Essays on "Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy"

Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy

Ed. by Jean L. Cohen & Cécile Laborde

(Columbia University Press, 2016)

464 pages





Description

Polarization between political religionists and militant secularists on both sides of the Atlantic is on the rise. Critically engaging with traditional secularism and religious accommodationism, this collection introduces a constitutional secularism that robustly meets contemporary challenges. It identifies which connections between religion and the state are compatible with the liberal, republican, and democratic principles of constitutional democracy and assesses the success of their implementation in the birthplace of political secularism: the United States and Western Europe.

Approaching this issue from philosophical, legal, historical, political, and sociological perspectives, the contributors wage a thorough defense of their project's theoretical and institutional legitimacy. Their work brings fresh insight to debates over the balance of human rights and religious freedom, the proper definition of a nonestablishment norm, and the relationship between sovereignty and legal pluralism. They discuss the genealogy of and tensions involving international legal rights to religious freedom, religious symbols in public spaces, religious arguments in public debates, the jurisdiction of religious authorities in personal law, and the dilemmas of religious accommodation in national constitutions and public policy when it violates international human rights agreements or liberal-democratic principles. If we profoundly rethink the concepts of religion and secularism, these thinkers argue, a principled adjudication of competing claims becomes possible.

Contents [preview]

Introduction - Jean L. Cohen

Part I: Freedom of Religion or Human Rights

1. Religious Freedom and the Fate of Secularism - Samuel Moyn
2. Religion: Ally, Threat, or Just Religion? [draft] - Anne Phillips
3. Regulating Religion Beyond Borders: The Case of FGM/C - Yasmine Ergas
4. Pluralism vs. Pluralism: Islam and Christianity in the European Court of Human Rights - Christian Joppke

Part II: Non-Establishments and Freedom of Religion

5. Rethinking Political Secularism and the American Model of Constitutional Dualism - Jean L. Cohen
6. Is European Secularism Secular Enough? [abstract] - Rajeev Bhargava
7. State-Religion Connections and Multicultural Citizenship - Tariq Modood
8. Breaching the Wall of Separation - Denis Lacorne
9. Transnational Nonestablishment (Redux) [2012-paper] - Claudia Haupt

Part III: Religion, Liberalism, and Democracy

10. Liberal Neutrality, Religion, and the Good - Cécile Laborde
11. Religious Arguments and Public Justification [dissertation] - Aurelia Bardon
12. Religious Truth and Democratic Freedom: A Critique of the Religious Discourse of Anti-Relativism [dissertation] - Carlo Invernizzi Accetti
13. Republicanism and Freedom of Religion in France - Michel Troper

Part IV: Sovereignty and Legal Pluralism in Constitutional Democracies

14. Sovereignty and Religious Norms in the Secular Constitutional State - Dieter Grimm
15. Religion and Minority Legal Orders - Maheila Malik
16. The Intersection of Civil and Religious Family Law in the U.S. Constitutional Order: A Mild Legal Pluralism - Linda C. McClain
17. Religion-Based Legal Pluralism and Human Rights in Europe - Alicia Cebada Romero

Conclusion: Is Religion Special? - Cécile Laborde


A book launch for “Religion, Secularism, & Constitutional Democracy” at Columbia University on February 1, with Jean Cohen, Courtney Bender, Mamadou Diouf, Jeremy Kessler,and Rosalind Morris.