Secularism and State Policies toward Religion

The United States, France, and Turkey

AvAhmet T. Kuru

Häftad, Engelska, 2009

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Beskrivning

Why do secular states pursue different policies toward religion? This book provides a generalizable argument about the impact of ideological struggles on the public policy making process, as well as a state-religion regimes index of 197 countries. More specifically, it analyzes why American state policies are largely tolerant of religion, whereas French and Turkish policies generally prohibit its public visibility, as seen in their bans on Muslim headscarves. In the United States, the dominant ideology is 'passive secularism', which requires the state to play a passive role, by allowing public visibility of religion. Dominant ideology in France and Turkey is 'assertive secularism', which demands that the state play an assertive role in excluding religion from the public sphere. Passive and assertive secularism became dominant in these cases through certain historical processes, particularly the presence or absence of an ancien régime based on the marriage between monarchy and hegemonic religion during state-building periods.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2009-04-20
Mått:150 x 226 x 18 mm
Vikt:460 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics
Antal sidor:334
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9780521741347
Utmärkelser:Distinguished Book Award of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion 2011

Utforska kategorier

Sociala grupper och identitet inom Samhälle och politik

Mer om författaren

Ahmet T. Kuru is Assistant Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at and Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion at SIPA of Columbia University. His dissertation, on which this book is based, received the Aaron Wildavsky Award for the best dissertation from the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. He is the author of several articles that have appeared in journals such as World Politics, Comparative Politics, and Political Science Quarterly.

Recensioner i media

'Professor Kuru's authoritative study, written with remarkable precision, asks taboo-breaking questions and provides iconoclastic responses to them in strict accordance with the maxim facta non verba. First, it shatters the deeply internalized myth that Turkish laïcité is unquestionably sui generis and thus cannot be compared with any other case. Second, it rebuffs the widely accepted premise that Islam and secularism are inherently incompatible, and that assertive secularism would therefore be the only working model for Muslim societies. Third, it clearly shows that in its application of assertive secularism Turkey has gone far beyond its historical model, the French laïcité of the Third Republic. This exemplary piece of scholarship further offers invaluable insight into the present-day tug-of-war over secularism in Turkey.' M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Princeton University

Innehållsförteckning

1. Analyzing secularism: history, ideology, and policy; Part I. The United States: 2. Passive secularism and the Christian right's challenge (1981–2008); 3. Religious diversity and the evolution of passive secularism (1776–1981); Part II. France: 4. Assertive secularism and the multiculturalist challenge (1989–2008); 5. The war of two Frances and the rise of assertive secularism (1789–1989); Part III. Turkey: 6. Assertive secularism and the Islamic challenge (1997–2008); 7. Westernization and the emergence of assertive secularism (1826–1997).