The Department of Religious Studies is delighted to announce that Julia Berger has completed her PhD, entitled ‘Divine Polity: The Baha’i International Community and the United Nations’, under the supervision of Professor Jeremy Carrette.
The thesis argues that in order to understand more fully the engagement of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with the United Nations – specifically NGOs that express a religious or faith-based commitment – we must consider both their actions and the rationale behind them. To study the underlying rationale, Julia’s thesis introduces the concept of the organisational substrate, which offers a new analytical tool to draw out this undertheorized dimension of religious NGOs.
The substrate complements the analytical tools currently deployed by social scientists, and goes beyond descriptions of organisational behavior to examine the internal rationale underpinning the behavior. The internal rationale is explored through a focused analysis of the Bahá’í International Community’s (BIC) United Nations Office. This organisation was selected because of its reputation as a valued and effective contributor in UN fora; its seventy-year history of engagement (1945-2015); and its scriptural engagement with questions of politics and world order. The thesis also contributes to the nascent scholarship about UN-accredited religious NGOs outside of the Christian tradition.
Having identified the constitutive elements of the BIC’s organisational substrate, using a
hermeneutic and historical approach, the thesis develops a distinct periodisation of the
BIC’s engagement from 1945-2015, which provides a historical framework
(though not a historical analysis) for examining the manner in which the substrate shapes action across different historical circumstances.
This thesis goes beyond social scientific approaches to the study of religious actors at the UN, to demonstrate that knowledge and action require understanding of the distinct rationality of each NGO. It is by identifying and observing the operation of the organisational substrate that this pivotal and foundational element of NGO engagement at the UN comes to light.
Our congratulations to Dr Berger.
For more details about a PhD in Theology and Religious Studies, see here:
www.kent.ac.uk/secl/thrs/postgraduate/research-theology-and-religious-studies.html