Professor of Political Science Jonathan Laurence, who has researched and written about the sometimes volatile mix of politics and religion in Western Europe, Turkey, and North Africa, has been appointed as director of the Boston College Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, which seeks to reinvigorate and reimagine explorations of constitutional democracy in the 21st century.
Laurence succeeds BC Law Professor Vlad Perju, the center’s director since 2012.
Jonathan Laurence (Lee Pellegrini)
“I inherit a robust center with an impressive public profile,” said Laurence, who praised the work of Perju and the center’s inaugural director, Professor of Political Science Kenneth Kersch. “The Clough Center has an important convening function on campus. It is known as a venue for critical conversations that run the gamut from undergraduate research presentations to debates with prominent intellectuals and politicians.
“Ken and Vlad brought together cohorts of our brightest and most enthusiastic students. I aim to build on the vibrant graduate workshop and to continue their tradition of drawing participants from across Boston College and attracting some of the most interesting minds in the world to Chestnut Hill.”
Established in 2008 through a donation by Gloria Clough CGSON ’96, and Charles Clough ’64, a former University trustee, the Clough Center promotes interdisciplinary reflection on constitutional government in the United States and throughout the world through campus and virtual events featuring distinguished scholars and experts—among them BC faculty—from a variety of fields and professions. Recent discussions have included “The Biden Presidency,” “Racial Justice & Democracy,” and “Privacy and Democracy: Threats and Opportunities in the Digital Age.”
Laurence said future programming themes would include the importance of the press and media in constitutional democracies; religion and democracy in Europe and the Middle East; the place of civic education; and the role of culture and the arts in constitutional democracy.
The center also supports BC students to facilitate their research and participation: Fellows across the University receive competitive Civic Internship Grants for their uncompensated work at government, nonprofit, and other civic institutions in the U.S. and abroad; Graduate Fellows are a group of doctoral students who participate in writing workshops and help guide the center’s programmatic direction.
“We have seen mainstream political actors—in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and here in the U.S.—drift from democratic rules and norms. There is a troubling embrace of a narrow-minded conception of majority rule, one with less respect for political opponents and less common ground...Liberal democracy has clear advantages and we need a positive formulation to compete with authoritarian models.”
“The Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy offers a platform for Boston College faculty and students to explore democracy and its discontents, and it has benefited from Vlad Perju’s superb leadership over the last decade,” said Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley. “Jonathan Laurence is an acclaimed political scientist and will bring his wide-ranging comparativist interests to the work. I look forward to working closely with him as the Clough Center engages with many of the most pressing problems of our time.”
Laurence said the Clough Center’s role is especially critical today, given national and international developments since its opening. “We have seen mainstream political actors—in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and here in the U.S.—drift from democratic rules and norms. There is a troubling embrace of a narrow-minded conception of majority rule, one with less respect for political opponents and less common ground.
“It isn’t enough to say, as Churchill put it, that democracy is the ‘worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried.’ Liberal democracy has clear advantages and we need a positive formulation to compete with authoritarian models.”
Laurence, who joined the BC Political Science faculty in 2005, is the author of Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism and the Modern State (2021), which examined the historical parallels between the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic Caliphate in their struggles to govern territories and populations—and then to offer spiritual services—from Europe and the Middle East to the immigration hubs of the U.S. “Both religions suffered three similar upheavals and challenges: the end of empires, the rise of the modern national state, and significant outward migrations from the ‘home base’ of the religious tradition,” he said in a 2021 interview with Boston College Chronicle.
He also explored issues of comparative religions and politics in Europe, Turkey, and North Africa in The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims: The State’s Role in Minority Integration and Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France, co-authored with Justin Vaïsse. For Coping with Defeat, he undertook research in Vatican and Ottoman Archives and interviewed senior officials responsible for Islamic affairs or public religious education in Turkey and North Africa. He also spoke with interior and foreign ministry officials in various European capitals responsible for relations with ministries of Islamic and religious affairs in the Middle East.
A local affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, Laurence won the American Political Science Association’s Harold D. Lasswell Prize in 2006 for the best dissertation in public policy, and APSA’s prizes for best book in migration and citizenship and best book in religion and politics in 2013. He is a former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, Wissenchaftszentrum Berlin, the Transatlantic Academy at the German Marshall Fund, Norwegian Research Council, LUISS University-Rome, Sciences Po (Paris), and the Brookings Institution.
Laurence has provided commentary for numerous media outlets, including NPR, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, WGBH, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, La Repubblica (Italy), Le Monde and La Croix (France), and Die Zeit (Germany).
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a C.E.P. from Sciences Po (Paris), and a Ph.D. from Harvard.
“I know the promises that U.S. democracy has delivered on, but I also have a healthy awareness of its shortcomings and injustices,” said Laurence. “Living in other political cultures also taught me that democratic values and rights must be exercised to avoid atrophy. Each model—including our own—is most persuasive when it lives up to the promise of its founding principles.”
Sean Smith | University Communications | February 2022