. Weapon of Peace begins with an introductory chapter
that explains the stakes of the book’s argument, and helpfully defines religious terrorism and
religious liberty, while making a case for the importance of both. He then lays out his explanation for
religious terrorism in the next chapter. Saiya presents what he calls a “middle ground”on the causes
of religious terrorism, “that religion alone is prone neither to violence nor to peace but is instead a
latent variable that becomes activated …depending on its interaction with its political environ-
ment”(30). Saiya discusses two types of religious repression, “minority discrimination”and
“majority cooption.”The former leads to terrorism through three pathways, “minority
backlash,”“religious outbidding,”and “vigilante terrorism,”while majority cooption can lead to
“majority backlash.”Additionally, he argues that religious repression can contribute to transna-
tional terrorism through “solicitation”and “incubation.”Saiya then discusses the way in which
religious liberty can decrease terrorism, including the “marketplace of ideas,”“alternative and
legitimate channels”for the expression of grievances, “peace-building activities,”and countering
state authoritarianism and social extremism.
The book’s empirical analysis is spread across this chapter, as well as three chapters of case
studies. Saiya presents statistical analysis on the connection between religious repression and
religious terrorism, finding that the level of religious repression corresponds strongly to the number
of religious terrorist attacks. He presents the details of these findings in an appendix. The three
chapters of case studies examine the three aspects of his theory: minority discrimination, majority
cooption, and the positive effects of religious liberty. Each includes short case studies illustrating the
connection between religious liberty and religious terrorism, as well as an analysis dealing with
alternative explanations. Saiya then closes with a concluding chapter that calls for an integration of
and focus on religious freedom in US foreign policy.
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019.
Nationalities Papers (2019), 1–3
Overall this is a solid, well-argued book. The quantitative analysis is well-done, dealing well with
the tricky nature of these data. No major issues were apparent that would undermine his findings.
At the same time, moving the discussion of the technical aspects of the quantitative analysis to the
appendix kept the discussion moving along quickly and accessible to those not interested in
quantitative methodology. The case studies were convincing, covering a variety of countries that
will allay concerns that Saiya was drawing on a particular region of the world for his argument.
Acknowledging alternative explanations for the level of religious terrorism, and discussing why this
did not undermine his argument, was helpful. Finally, dedicating the conclusion to a policy
discussion was a good way to highlight the policy relevance of this, and similar, research.
I had some minor concerns about the analysis. The most sophisticated part of the analysis was
the quantitative element, while the case studies felt like more of an illustration of the statistical
trends. The removal of most of the quantitative details to the appendix limited the impact of this
analysis, however. And more systematic qualitative analysis of Saiya’s cases could have helped. The
cases dealt with so many different contexts—for example, Pakistan’s support for militants, ethnor-
eligious discrimination in sub-Saharan Africa, and communal violence in India—that an expanded
qualitative methods section, clarifying why these cases are comparable and the numerous con-
founding factors do not matter, could have been very useful. Additionally, the argument that
religious repression led to religious terrorism was a lot more convincing than the one that religious
liberty decreased terrorism. The latter, however, is incredibly difficult to demonstrate, so I do not see
this as a major flaw.
My bigger concern had to do with the book’s implications. Numerous studies have explored the
relationship between religious repression and political violence, and Saiya has investigated this in
other work (Saiya 2017). Yet, most of the field of international relations proceeds as if this research
did not exist; studies of conflict increasingly rely on overly rationalist theories that leave little room
for factors such as religion, while studies of ethnic politics tend to ignore or downplay religion as an
independent factor. It is not clear that Saiya’s book, as good as it is, will change this.
At some point it feels as if we are preaching to the choir (apologies for the pun). I would
encourage Saiya and other scholars in this area to devote time and space in their works to making it
difficult for the broader field to ignore their insights. An expanded discussion of the substantive
effects—that is, how big of an impact religious repression really has—would have helped; here it is
confined to an appendix. Expanded qualitative methods in the case studies, to conclusively
demonstrate that religious repression cannot be ignored, would have increased the impact of these
chapters. These concerns are not really the fault of Saiya’s, and do not detract from my positive
opinion of this book. I just hope that scholars in this area begin thinking about how we can make
sure high-quality works like Weapon of Peace receive the broad recognition they deserve.
Peter S. Henne
University of Vermont
Peter.Henne@uvm.edu
doi:10.1017/nps.2019.53
References
Akbaba, Yasemin, and Zeynep Taydas. 2011. “Does Religious Discrimination Promote Dissent? A Quantitative Analysis.”
Ethnopolitics 10 (3–4): 271–295.
Basedau, Matthias, Jonathan Fox, Jan H. Pierskalla, G. Struver, and J. Vullers. 2017. “Does Discrimination Breed Grievances—
and Do Grievances Breed Violence? New Evidence from an Analysis of Religious Minorities in Developing Countries.”
Conflict Management and Peace Science 34 (3): 217–239.
Grim, Brian J., and Roger Finke. 2011. The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First
Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Henne, Peter S. 2012. “The Two Swords: Religion-State Connections and Interstate Conflict.”Journal of Peace Research 49 (6):
753–768.
2Book review
Henne, Peter S. 2017. Islamic Politics, Muslim States and Counterterrorism Tensions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Henne, Peter S . 2019. “Government Interferencein Religious Institutions and Terrorism.”Religion, Stateand Society 47 (1): 67–87.
Henne, Peter S., Sarabrynn Hudgins, and Timothy Samuel Shah. 2012. Religious Freedom and Violent Religious Extremism: A
Sourcebook. Washington, DC: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affair’s Religious Freedom Project.
Henne, Peter S., and Jason Klocek. 2019. “Taming the Gods: How Religious Conflict Shapes Religious Repression.”Journal of
Conflict Resolution 63 (1): 112–138.
Philpott, Daniel. 2007. “Explaining the Political Ambivalence of Religion.”American Political Science Review 101 (3): 505–525.
Toft, Monica Duffy, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah. 2011. God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics.
New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Kolbe, Melanie, and Peter S. Henne. 2014. “The Effect of Religious Restrictions on Forced Migration.”Politics and Religion 7 (4):
665–683.
Saiya, Nilay. 2017. “Blasphemy and Terrorism in the Muslim World.”Terrorism and Political Violence 29 (6): 1087–1105.
Book review 3
