

McGuinn Hall Room 520
Telephone: 617-552-8991
Email: jonathan.laurence@bc.edu
ORCID
Western European politics
North African politics
Turkish politics
Religion and politics
Jonathan Laurence is Professor of Political Science at Boston College and Director of theClough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy. A specialist in comparative politics, Laurence has conducted fieldwork in more than a dozen countries, held fellowships in France, Germany, and Italy, and served as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He holds a B.A.,summa cum laude, from Cornell University, a C.E.P. from Sciences Po, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University.
Professor Laurences scholarship focuses on politics and religion in Western Europe, Turkey, and North Africa. He is the co-author ofIntegrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France(2006) and the author ofThe Emancipation of Europes Muslims: The States Role in Minority Integration(2012). In his latest work,Coping with Defeat: Islam, Catholicism, and the Modern State(2021), Laurence offers a geographically and historically wide-ranging comparative analysis of Islamic and Catholic political-religious empires. Arguing that Catholicism and Sunni Islam have employed analogous strategies for responding to the loss of political power, Laurence suggests that their histories have much to teach contemporary democracies and religious leaders about combatting extremism, preserving the spiritual authority of religious tradition in secular states, and promoting peace in polarized societies. Professor Laurences scholarship has won acclaim from many organizations, including the American Academy in Berlin and the American Library Association. Most recently,泭in 2022, the American Political Science Association namedCoping with Defeatthe Best Book in Religion and Politics, which was his fourth APSA award.
Outside of the academy, Professor Laurence is a prolific and respected analyst. During his stint at the Brookings Institution (2008-2018), headdressed lawmakers on Capitol Hill, briefed diplomats, led a team of analysts at the State Department, and served on the Foreign Policy committee of two presidential campaigns.He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and his research and commentary on international affairs have been featured on CNN and in theWashington Post, and he has published essays in theNew York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel,泭喧堯梗泭Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and theWall Street Journal.
, Wall Street Journal, March 2024
: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism and the Modern State, Princeton University Press. 2021.
Wie der Salafismus in unsere Welt kam, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 2016
?, Foreign Affairs, November 2015
,泭Religion & Politics, November 2015
Will French Attack Fuel Tensions? , June 2015
Tunisia, The Courage of Compromise, Reset Dialogue of Civilizations, February 2015
The Algerian Legacy, How France Confronts its Past, Foreign Affairs, January 2015
The 21st Century Impact of European Muslim Minorities on Official Islam in the Muslim-Majority World, Philosophy and Social Criticism,泭 Summer 2014
Ennahdas Historic Compromise: What Rome can teach Carthage,Brookings,泭November 2014
The National Identity Debate in France, with Gabriel Goodliffe, The International Spectator, Spring 2013
Midwife or Spectator? U.S. Policies towards North Africa in the 21st Century,inCesare Merlini and Olivier Roy, eds., Washington, DC: Brookings Press, 2012
The European Left in Crisis: Muslims and Social Democrats, Dissent, Fall 2013
The Emancipation of Europes Muslims: The State's Role in Minority Integration, Princeton 2012