Olivier Roy

Part-time Professor

Email: [email protected] 

Tel [+39] 055 4685 - 747 

Office: Villa Schifanoia, VS048

Administrative Assistant: Sarah Bernstein

Biographical Note

Olivier Roy (1949) is currently joint-chair at the RSCAS and SPS department of the EUI. Previously he has been senior researcher at the French CNRS and Professor at the EHESS (Paris). He headed the OSCE’s Mission for Tajikistan (1993-94) and was a Consultant for the UN Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan (1988).

He has been heading the ERC funded project "ReligioWest" since 2011. His field works include Political Islam, Middle East, Islam in the West and comparative religions.

Prof. Roy received an “Agrégation de Philosophie”  (1972) and a Ph.D. in Political Sciences. In 2008-2009 he has been a visiting Professor at Berkeley University.

He is the author, among other books, of “Globalized Islam” (Columbia University Press), 2004,  and "Holy Ignorance” (Oxford UP), 2010. His last book is "En Quête de l'Orient perdu" (Seuil 2014). He is presently working on “Islamic norms in the public sphere”, conversions and apostasy and comparative religions.

Recent Publications

• The revival of Islam in the Balkans: from identity to religiosity, with Arolda Elbasani, The Islam and Nationalism Series, Palgrave Macmillan Basingstoke, 2015
• Religious diversity in European prisons: challenges and implications for rehabilitation, with Irene Becci, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, 2015
• Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, Cambridge University Press, 1986
• L'Echec de l'Islam politique, Le Seuil, Paris, 1992, translated as The Failure of Political Islam, Harvard University Press, 1994
• The New Central Asia, the Creation of Nations, Tauris, 2000
• Iran: Comment sortir d’une révolution religieuse (avec Farhad Khosrokhavar), Le Seuil 1999
• L’islam mondialisé, Le Seuil 2002
• Globalized Islam, Columbia University Press, 2004 (extended version of  L’Islam mondialisé) German translation: Der islamische Weg nach Westen. Globalisierung, Entwurzelung und Radikalisierung, Pantheon, 2006.
• La laïcité face à l’islam, Stock, 2005 (traduit en hollandais, anglais)
• Le Croissant et le Chaos, Hachette 2007
• La Sainte Ignorance (Le Seuil 2008), translated as Santa Ignoranza  Feltrinelli 2009, Die Heilige Einfalt  Siedel 2010, Santa Ignorancia Peninsula 2010, Holy Ignorance Columbia Univesity Press/Hurst 2010
• Religious Revivals as a Product and Tool of Globalization, Le religioni nelle relazioni internazionali, Quaderni di Relazioni Internazionali, 2010, 12 22-34
• Breakthroughs in Faith, World Policy Journal, 2011, 28, 4, 7-13
• Du rôle consensuel des experts: La norme religieuse dans l'espace public, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 2011, 155, 11-19
• Arab Society in Revolt: The West's Mediterranean Challenge (w, Cesare Merlini), Brookings Institution Press, Washington, Brookings Institution Press, 2012
• The Transformation of the Arab World, Journal of Democracy, 2012, 23, 3, 5-18
• Europe and the Mediterranean: When obsession for security misses the real world, EUI RSCAS; 2012/20; Global Governance Programme-16
• The intervention trap, NewStatesman, Feb 2013
• Religion, culture and human rights Series, with ANNICCHINO, Pasquale, Ana Filipa VRDOLJAK (ed.), The cultural dimension of human rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law, Vol. XXII/1, pp. 13-25
• Conclusion: what matters with Conversions? Nadia MARZOUKI and Olivier ROY (eds), Religious conversions in the Mediterranean world, [S.l.]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, Islam and Nationalism, pp. 175-187
• Quand la burqa passe à l'Ouest: enjeux éthiques, politiques et juridiques, with KOUSSENS, David, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014
• En quête de l'Orient perdu: Entretiens avec Jean-Louis Schlegel, Seuil, 2014 

Research Interests

Fields of Research and Supervision: Afghanistan, Iran, Middle-East, Central Asia, Christianism, Conversions, Islam, Islamism, Religious Fundamentalism, Civil Society, Religion