McGuinn Hall Room 520
Telephone: 617-552-8991
Email: jonathan.laurence@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0002-5402-1435
Western European politics
North African politics
Turkish politics
Religion and politics
Jonathan Laurence received a B.A., summa cum laude, from Cornell University, a C.E.P. at Sciences Po, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. His principal areas of teaching and research are comparative politics and religion and politics in Western Europe, Turkey and North Africa. Prof. Laurence's latest book is Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism and the Modern State (Princeton University Press, 2021). Previously, The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims, was published by Princeton University Press in 2012, and received awards for Best Book in religion and politics and migration and citizenship from the American Political Science Association. His first book, Integrating Islam: Religious and Political Challenges in Contemporary France, co-authored with Justin Vaïsse, was published by Brookings Institution Press (2006) and Odile Jacob (2007) and named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine.
Professor Laurence is an Affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard. His Ph.D. thesis in political science (Harvard, 2006) was awarded the American Political Science Association's Harold D. Lasswell Prize in 2006, as the best dissertation in public policy completed in 2004 or 2005. He is a former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, Wissenchaftszentrum Berlin, Transatlantic Academy at the German Marshall Fund, Fafo Institute/Norwegian Research Council, LUISS University-Rome, Sciences Po-Paris and the Brookings Institution (nonresident, 2003-2018).
Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism and the Modern State, Princeton University Press. 2021.
“Wie der Salafismus in unsere Welt kam,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 2016
“Laïcité without Égalité?,” Foreign Affairs, November 2015
Background Q&A / FAQ on Terror in Paris, Religion & Politics, November 2015
“Will French Attack Fuel Tensions? CNN.com, 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, Summer 2014
“Ennahda’s Historic Compromise: What Rome can teach Carthage,” Brookings, 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,” in Cesare Merlini and Olivier Roy, eds., Arab Society in Revolt: The West’s Mediterranean Challenge, Washington, DC: Brookings Press, 2012
“The European Left in Crisis: Muslims and Social Democrats,” Dissent, Fall 2013
The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims: The State's Role in Minority Integration, Princeton 2012