Political Secularism, Religion, and the State

Jonathan Fox is a Professor of Political Science in the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. He also serves as a director of the Religion and State Project (www.religionandstate.org) and as a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He is the author or editor of nine books including the most widely used textbook on religion and world politics. He currently serves on the editorial or advisory boards of four journals and is the recipient of the 2009 Distinguished Article Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Secularism or secularization?; 3. Establishment, support, neutrality, or hostility: the varieties of official religion policy; 4. State support for religion; 5. Regulation, restriction, and control of the majority religion; 6. Religious discrimination; 7. Education, abortion, and proselytizing; 8. Religion in constitutions; 9. Conclusions; Appendix A. Data collection and reliability.

'Drawing on an impressive wealth of new data, Fox offers more detail and nuance on the relationship between religion and state than any publication to date. He demonstrates that the relationship is often not what it seems: apparent efforts to support religion can serve as mechanisms for control; despite expectations of insignificance, religion remains a central concern in state policies; and rather than being stable, as constitutions might suggest, the relationships between religion and state are ever changing.' Roger Finke, Pennsylvania State University