Regular readers of the Forum know of our interest in Tocqueville, the French visitor whose nineteenth-century observations about religion the United States in the nineteenth century remain relevant today. So we were very interested to see a forthcoming collection of essays to be released by Routledge this summer, and edited by two friends of the Center, Dutch scholars Sophie van Bijsterveld (Radboud University) and Hans-Martien ten Napel (Leiden University): Culture, Secularization and Democracy: Lessons from Alexis de Tocqueville. The book explores the “double secularization” that the West has experienced since Tocqueville–the decline in organized Christianity and the abandonment of classical political philosophy–and the effect ithas had on our democracy. Looks very interesting indeed. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Following the approach developed by Alexis de Tocqueville, this volume views democracy as a cultural phenomenon. It starts from the assumption that if we are to adequately address concerns about the current state and future of modern Western democracies, we need first to tackle the cultural preconditions necessary for the functioning of a democracy.

Since Tocqueville’s time, the book takes the most crucial change in the West to be ‘double secularization’. Here, this concerns, first, the diminished influence of organized Christianity. Even though secularity was partly a product of Christianity, secularization is highly significant in terms of the cultural underpinnings of Western democracy. Second, it involves a decreased interest in and knowledge of classical philosophy. Chapters on secularity, family life, civic life, and public spirit focus on central elements of the changed cultural foundation of democracy exploring issues such as identity politics, the public space, and the role of human rights and natural law in a pluralistic and resilient democracy. The volume concludes with a closer look at the implications of current presentism, that is, the view that only the present counts for the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic systems. Finally, it asks if double secularization can also offer fresh opportunities for promoting the conditions of a viable democracy.

The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Law and Religion, Constitutional Law, Political Science, History and Philosophy.