Dr. Jason Klocek is a senior researcher with USIP’s religion and inclusive societies program, where he leads the “Closing the Gap: Analyzing the Relationship between Religious Freedom and Political and Economic Development” project. He is concurrently a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Religion and Society.

Prior to USIP, Dr. Klocek held grants and fellowships through the National Science Foundation and at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Notre Dame, and Uppsala University. He also previously served with the U.S. Peace Corps in Turkmenistan and as a docent at Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania, Crete.

Dr. Klocek’s research and teaching investigate the role of religion in conflict, state counterinsurgency and repression, and civil wars and political violence more broadly. He draws on diverse methods in his work, including survey experiments, quantitative cross-national analysis, and comparative historical analysis. The latter includes archival research in the United Kingdom, Israel, and Cyprus. He has also conducted fieldwork in Rwanda and South Sudan.

Dr. Klocek received a master’s and doctorate in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s in conflict resolution from Georgetown University. He received his bachelor’s in psychology and philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.

His published work is forthcoming or has appeared in top-ranked academic journals, including the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and media outlets such as The Washington Post. He has additionally co-authored chapters on religious violence, the military chaplaincy, and interfaith dialogue. His current book project explores how counterinsurgents construe and respond to religious rebellions with particular attention to British colonial wars during the early postwar period.

Publications By Jason

Global Trends and Challenges to Protecting and Promoting Freedom of Religion or Belief

Global Trends and Challenges to Protecting and Promoting Freedom of Religion or Belief

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

By: Jason Klocek, Ph.D.;  Scott Bledsoe

USIP collaborated with USAID’s Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships on an initiative called Closing the Gap to study the relationship between religious freedom and regime type, political stability, and economic development. This report summarizes the study’s main findings and offers recommendations for policymakers and peace practitioners seeking to protect and promote the freedom of individuals to practice the religion of their choice, convert to another faith, or profess no faith at all.

Type: Special Report

Religion

Exploring the Nexus of Religion and Gender and Sexual Minorities

Exploring the Nexus of Religion and Gender and Sexual Minorities

Monday, February 28, 2022

By: Jason Klocek, Ph.D.;  Julia Schiwal

Peacebuilders and practitioners have long recognized that knowledge of local contexts leads to more practical and effective programming. However, knowledge of unique gender and sexual identities, as well as cultural practices, has been mostly absent from the long list of cultural dynamics that are assessed when looking at local peacebuilding contexts — despite often holding deeply important symbolic, religious and political meanings. 

Type: Analysis

ReligionGender

New Evidence: How Religion Aids Peaceful Change

New Evidence: How Religion Aids Peaceful Change

Thursday, September 30, 2021

By: Jason Klocek, Ph.D.;  Miranda Rivers;  Sandra Tombe, Ph.D.

The pullback in 2021 of international military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa’s Sahel region not only shows the limits of such foreign interventions. It forces policymakers to more urgently examine other ways to support the sustainable social changes that can stabilize violence-stricken nations. New USIP research sharpens an insight about one powerful method to achieve such changes—nonviolent, citizens’ movements that improve governance and justice. Effectively, the research shows, religion helps more often than we may think. Of more than 180 nonviolent campaigns for major political change since World War II, a majority have involved religion in some way.

Type: Analysis

ReligionNonviolent Action

Three Things You Thought You Knew About Freedom of Religion or Belief

Three Things You Thought You Knew About Freedom of Religion or Belief

Thursday, November 12, 2020

By: Jason Klocek, Ph.D.;  Scott Bledsoe

Accounts of global religious restrictions and hostilities have, unfortunately, become a regular feature of today’s news cycle. India’s passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which uses religious identity as a criterion for citizenship, and its violent crackdown against protesters made headlines at the turn of year. The Chinese government’s detention of more than a million Uyghur Muslims, increased surveillance, and other religious regulations in Xinjiang continue to garner much attention. And, increasingly more concern has been given to the ongoing attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria. While these examples are, of course, worrying and must be addressed, a deeper dive into the data reveals that many of the assumptions we hold about the state of global religious freedom need further unpacking.

Type: Analysis

Religion

Jason Klocek on International Religious Freedom

Jason Klocek on International Religious Freedom

Thursday, July 30, 2020

By: Jason Klocek, Ph.D.

The global rise in religious discrimination and oppression risks creating new cycles of violence. USIP’s Jason Klocek says we must “rethink … some of the conventional wisdom we have about religious freedom and its relationship to peace and development” if we want to reverse this trend and prevent conflict.

Type: Podcast

Religion

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