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“European States and their Muslim Citizens: The Impact of Institutions on Perceptions and Boundaries” (Bowen et al., eds.)

Next month, Cambridge will publish European States and their Muslim Citizens: 9781107038646The Impact of Institutions on Perceptions and Boundaries, edited by John R. Bowen (Washington University, St. Louis), Christophe Bertossi (French Institute of International Relations), Jan Willem Duyvendak (University of Amsterdam), and Mona Lena Krook (Washington University, St. Louis). The publisher’s description follows.

This book responds to the often loud debates about the place of Muslims in Western Europe by proposing an analysis based in institutions, including schools, courts, hospitals, the military, electoral politics, the labor market, and civic education courses. The contributors consider the way people draw on practical schemas regarding others in their midst who are often categorized as Muslims. Chapters based on fieldwork and policy analysis across several countries examine how people interact in their everyday work lives, where they construct moral boundaries, and how they formulate policies concerning tolerable diversity, immigration, discrimination, and political representation. Rather than assuming that each country has its own national ideology that explains such interactions, contributors trace diverse pathways along which institutions complicate or disrupt allegedly consistent national ideologies. These studies shed light on how Muslims encounter particular faces and facets of the state as they go about their lives, seeking help and legitimacy as new citizens of a fast-changing Europe.

    • Considers the most important institutions in a number of countries: schools, hospitals, the army, courts related to their Muslim citizens
    • Explains how policies about tolerable diversity, immigration, and discrimination are created and applied
    • Combines contrasts across institutions with contrasts across major countries, including France, Germany, Britain, Sweden, Norway, and The Netherlands
Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Lugato on Religious Associations in European Law

Monica Lugato (LUMSA-Rome) has posted a new article, National Policy Towards Religious Associations within the Framework of European Law, on SSRN. The abstract follows:

The article discusses the current status of policy towards religion as a national competence within the framework of European law. It submits on the one hand that, in the present stage of European integration, core decisions concerning the public dealing with religion and religious communities are inherently a national policy domain. However, because religion is at the same time an element of the Member States’ national identities, one of the sources of the founding values of the European Union and a fundamental freedom both nationally, internationally and within EU law, the scope of such inalienable policy domain is shaped, through an on-going process, not only by national law implementing national policy choices on religion, but also by EU law aimed at preserving national identities and the identity and specific contribution of religious (and philosophical and non-confessional organizations) associations, as they have historically and culturally developed within the national States, while at the same time safeguarding the EU framework on fundamental freedoms and fundamental rights; and, finally, by international rules on freedom of religion limiting Member States’ and the EU’s freedom in the same area.

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Norton, “On the Muslim Question”

Earlier this year, Princeton University Press published On the Muslim Question, by Annek9951 Norton (University of Pennsylvania). The publisher’s description follows.

In the post-9/11 West, there is no shortage of strident voices telling us that Islam is a threat to the security, values, way of life, and even existence of the United States and Europe. For better or worse, “the Muslim question” has become the great question of our time. It is a question bound up with others–about freedom of speech, terror, violence, human rights, women’s dress, and sexuality. Above all, it is tied to the possibility of democracy. In this fearless, original, and surprising book, Anne Norton demolishes the notion that there is a “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam. What is really in question, she argues, is the West’s commitment to its own ideals: to democracy and the Enlightenment trinity of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In the most fundamental sense, the Muslim question is about the values not of Islamic, but of Western, civilization.

Moving between the United States and Europe, Norton provides a fresh perspective on iconic controversies, from the Danish cartoon of Muhammad to the murder of Theo van Gogh. She examines the arguments of a wide range of thinkers–from John Rawls to Slavoj Žižek. And she describes vivid everyday examples of ordinary Muslims and non-Muslims who have accepted each other and built a common life together. Ultimately, Norton provides a new vision of a richer and more diverse democratic life in the West, one that makes room for Muslims rather than scapegoating them for the West’s own anxieties.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Panel: “Is Europe Joining the International Religious Freedom Bandwagon?” (Sept. 18)

On September 18, the Berkley Center at Georgetown will host a panel discussion, “Is Europe Joining the International Religious Freedom Bandwagon?”:

Growing international threats to religious freedom are coming under increasing scrutiny by Western democracies. Long a foreign policy emphasis in the United States, and more recently in Canada, the crisis in international religious freedom (IRF) is gaining greater attention in Europe, especially in Italy and the United Kingdom. Can these nations be effective in promoting international religious freedom? Will their own domestic struggles with religious freedom handicap their efforts abroad?

CLR Forum Guest Commentator Pasquale Annicchino will be a panelist. Details are here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Salomone on Proposals to Ban Religious Dress in French Universities

My St. John’s colleague, Rosemary Salomone, has written an essay on proposals to ban religious dress in French universities, “Should the Veil Be Banned in Higher Education?” Here’s a synopsis:

The piece discusses competing approaches to the uniquely French concept of “laicite,” a form of secularism, and the current debate in France over a proposal from the High Council for Integration to ban ostensible religious signs or clothing from French public universities. Though the proposal does not mention Islam, Professor Salomone argues that the target clearly is the wearing of the Islamic “hijab” or headscarf. Professor Salomone questions the reasons offered for the ban, based on alleged incidents of religious conflicts in universities, which the Minister of Higher Education and Research and the president of the Conference of University Presidents refute. She warns that banning the veil would unjustly deny some Muslim young women their only option for higher education and further isolate them culturally and religiously.  She further suggests that the debate ignores the forces of globalization, transnationalism, and European integration, the consequent rise of “world citizens” among the younger French population, and the gradual integration of Muslims into French society that inevitably will loosen the French approach to “laicite,” and perhaps sooner than the current debate would lead us to believe.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Liviatan on Abortion and Islam in Cultural Debates

Ofrit Liviatan (Harvard) has published an article, “From Abortion to Islam: The Changing Function of Law in Europe’s Cultural Debates,” in the current volume of the Fordham International Law Journal. Here’s the abstract:

The Article rethinks the law’s role in present-day European debates over Islam in light of its calming effects on the once fiercely-fought abortion reforms across Western Europe. Using examples from Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands and Switzerland the article demonstrates that the role of the legal process in each of these culture-based debates diverged along its two social functions. Reflecting growing public anxieties, legal actions concerning Muslims typically focused on generating social and cultural change, foreclosing the likelihood of political compromises. In contrast, at the time of abortion reform legal measures acted as mechanisms of social and cultural order, contributing to the pacification of the fierce public controversies even as moral disagreements over abortion endured. Drawing on this comparison, the article suggests that Europe’s constitutional review processes present a compromise-building path to deliberate contemporary conflicts over Islam.

The Article proceeds in three parts. Part II and III analyze the legal developments in the context of Islam and abortion across Western Europe, revealing a contrasting dynamics in the roles of the legal process in each of these debates. Part IV assesses the effects of the legal process in each of the debates and rules out alternative explanations for this divergence. It argues that the factor of time or European secularization cannot account for the current intensity-difference in each of these debates. The article concludes by proposing a path to launch the currently absent constitutional conversation over Islamic-based tensions in Western Europe. Modeled on abortion reform, constitutional courts should reach beyond proportional balancing and dictate policy frameworks addressing both the roots of Muslim disadvantages and the anxieties of the European public.

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Howard, “Law and the Wearing of Religious Symbols: European Bans on the Wearing of Religious Symbols in Education”

This June, Routledge published Law and the Wearing of Religious Symbols: 9780415602648European Bans on the Wearing of Religious Symbols in Education by Erica Howard (Middlesex University, UK). The publisher’s description follows.

Written in accessible language, Law and the Wearing of Religious Symbols is a comprehensive analysis of a topical subject that is being widely debated across Europe. The book provides an overview of emerging case law from the European Court of Human Rights as well as from national courts and equality bodies in European countries on the wearing of religious symbols in educational settings. The author persuasively argues that bans on the wearing of religious symbols in educational institutions in Europe constitutes a breach of an individual’s human rights and contravenes existing anti-discrimination legislation. The book offers a discussion of developments in Europe, including the French ban on Islamic head scarves which came into force in April 2011. In addition to an in depth examination of recent bans, the book also assess the arguments used for imposing them as well as the legal claims that can potentially be made to challenge their validity. In doing this, the book will go beyond merely analyzing the bans in place to suggest ways in which educational institutions can most fairly respond to requests for accommodation of the wearing of religious symbols and whether perhaps the adoption of other provisions or measures are necessary in order to improve the present situation.

This book will be of particular interest to students and academics in the disciplines of law, human rights, political science, sociology and education, but will also be of considerable value to policy makers and educators as well.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

University of Bristol Announces New Religion and Public Policy Website: “Public Spirit”

This summer, the University of Bristol began hosting a new website on religion and public policy in the UK, Public Spirit:

Public Spirit is a forum for researchers, policymakers, politicians and practitioners from the voluntary and community sectors to debate recent developments in faith and public policy that crosses political affiliations and religious traditions. We feature articles and reports from a wide variety of contributors from academia, politics, policymaking and faith-based and community organisations, with the aim of making accessible recent research findings, sharing a range of expertise reflections and analysis and stimulating conversation about religion and public policy.

Welcome to the Blogosphere!

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Kühne, “Belonging and Genocide: Hitler’s Community, 1918-1945”

This August, Yale University Press published Belonging and Genocide: Hitler’s Community, 1918-1945 by Thomas Kühne (Clark University).  The publisher’s Belonging and Genocidedescription follows.

No one has ever posed a satisfactory explanation for the extreme inhumanity of the Holocaust. What enabled millions of Germans to perpetrate or condone the murder of the Jews? In this illuminating book, Thomas Kühne offers a provocative answer. In addition to the hatred of Jews or coercion that created a genocidal society, he contends, the desire for a united “people’s community” made Germans conform and join together in mass crime.

Exploring private letters, diaries, memoirs, secret reports, trial records, and other documents, the author shows how the Nazis used such common human needs as community, belonging, and solidarity to forge a nation conducting the worst crime in history.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Podcast Featuring Delahunty on Tocqueville and Religion

Our guest, Professor Robert Delahunty, has conducted an informative podcast with the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion involving Alexis de Tocqueville and religion. Readers familiar with his excellent posts at CLR Forum over the past month (which will continue this week) will be further edified by Robert’s deep learning on the subject. The podcast is moderated by Baylor University’s Anthony Gill.