The Sacred Kingdom and the Royal Wedding of 2011

Despite secularisation and increased religious diversity the UK state and the monarchy are religiously legitimated institutions which have their origins in protestant/catholic divisions over three hundred years ago but which remain strong enough to survive in the current era. The Church of England acts not only as the established church of England but as a church for the UK with respect to events such as the coronation and the royal wedding of 2011. Ecumenical and interfaith initiatives have been attempted by the government and the monarchy and were evident in attendance at the wedding but it demonstrated the ritual supremacy of the state church and the inevitable difficulties of seeking to achieve formal representation for religious diversity in the state. Attempts at more formally inclusive religious involvement in state institutions conflict with other goals such as gender equity and suggest that secular state institutions might be fairer to all religions, denominations and those with no beliefs.     

Religious fundamentalism and the extreme right-wing camp in Israel

Over the last ten years, a sizeable body of social science research has been devoted to two troubling phenomena—right-wing extremism and religious fundamentalism—both of which have seen a recrudescence in the last two decades. While the first is largely a secular phenomenon, the latter is, by definition, religious in orientation. Although most literature has treated these phenomena separately, in Israel the overlap between the two is so extensive that it could very well serve as the basis for a generating hypothesis. Utilizing features of both European right-wing extremism and characteristics of fundamentalism, Bermanis, Canetti-Nisim and Pedahzur attempt to demonstrate how the extreme right, with its secular underpinnings, has withdrawn from the larger picture, and how a new, complex and more extremist approach, based on fundamentalist ideals, has taken its place.     

Church-State Separation and Church Property Restitution in the Czech Republic

This article aims to present the recent change in the church-state relations in the Czech Republic. The change consists of restitution of church property taken away by the communist regime and the financial separation of churches and religious societies from the state. The article briefly overviews the church-state relations in Czechoslovakia before 1989 especially with regard to the issues of property and finance. The focus is on the legislation of 2012 and the contracts between the state and churches and religious societies that both resolved the restitution of church property taken by the communist regime and initiated the process that will lead to a complete financial separation of churches from the state.     

Putting Politics First: The Impact of Politics on American Religious and Secular Orientations

Nearly all research on the political impact of Americans’ religious and secular orientations assumes that such orientations are exogenous to politics. Using multiwave panel and experimental data, we find that religious and secular orientations are endogenous to political orientations. In other words, religion and secularism are a consequence as well as a cause of politics. In showing this, we make three major contributions. First, we conceptualize and measure secular orientations in a new way—not just as the absence of religion, but also as an affirmative secular identity and positive commitment to secular principles. Second, our panel and experimental data allow for the most definitive test to date of whether political orientations exert a causal effect on religious and secular orientations. Third, we isolate the conditions under which politics affects religious–secular perspectives, thus identifying the mechanism that underlies political orientations.     

Social space in the English medieval parish church

A theoretical approach to the organisation of social space is advanced with the aim to develop an understanding of the architectural space of the later medieval parish church in England, based on social practice. Refusing the general assumption of liturgical uniformity, the mass is taken as the template of religious practice most fundamental to such an understanding in the local context. Through religious practice the parish church became the locale for the constitution and reproduction of the Christian community. Social identities were necessaily constructed within that framework and as a result, it will be argued here, the church building must be seen to represent a domain of secular action within the field defined by the Christian liturgy.     

Rockets,Astronauts, and Shrines: Representations of Spaceflight in Sacred Visual Art and Architecture

This article examines the relationship between space exploration and sacred visual art, demonstrating that religious iconography and church architecture evolved by assimilating humankind's entry into the physical heavens as a living parable. This is proven by the presence of space exploration imagery within places of worship—from a church building inspired by a payload fairing to inclusion of space exploration milestones as historical landmarks, from astronauts being chosen as depictions of Christian virtues to lunar material being included in church windows, and from a space shuttle being painted on a Christian Orthodox church wall to a space hotel being represented on a Buddhist temple. The incidences of space themes in religious visual arts, as well as the fervor of reception, vary nonetheless among denominations.     

Elections and Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes

When do elections in authoritarian regimes lead to democracy? Building from the distinction between competitive and hegemonic authoritarian regimes, I argue that presence of relatively weaker incumbents renders competitive authoritarian elections more prone to democratization, but only when domestic and international actors choose to actively pressure the regime. The effects of two forms of pressure—opposition electoral coalitions and international conditionality—are theorized. Propositions are tested using a comprehensive dataset of elections in authoritarian regimes from 1990 to 2007. Results support two core claims: that the effect of electoral pressure is conditional on the type of authoritarianism and that this greater vulnerability to pressure is the reason why competitive authoritarian elections are more likely to lead to democracy. In contrast, several alternative explanations—that differences across regime type are explained by alternation in power, better electoral conduct, or ongoing processes of liberalization—are not supported by the evidence.     

Jürgen Habermas on public reason and religion: do religious citizens suffer an asymmetrical cognitive burden,and should they be compensated?

In his recent writings, Jürgen Habermas asks how the liberal constitutional principle of separation between church and state, religion and politics, should be understood. The problem, he holds, is that a liberal state guarantees equal freedom for religious communities to practise their faith, while at the same time shielding the political bodies that take collectively binding decisions from religious influences. This means that religious citizens are asked to justify their political statements independently of their religious views, resulting in a burden that secular citizens do not experience. To compensate, Habermas demands from secular citizens that they open their minds to the possible truth content of religion, enter into dialog and contribute to the translation of religious reasons into generally acceptable reasons. This article focuses on Habermas’s assumption that religious citizens suffer an asymmetrical cognitive burden that should be compensated, and his claim that his approach to religion in the public sphere is less restrictive than that of John Rawls.     

Playground or Church? Implications for Public Administration from Trinity Lutheran v. Comer

The roots of public administration are in the fields of management, political science, and the law. The law is underrepresented in the literature and is not as well understood by nonlawyer practitioners, yet it increasingly enables, constrains, and prescribes government action. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a case involving whether a government grant awarded on secular criteria must be provided to a qualified church. This article contributes to the field's understanding of the interplay of law and administration by examining the constitutional issues in the case and their implications for public administration. By considering how this dispute was framed and the ways in which the court approached its resolution, public officials can better understand the issues in similar cases; anticipate potential disputes; and (re)design policies that will serve their communities, remain within constitutional limits, and reduce the likelihood of litigation.     

The political economy of churches in Denmark, 1300–2015

This paper reports new time-series for the numbers and sizes of churches in Denmark over a 715-year period. Per capita, the new series are termed church densities. A pattern emerges in the series that corresponds to the main development in the economy: until 1750, the economy was in the traditional steady state, where church densities were high and did not decline substantially. Modern development set in after 1750. Since then, church densities have declined more than five times. Moreover, capacity utilization of church rooms has declined, which means that the reduction in the demand for churches must have been even larger. We argue that this large decline is caused by a fall in religiosity that is caused by economic development as measured by the rise in incomes. In parallel with similar transitions in other sectors, e.g., the Agricultural Transition, it is termed the Religious Transition.     

An economic model of regime change: Freedom as a public good

This paper analyses regime change via a peaceful revolution. Under these circumstances, peaceful manifestations of unrest reach a point at which the prevailing political system collapses and is replaced by a system which provides more freedom. Such regime change occurred in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria. It is shown that the successful quest for freedom may be explained as a dynamic game. The game has a unique strong equilibrium — that is, a Nash equilibrium robust against mass defections — which arises in consequence of a trigger strategy which is similar to the Tit-For-Tat strategy in a repeated Prisoners' Dilemma.     

The secular contract: sovereignty,secularism and law in Australia

What does it mean to say that a nation-state is secular? Secular law typically begins when a state has no religious competitor for authority. For this reason, it can be said that the Australian state is secular because its authority is derived from its own laws. What makes Australian law sovereign, the highest authority within the state, is its secularity. However, given Australia's colonial heritage, it is not just the absence of religious authority, such as a state religion, that gives the state its secularity. The law's foundations in colonial violence and the extinguishment of Indigenous sovereignty as a competing authority are also a crucial way in which secular Australian law can continue to operate as the sovereign authority within the state. Using the work of Charles W. Mills, I will critically interrogate how legal and political characterisations of the law as secular work to disavow the state's racialised foundations in colonial violence in the form of a “secular contract”. In developing this notion of a “secular contract” I hope to show that secularism be must re-thought of as not simply the operation of law without religion, but also, as complicit with the ways indigenous sovereignties in (post)colonial states are negated.     

Fraud,grievances, and post-election protests in competitive authoritarian regimes

Why does election fraud trigger protest in the aftermath of some competitive authoritarian elections but not others? It is often argued that post-election protests occur when information about fraud confirms and reinforces mass grievances against the regime. However, grievances are not universal in autocracies. By focusing on whether government spending primarily benefits the ruling coalition or the masses—thereby affecting economic inequality and mass grievances—the theoretical argument in this article demonstrates how fraud both can lead to post-election protests and work in the autocratic government's favor. I find evidence for the theoretical argument in an analysis of 628 competitive elections in 98 authoritarian regimes (1950–2010). More broadly, the article advances our understanding of competitive elections in autocracies by focusing on how autocratic governments pursue multiple election strategies to promote regime stability and how combinations of strategies affect popular mobilization.     

Explaining judicial reform outcomes in new democracies: The importance of authoritarian legalism in Argentina,Brazil, and Chile

Recent judicial reforms after democratic transition have been substantial and relatively successful in Chile, but much less so in Argentina and Brazil. This article traces this variation in outcomes to the legal strategies of the prior authoritarian regimes. The Brazilian military regime of 1964–1985 was gradualist in its approach to the law, and had a high degree of civilian-military consensus in the legal sphere. It was not highly repressive in its deployment of lethal violence, and this combination of factors contributed to a gradualist and consensual transition in which judicial reform was not placed high on the political agenda. The Argentine case of military rule between 1976 and 1983 was almost the opposite. The military sidestepped and even attacked the judiciary, engaging in almost entirely extrajudicial violence. This generated a “backlash” reform movement after the transition to democracy that was mostly retrospective and only partially successful. In Chile, in contrast, the military engineered a radical break with previous legality, engaged in violent repression, but made considerable efforts to reconstruct a judicial order. It was in the aftermath of this situation that reformers were able to push through a prospective and relatively successful judicial reform. This article's findings suggest that judicial reform may be more likely to succeed where the prior authoritarian regime was both repressive and legalistic, as in Chile, Poland, and South Africa, than where high degrees of repression were applied largely extrajudicially, as in Argentina, Cambodia, and Guatemala, or where the authoritarian regime was legalistic but not highly repressive, as in Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.     

When Decentralization Leads to Recentralization: Subnational State Transformation in Uganda

Abstract

Among other shortcomings of decentralization reforms undertaken by developing countries since the 1980s, recent research finds that the reforms' primary aim—devolution of authority to localities—has often not been achieved in practice. This article builds on that insight, examining an understudied pathway through which states that have undertaken decentralization can ultimately recentralize power: administrative unit proliferation. Rapid creation of numerous new subnational administrative units is an increasingly common occurrence in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This phenomenon, I argue, allows for recentralization by reducing the intergovernmental bargaining power and administrative capacity of each subnational unit, as well as by substantially expanding both the reach of the national executive's patronage network and its ability to monitor emergent security threats on its periphery. The article illustrates these mechanisms with evidence from Uganda.     

Quasi-Contractual Ministerial Steering of State Agencies: Its Intensity,Modes, and How Agency Characteristics Matter

ABSTRACT:

This article demonstrates the value of conceptualizing four ideal types when studying ministries’ contract steering of state agencies—relational, double-whammy, performance, and behavioral steering—each defined by its combination of input- and output-oriented steering. In the system under study—Norway—about half of all agencies are subjected to steering with a clear profile; the other half are not. The two profiles often dismissed or overlooked in existing research—relational and double-whammy steering—are most common. Thus, introducing a contract regime has not meant a clear shift from input to output control, as posited by some. Most agency characteristics under study—size, age, political salience, and tasks—have significant effects on the likelihood that an agency is subjected to one type of steering or another. Still, the analysis suggests that agency-level characteristics constrain ministerial choice about which steering to practice only to a limited extent.     

Ideocracy and Totalitarianism: A Formal Analysis Incorporating Ideology

In the present paper it is shown how totalitarianregimes can arise or be averted depending on theconditions described by the parameters and the initialvalues of the system. The main reason for theevolution of totalitarian regimes is the presence ofbelievers who are convinced that others have to beconverted to the supreme values of their ideology fortheir well-being and, possibly, that there existinconvertible enemies of their creed whose presence isobnoxious to them and to the absolute truths of theirideology. Believers are thus prepared to spendresources on winning new converts and to win thesecular power of the state. Whether they succeed inthis endeavour depends on the costs of converting newbelievers and on the amount of resources they areprepared to spend for this purpose, given theiravailable incomes and their propensity to consume.Their chances to succeed are greater if a crisisoccurs, an event which is usually outside of theircontrol. Once secular power has been secured, theresources of the state can be used to win moreconverts, to drive into exile or to killinconvertibles and to try to reach the imperialisticaims implied by the ideology. If the latter is not thecase, the regime may turn into a mature ideocracyafter having reached its domestic aims. This would forinstance be the case, if all inconvertibles had beenremoved and all the other population been converted. Inthis case no further terror and (or) repressionscharacteristic of totalitarian regimes are required. If the ideology implies ambitious imperialistic aims,for instance the conversion of all people on earth(except for inconvertibles) or the domination of thewhole globe by the believers, it is highly probablethat these aims cannot be reached. As a consequenceeither a war is lost and leads to the removal of thetotalitarian regime, or the ends have to be adapted tomaintain the credibility of the ideology. But then thetotalitarian state may again turn into a matureideocracy, if the ideology has been reinterpreted toremove its unrealistic imperialistic aims. Or thechange of the ideology weakens the regime in a waythat it loses its proselytizing character altogether,and turns into an ordinary autocratic regime.     

What has the Brexit Process done to Scotch Whisky?

The United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union does not have any impact on Scotch whisky itself: Brexit or not, Scotch whisky is Scotch whisky. However, it features more prominently in the Brexit negotiations than, for example, beer. This is because Scotch whisky is a highly export‐oriented product which brings large economic benefits to the UK—particularly Scotland—and its brand is protected by the international regime of intellectual property rights protection, especially, by the geographical indications regime championed by the EU. Moreover, the Brexit negotiations have led to the resurfacing of another political issue which affects Scotch whisky: Scottish independence. As a strong territorial brand, the constitutional status of Scotland is highly relevant to Scotch whisky and the investigation into the impact of the Brexit process on Scotch whisky has highlighted the inter‐connectedness of various political issues.     

Regulate Yourself

The Leveson Inquiry recommended that a new press regulator be created, with a statutory backing—which the government and opposition agreed should be a Royal Charter. Presently, a Press Recognition Panel, backed by the Charter, has been created, but has attracted no requests for recognition. Only one regulator has been set up—IPSO: it has a membership of most of the newspaper and magazine groups in the UK, but will not ask for recognition, since it does not wish to have any formal link with the state. Though the campaign against the Royal Charter has been grossly overblown, the press is right to refuse to join an institution which is guaranteed by the state. State‐backed regulation, in any form, will not in the UK lead to tyranny, censorship or any more than occasional meddling. But a link to the state is a bad idea for an independent press. Not only does this set a bad precedent, opening up a temptation for behind‐the‐scenes pressure, but more importantly it misses the point. Bad and abusive journalism is not improved by regulation. It is improved by journalists understanding the main task of journalism is to report and analyse accurately and neutrally. This complements robust debate and opinion and contributes greatly to a well‐informed citizenry.     

Zwischen Macht und Gerechtigkeit

The nuclear nonproliferation regime is an amazing success story: The number of countries which have stopped nuclear weapons activities in various stages of progress is much larger than the number of nuclear weapon states. At the apex of its success, however, the regime is threatened by erosion from two different directions: A small number of rule-breakers and outsiders undermines its central objective: to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. The refusal of the official nuclear weapon states to fulfill their undertaking of nuclear disarmament violates the principle of justice enshrined in the treaty, and thereby destroys its legitimacy. This insight has meanwhile expanded beyond the group of stubborn disarmers into the mainstream security establishment. How successful this expansion will be will determine the future of the regime — with far-reaching consequences for global security.