Citizenship and Religion III: Interrogating Liberalism, Secularism and Post-Secularism

Abstract

In recent years, religion has become a crucial factor in debates about citizenship. Whereas most European states embrace liberal political secularism, and the right to religious freedom is protected for all citizens, religion still often functions as an important marker of difference. According to thinkers such as Joan Scott, Saba Mahmood and Yolande Jansen, this is not an unfortunate coincidence. They argue that it is precisely the separation of a purely political citizenship from a social, religious and cultural private self that allows for the entrenchment of social differences in liberal, secular societies. What is more, discourses of liberalism and secularism have often been invoked to exclude minority groups and advocate the supreme position of (Judeo-)Christian secularism in contrast to other religious groups, primarily Muslims. These questions of European identity have recently been brought into sharp focus by the emergence of new forms of populism, which make claims about the Judeo-Christian as well as liberal and secular identity of ‘the people’. This panel investigates the inclusionary potential of liberal secularism. It aims to interrogate the central assumptions driving liberalism and secularism, and their potential complicity in politics of stigmatisation, discrimination and exclusion. In doing so, we take into account the various ways secularism has been operationalized in different contexts. In which contexts does liberal secularism lead to exclusion? Where is it indispensable for the protection of religious minorities? And how do these different elements go together? The panel also asks the question of alternatives to current understandings of liberal secularism. More specifically, we aim to investigate whether a post-secular model of citizenship – which acknowledges and recognizes religious and philosophical traditions broadly construed as valuable heritage – could provide better tools for achieving egalitarian citizenship.

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