Secularism or Democracy? : Associational Governance of Religious Diversity

Policies dealing with religious diversity in liberal democratic statesas well as the established institutions that enforce those policiesare increasingly under pressure. Politics and political theory are caught in a trap between the fully secularized state and neo-corporate regimes of selective cooperation between states and organized religion. This volume proposes an original, comprehensive, and multidisciplinary approach to problems of governing religious diversitycombining moral and political philosophy, constitutional law, history, sociology, and religious anthropology. Drawing on such diverse scholarship, Secularism or Democracy?proposes an associational governancea moderately libertarian, flexible variety of democratic institutional pluralismas the plausible third way to overcome the inherent deficiencies of the predominant models.

Veit Bader is Professor of Sociology and Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.