Governing Religious Diversity in Global Comparative Perspective

This book presents comparative analyses of different modes of the governance of religious diversity and state-religion connections and relations in twenty-three countries in five world regions: Western Europe, Southern and South-Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the MENA region, and South and Southeast Asia. Debates and controversies around the governance of religious diversity have become important features of the social and political landscape in different regions and countries across the world. The historical influences and legacies, and the contemporary circumstances provoking these debates vary between contexts, and there have been a range of state and scholarly responses to how, and why, particular understandings and arrangements of state-religion relations should be preferred over others. The analyses of country cases and regions presented in this volume are based on extensive reviews of secondary literature, of legal and policy landscapes, and in some cases on interviews. This book will be a great resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students interested in in the sociology of religion, religious studies, politics and migration studies. The contributions in this volume arise out of the Horizon2020 funded GREASE project. It was originally published as a special issue of Religion, State and Society.

Table of Contents:
1. Developing a framework for a global comparative analysis of the governance of religious diversity 2. Western Europe and Australia: negotiating freedoms of religion 3. State-religion relations in Southern and Southeastern Europe: moderate secularism with majoritarian undertones 4. Dynamics in state-religion relations in postcommunist Central Eastern Europe and Russia 5. Negotiating religion-state relations in the MENA region: actors’ dynamics, modes, and norms 6. South and Southeast Asia: deep diversity under strain 7. Diversities and dynamics in the governance of religion: inter-regional comparative themes Afterwords Normative vs. Actual Secularism(s) Some Reflections on State-Religion Relationships and Political Secularism in the Contemporary World

About the Author :
Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol, UK. He was awarded an MBE for services to social sciences and ethnic relations in 2001, made Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2004 and elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2017. He has held over 40 grants and consultancies, has over 35 (co-) authored and (co-)edited books and reports and over 200 articles and chapters. His latest book is Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (2019) and as Special Issues co-editor, with T. Sealy, "Beyond Euro-Americancentric Forms of Racism and Anti-Racism (Political Quarterly, 2022). He has a YouTube Channel (Tariq Modood) and his website is tariqmodood.com. Thomas Sealy is Lecturer in Ethnicity and Race in the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. He researches and has published on multiculturalism, the governance of religious diversity, forms of racism, and Islamophobia and converts to Islam in Britain. His monograph, Religiosity and Recognition: Multiculturalism and British Converts to Islam, was published in 2021 and as Special Issue co-editor, with T. Modood, "Beyond Euro-Americancentric Forms of Racism and Anti-Racism (Political Quarterly, 2022.).