A Framework for Comparative Political Secularisms

This paper is based on Tariq Modood and Thomas Sealy, The New Governance of Religious Diversity (2024). The book is oriented by two questions: an empirical one of how do states govern religious diversity, and a normative one of how religious diversity should be governed. Indeed, our approach is oriented by a position that sees the relationship between the empirical and normative as one of close entwinement. Eschewing Euro-Americancentric perspectives that define secularism in terms of religious freedom in general or treat a particular country as a paradigm (typically USA or France), we argue there are multiple secularisms, present across different global contexts. Our analytical framework is not designed to merely capture specific countries or enable comparative empirical understanding. It also is the basis for a normative engagement with modes of secularism. This interdisciplinarity is, then, quite different from standard political theory as well as standard political science or political sociology. This paper is primarily about the comparative analytical framework with which we can understand the multiple secularisms found across the world. Starting with a minimal definition of political secularism, we develop a typology of modes of the governance of religious diversity that can account for the empirical variety that we can observe across different parts of the globe. We distinguish these modes according to sets of norms that bear on the character of the relations between state and religion, and highlight in particular how some modes are more anti- and some more pro-diversity of public religion. We also clarify how our framework is able to account for similarities as well as differences between similar cases, and for shifts and changes in the forms a country’s governance of religious diversity takes over time. We also outline our methodological approach, which guides both our theoretical and empirical thinking. The paper also includes either some illustration of our theory with reference to some countries in W. Europe and/or S. and SE Asia; or alternatively our normative approach, multicultural secularism, by which we evaluate the country cases; or a bit of both (depending on the interests of the workshop, as guided by the convenors).