Why do secular states pursue substantially different policies toward religion? The United States, France, and Turkey are secular states that lack any official religion and have legal systems free from religious control. The French and Turkish states have banned students' headscarves in public schools, whereas the U.S. has allowed students to wear religious symbols and attire. Using the method of process tracing, the author argues that state policies toward religion are the result of ideological struggles. In France and Turkey the dominant ideology is “assertive secularism,” which aims to exclude religion from the public sphere, while in the U.S., it is “passive secularism,” which tolerates public visibility of religion. Whether assertive or passive secularism became dominant in a particular case was the result of the particular historical conditions during the secular state-building period, especially the presence or absence of an ancien regime based on a marriage of monarchy and hegemonic religion.
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.
ACCORDING TO FREEDOM HOUSE (2013), 1 among countries with populations higher than 200,000, the proportion of electoral democracies is 56 percent (98/174) worldwide, whereas it is only 20 percent (10/49) in Muslim-majority countries. The average Freedom House score (1 for most and 7 for least democratic) for all countries (3.5) is also better than the average score for Muslim-majority countries (5.1). Analyzing countries with populations over 500,000, Polity (2010) reaches a similar result: 57 percent (93/164) of all countries and 28 percent (13/47) of Muslim-majority countries are democracies. 2 Why is the rate (and score) of democracy disproportionately low among Muslim-majority countries? This article argues that the combined effects of rentier states and regional diffusion provide the best explanation. The rentier state model explains the links between the rent revenue, limited taxation, and authoritarianism. A state becomes "rentier" if oil, gas, and mineral rents constitute over 40 percent of its revenues. The state AHMET T. KURU is an associate professor of political science at San Diego State University.
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