Religion in the Public Square : Perspectives on Secularism

What is the place of religion and religious convictions in government, politics, and in public life - taking into consideration the need to respect the free exercise of religion? Challenges to existing arrangements of church-state affairs come from many corners of domestic debates and international relations. Probably most spectacularly, it also stems from the vicinity of the religious freedom of less established (or less popular) holders of faith. The underlying difficulty of these debates is that at first sight they appear to tackle the issue of the plurality of any polity, not only in its religious composition, but also concerning the community's racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity, often with lasting political consequences. The contributions in this volume offer insight into these debates across jurisdictions. Contents include: Roads to Constitutional Secularism: The Foundations of a Political-Legal Concept * Religious Fundamentalism as a Challenge to the Constitutional State * The Islamist Shari'atization of Polity and Society: A Source of Intercivilizational Conflict? * How "Reasonable" is Accommodation? * Between Aggression and Acceptance: Law, Tolerance, and Religion in Europe * De Facto Secularism in a Diversifying Religious Environment: The Changing Relationship between State and Religion in Europe * The Strasbourg Court on Issues of Religion in the Public Schools System * Russia's "Orthodox" Foreign Policy * Guide to the Perplexed: Navigating Through the Labyrinth of Forum Internum and Forum Externum in Canon Law and Public International Law (Series: Issues in Constitutional Law [ICL] - Vol. 8)