Religious Armed Conflict and Discrimination in the Middle East and North Africa: An Introduction

The role of religion in armed conflict and discrimination in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is receiving increased attention as the focus of the region's conflicts shifts from nationalism and ethnicity to religion. All of the contributions to this section seek to build knowledge and theories to understand how religion contributes to conflict and discrimination, focusing on the MENA, the world region where religious conflict and discrimination are most prominent. The three articles in this special section of Civil Wars address these changes, each looking at them from a unique perspective including both comparative and quantitative methodology.