After becoming interested in nationalism and populism during a comparative politics course, Patrick Kelly ’25, a political science and French double major, landed on “Divine in Convention: Religion, Identity, and Legitimacy in the Post-Colonial World” as the focus of his thesis.
“I became very interested in exploring religious politics and started off examining Christian nationalism in the U.S. and Islamophobia in France,” he says. “From there, I started exploring how the West and Europe engage with the so-called Muslim world, examining how secularism and religion in post-colonial states function as a tool of resistance and political negotiation.”
Professor of Political Science Susanna Wing, Kelly’s thesis advisor, played a key role in refining the project’s focus. “Initially, I focused on the idea of religious nationalism, but in the context of the countries I was interested in, the term didn’t quite capture the complexities of citizens’ and states’ relationships to religion and secularism,” he says. “Susanna really encouraged me to think more about what aspects of religious politics I wanted to explore.”
With her support, Kelly conducted research abroad in France, meeting with think tanks, academics, and other institutions focused on European engagement with the Middle East and North Africa. “That experience really helped provide a sense of direction for my later research,” he says.
Kelly says that by conducting his thesis, he gained crucial insight into the post-colonial perspective on secularism. He explains that while secularism is often promoted by Western states and the liberal international order as a means to avoid ethnic-religious conflict, his thesis “revealed the flaws of this argument. In many cases, secularism’s sidelining of deeply rooted cultural influences leads not only to worse governance, but greater regional and global instability.”
He sees his thesis as contributing “to growing conversations about how legitimacy is constructed in non-Western states, especially in contexts where religion plays a role not just as a belief system, but as a political resource.” It also challenges the idea that secularism is a neutral baseline and raises questions about the universal applicability of liberal governance models. Kelly believes his work may be useful to researchers exploring what “good governance” looks like from a comparative or post-colonial perspective.”
Now, as he decides between graduate school and the professional opportunities that have been offered to him, Kelly hopes to pursue a long-term career in policy. “I’d like to work in a policy role that allows me to contribute to research on legitimacy, development, and global governance, possibly at a think tank or in government,” he says. “My thesis definitely helped solidify that path. It gave me a clearer sense of the kinds of questions I want to explore and how they connect to real-world institutions and challenges.”
Reflecting on his academic experience, Kelly says the College offered him the freedom to explore topics he was interested in, which allowed his theis idea to emerge organically. “From that first Comparative Politics class, to my semester abroad in Europe, to my thesis research in France, Haverford gave me the resources to pursue the answers to my questions,” he says.