Here is a nice, short, and generally quite positive review by Markus Thiel (Cologne) of Claudia Haupt’s (Columbia) recent book, Religion-State Relations in the United States and Germany: The Quest for Neutrality (CUP 2011).  Professor Haupt has an interesting reply as well just below the review.  The exchange is worthwhile among other reasons on the question of the value of comparative scholarship in this area.  From Professor Thiel’s review:

The reviewer is an avowed skeptic about the scientific benefit of comparative research in constitutional law in general. It oftentimes achieves the sole result that the legal world is colorful and diversified. Therefore, it is more reasonable to compare particular (legal) provisions and institutions and not the legal system on the whole. But even this approach has to keep in mind that a comparison is complicated by diverging legal and social frameworks and circumstances. It is all the more important for comparative constitutional and political research to provide a precise description of the applied scientific methods, the questions of interest, and the objects of research. The author commences her book with a substantial and instructive chapter on her understanding of a comparative approach. Here, the reader notices that the book restricts its view on questions regarding the interpretation and application of legal provisions. This may be due to the fact that it is based on a dissertation in Political Sciences, but especially the relevant articles of the German Grundgesetz should have been the starting point for any analysis of the neutrality principle in Germany. A German reader with a legal background misses the presentation of the relevant constitutional law “dogmatics” to a certain extent.

And from Professor Haupt’s reply:

Comparative constitutional law in particular benefits from a wide-angle view not merely focused on doctrinal questions. Doctrinal rules, the law on the books, may play out much differently in practice. Take, for example, the paradigmatic example in U.S. religion-state relations, the much maligned Lemon test. Technically, as a matter of blackletter law, Lemon still governs; but engagement with religion-state relations that goes beyond examining the current doctrine in the United States quickly uncovers that, first, the test itself is under siege; second, case law suggests that it does not apply in a number of circumstances; and finally, there is a trajectory of development that suggests the U.S. system of religion-state relations is on a different path altogether, one that is more concerned with the meaning of neutrality than the mechanical application of this three prong test. In short, we learn very little about religion-state relations in the United States from looking at the Lemon test. By contrast, studying the larger societal, historical, and political context allows scholars to identify trends that put the doctrine into perspective.