Problems Confronting Contemporary Democracies: Essays in Honor of Alfred Stepan

Chapter 12: Religion, Politics, and the State in a Stepanesque Perspective

Religion, Politics, and the State in a Stepanesque Perspective Inseparable but Craftable Brian H. Smith Of the many contributions to the study of comparative politics, one of the most insightful and agenda-setting for future research is Al Stepan’s perspective on religion, politics, and the state in the consolidation of democracies. In Arguing Comparative Politics, he challenges some commonly held positions by previous scholars that religion and politics and religion and the state must be kept separate for democratic debate and policy making to occur. He also refuses to accept the proposition that some religions by nature are antithetical to democracy. Rather, he believes that“multivocality”exists in all major religious traditions, giving them what he terms “usable” elements that that can be marshaled to support democratic values and processes.1 He finds that full-blown separation of religion and state is not found in some of the most robust democratic societies (contemporary Western Europe) and concludes that disestablishment of religion is not necessary for crafting the core elements of democracy. His concept of the “twin tolerations,” whereby governments remain autonomous of religious dictates in policy making and religious freedom is guaranteed to all, including the freedom for religious organizations to pursue their values and interests in politics within the rule of law, allows for a variety 12 339 of linkages among religion, politics, and the state while still preserving the core of democratic processes.2 Finally,in the work that both he and Juan J.Linz have done on problems involved in transitions and consolidation of democracies, they remind us that a strong civil society is essential to keep governments accountable . Religious institutions can play a vital role as articulators of values necessary for democratic debate and sometimes can serve as important mobilizing agents of resistance to authoritarianism in the first stages of democratic transition. In fact, they argue that “massive secularization may weaken an active society.”3 In this chapter I build on Stepan’s work and further develop thinking about religion, politics, and the state in a democratic polity in two ways: (1) Religion and politics not only can be compatible, as Stepan argues, but I argue that they are inherently inseparable. The two systems inevitably interact due to overlapping mutual concerns, and crafting their relationship is far more fruitful than trying to keep them separate, even in democratic polities. I also demonstrate that there is a rational core element in major religious ethical systems that is open to discourse and debate by all citizens (believers and nonbelievers ), and therefore religious ethics need not be subversive to democracy but a healthy contribution to it. (2) Governments deal with religious institutions in negotiated relationships that change over time, as Stepan has demonstrated on the basis of European church-state relationships. I would argue that all four of the classic religion-state models—theocracy (religious control of the state), caesaropapism (state control of religion),4 establishment (official recognition and support for one religion by the state), and disestablishment (complete separation of religion and the state)—continue to exist in various parts of the modern world and also change over time. Moreover, regimes based on all these models need not, nor rarely can, opt for the complete disestablishment model. Partial forms of theocracy, caesaropapism, and establishment all can be crafted in ways that are compatible with the twin tolerations that Stepan defines as the minimum for religionstate relations in democratic polities. 340 | Brian H. Smith Classic Theories of Religion and Politics The two theories that shaped thinking about the relationship between religion and politics during the late nineteenth century and for most of the twentieth century have been Marxism and modernization. Both of these traditions, for different reasons, argued that religion should be removed from politics for politics to achieve its purpose and that, in fact, religion would either disappear once the state achieved its ideal form (Marx) or be reduced to a force in the private lives of citizens once important public issues were decided on the basis of reason and science (modernization). Both theories were based on two assumptions: (1) religion was harmful for modern political discourse and processes, and (2) religion was not an independent variable but a reflection of the dynamics of other forces in society (class relationships, ownership of the means of production, economic development, education), which, once reconfigured, would make the need for religion in public life unnecessary . Proponents...