Religion, democracy and civil liberties: theoretical perspectives and empirical
ramifications*1
Jeffrey haynes
London Metropolitan University
Jeff.haynes@londonmet.ac.uk
Abstract
Religion is now politically active in ways which until recently were unthinkable. Both in
Europe and elsewhere in the world, there are numerous examples of how religion has left its
previously assigned place in the private sphere, becoming in some cases an important
contributor to various political issues, conflicts and competitions. To understand what has
happened in this regard necessarily involves a remodelling and re-assumption of our
understanding of the public roles of religious actors. Until the 1960s or 1970s, theories of
secularization had long condemned religious actors in both Western and non-Western
countries to social and political marginalization. Secularization theory maintained that as
countries modernized, religion would lose its public centrality. But, as this did not happen,
there is now a need to rethink the public role of religion. This article is concerned with this
issue, with a focus on Europe, using democratization, democracy and civil liberties as key
examples.
Keywords: religion, secularization, privatization, democratization, civil liberties,
Introduction
Religion has left its previously assigned place in the private sphere both in Europe and in
many other parts of the world, becoming politically active in various ways and with assorted
outcomes. This necessarily involves a remodelling and re-assumption of our understanding of
the public roles of religious actors.1 Until recently, theories of secularization had long
condemned religious actors in both Western and non-Western countries to social and political
marginalization. Secularization theory maintained that as countries modernized, religion
would lose its public centrality. But, as this did not happen, there is now a need to rethink the
public role of religion. This article is concerned with this issue, in relation to democratization,
democracy and civil liberties.
1
To be published in European Political Science, June 2012.
1
The article provides a brief overview of key debates and main arguments concerning
the current interaction of religion, democracy and civil liberties in Europe and elsewhere. I
will argue that: (1) it is undesirable to essentialize religious traditions; (2) it is necessary to
accept the multi-vocal nature of all religious discourses – which can provide resources for
both supporters and opponents of democracy and civil liberties; and (3) cultural factors –
including religion – are normally of secondary importance in explaining both successful and
unsuccessful democratic outcomes and the development of civil liberties. Overall, the article
aims to provide: (1) a brief survey of the main theoretical perspectives on the issue of
religion, democratization, democracy and civil liberties; and (2) a concise review of the
attitudes towards democracy and civil liberties, with a focus on blasphemy and Islam.
The article is structured as follows. The first section examines how and why polities
move from authoritarianism to democratization and, in some cases, democracy. The second
section investigates the relationship between religion, democratization and democracy. The
third section assesses the relationship between Europe and Islam, in the context of
democracy, civil liberties and blasphemy.
FROM DEMOCRATIZATION TO DEMOCRACY: NOT A LINEAR TRAJECTORY
Democratization is a process. It can occur in four not necessarily discrete stages: (1) political
liberalization; (2) collapse of authoritarian regime; (3) democratic transition; and (4)
consolidation of democracy. Political liberalization is the process of reforming authoritarian
rule. The collapse of the authoritarian regime stage refers to the stage when a dictatorship
falls apart. Democratic transition is the material shift to democracy, commonly marked by
the democratic election of a new government. Consolidation of democracy is the process of
2
both embedding democratic institutions and perceptions among both elites and citizens that
democracy is the best – indeed, only legitimate– way of ‘doing’ politics.
The four stages are complementary and can overlap. For example, political
liberalization and transition can happen simultaneously, while aspects of democratic
consolidation can appear when certain elements of transition are barely in place or remain
incomplete. Or they may even be showing signs of retreating. On the other hand, it is nearly
always possible to observe a concluded transition to democracy. This is when a pattern of
behaviour developed ad hoc during the stage in which regime change becomes
institutionalized, characterized by admittance of political actors into the system – as well as
the process of political decision-making – according to previously established and
legitimately coded procedures.
Until then, absence of (or uncertainty about) these accepted ‘rules of the democratic
game’ make it difficult to be sure about the eventual outcome of political transitions. This is
because the transition dynamics revolve around strategic interactions and tentative
arrangements between actors with uncertain power resources. Key issues include: (1)
defining who is legitimately entitled to play the political ‘game’; (2) the criteria determining
who wins and who loses politically; and (3) the limits to be placed on the issues at stake.
What chiefly differentiates the four stages of democratization is the degree of uncertainty
prevailing at each moment. For example, during regime transition all political calculations
and interactions are highly uncertain. This is because political actors find it difficult to know:
(1) what their precise interests are; and (2) which groups and individuals would most usefully
be allies or opponents.
During transitions, powerful, often inherently undemocratic, political players, such as
elements within the armed forces and/or elite civilian supporters of the exiting authoritarian
3
regime, characteristically divide into what Huntington (1991) calls ‘hard-line’ and ‘soft-line’
factions. ‘Soft-liners’ are relatively willing to achieve negotiated solutions to the political
problems, while ‘hard-liners’ are unwilling to arrive at solutions reflecting compromise
between polarised positions. Democratic consolidation is most likely when ‘soft-liners’
triumph because, unlike ‘hard-liners’, they are willing to find a compromise solution.
A consolidated democracy is in place when all political ‘players’ – political elites,
political groups and the mass of ordinary people – commonly accept both formal rules and
informal understandings determining political outcomes: that is, ‘who gets what, where, when
and how’. If achieved, it signifies that groups are settling into relatively predictable positions
involving politically legitimate behaviour according to generally acceptable rules. More
generally, a consolidated democracy is characterized by normative limits and established
patterns of power distribution. Political parties emerge as privileged in this context because,
despite their divisions over strategies and their uncertainties about partisan identities, the
logic of electoral competition focuses public attention on them and compels them to appeal to
the widest possible clientele. In addition, ‘strong’ civil societies – that is, not overly
fragmented along class, ethnic or religious lines – are important for democratic consolidation,
primarily because such a civil society is best placed to keep an eye on the state and what it
does with its power. In sum, democratic consolidation exists when all major political actors
take for granted the fact that recognizably democratic processes consistently dictate
governmental renewal.
Despite numerous relatively free and fair elections over the last three decades in many
formerly authoritarian countries, in many cases ordinary people continue to lack the ability to
significantly and consistently influence political outcomes. This is often because small groups
of elites – comprising civilians, military personnel, or a combination – typically not only
control national political processes but also manage more widely to dictate political
4
conditions. Under such conditions, because power is still focused in relatively few elite
hands, political systems have narrow bases from which most ordinary people are, or feel,
excluded. This can be problematic because, by definition, a democracy should not be run by
and for the few, but should signify a popularly-elected government operating in the broad
public interest. In most consolidated democracies, the political role and significance of
religious actors is low. But not in all cases: in some countries (for example, Iran and Poland)
religious actors have recently played a leading role in fundamental political changes.
RELIGION, DEMOCRATIZATION AND DEMOCRACY
Democracy was originally a form of direct governance by the citizens of a city (polis) in
ancient Greece. In modern times, democracy refers to governance rooted in representative
institutions whose officeholders are chosen by the populace through general elections.
Attention to the relationship between religion and democracy focuses on: (1) the historical
role of religion in directly generating, opposing, and sustaining democratic states and
movements; (2) the study of religious organizations as mediating institutions that strengthen
civil society and thus reinforce democracy; (3) the influence of democratic political authority
upon religious traditions founded on other modes of legitimate authority; (4) democratic and
non-democratic forms of governance within religious organizations; and (5) the long-term
viability of religion and religious belief in modern democracies characterized by high levels
of religious pluralism.
The relationship between religion, democratization and democracy centres on three
issues:
5

Religious traditions have core elements which are more or less conducive to
democratization and democracy;

Religious traditions are typically multi-vocal – yet at any moment there will be
powerful figures who are more or less receptive to, and encouraging of, democracy;

Religious actors on their own rarely if ever determine democratization outcomes. Yet,
they may in various ways, and with a range of outcomes, be significant for
democratization. This may especially be the case in countries that have a long
tradition of secularisation.
The starting point is to note that around the world, religions have left their assigned place in
the private sphere, becoming politically active in various ways and with assorted outcomes.
This general re-emergence from political marginality dates from the 1980s. As Casanova
(1994: 6) notes, then ‘what was new and became ‘news’ … was the widespread and
simultaneous refusal of religions to be restricted to the private sphere’. This involved a
remodelling and re-assumption of public roles by religious actors, which theories of
secularization had long condemned to social and political marginalisation.
The core of secularization theory is that it was once believed inevitable that
modernization would inexorably, fundamentally, and globally lead both to religious
privatization and secularization. The result would be everywhere an elemental decline in
religion’s social and political importance. This was believed to be the case, regardless of
religious tradition or form of dominant political power. Thirty years ago, however, Iran’s
1979 revolution posed fundamental questions – which continue to resonate – in relation to
this conventional wisdom. Contemporaneously, the Roman Catholic Church began to play an
increasingly important role in relation to democratization in various world regions, including:
6
Central and Eastern Europe, Africa, East Asia and Latin America. These two
contemporaneous developments not only collectively emphasized that modernization does
not necessarily lead to secularization but also that religion can sometimes play a key role in
fundamental political changes. In sum: (1) there is more than one relevant interpretation of
modernization (‘multiple modernities’); and (2) religion may play an important role in
significant political changes, even in parts of the world, such as Europe, long thought to be
inevitably secularising.
The nature of the relationship between religion, democratization and democracy is a
crucial issue in the political life of the contemporary world. Although scholars disagree about
their nature and scope, there is widespread concern in many countries on three issues: the role
of religious actors in (1) helping underpin or support authoritarian regimes; (2) intercommunal clashes; and (3) transnational extremist networks. In today’s Europe, for example,
such phenomena represent a dual challenge: first, religious communities must effectively
integrate into democratic institutions while, second, policy-makers must work out and
implement new policies and forms of cooperation to cope with previously unexpected threats
and issues, some of which come from religious extremist actors.
Theoretically, the issue of how, or if, religious traditions and religious actors might
affect the possibility of successful democratization and, once established, democracy, has
long been debated. During the decades immediately after World War II, many scholars
agreed that political culture – which can be defined as citizens’ orientation toward politics,
affecting their perceptions of political legitimacy – was very important in explaining success
or failure of democratization and democracy. The political culture approach focused on how
and in what ways religious traditions and actors were believed to feed into and affect a
country’s political culture, including citizens’ preference or dislike of democracy. For
7
example, in West Germany, Italy and Japan, cultural traditions – including, Roman
Catholicism in Italy, Christian Democracy in West Germany and a rich heritage of
democracy-oriented philosophies and traditions in Japan – were said to be important,
facilitating – with external assistance – the (re)making of these countries’ political culture
after lengthy experiences of undemocratic, totalitarian regimes (Linz and Stepan, 1996;
Stepan, 2000; Huntington, 1991).
By the 1960s, Germany, Italy and Japan had become established democracies. Soon after, a
new theoretical orthodoxy emerged. This was linked to the period of sustained decolonisation
in Africa, Asia and elsewhere in the developing world. The theoretical focus in relation to
both democratization and democracy shifted to institutional and economic factors: more
robust, more representative institutions coupled with sustained economic growth were, it was
claimed, the key reasons why countries democratized or not. At this time, the importance of
cultural factors, including religion and ethnicity, were marginalized. Later, between the mid1970s and mid-1990s, the ‘third wave of democracy’ – which, inter alia, saw the shift from
communist to democratic rule in many Central and Eastern European countries – helped to
turn attention once again to the role of culture – including religion and ethnicity – and their
role in democratic outcomes, both successful and unsuccessful. For example, in Poland at this
time, the Roman Catholic Church played a key role in undermining the country’s communist
regime, helping establish a post-communist, democratically accountable government
(Weigel, 2003, 2009). The perceived pro-democracy role of the Church was not however
restricted to Poland, but extended to Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia. There was also
the contemporaneous rise of the Christian Right in the United States of America, and its
considerable subsequent impact on the electoral fortunes of both the Republican and
Democratic parties. Add to this the widespread growth of Islamist movements across the
Muslim world, with significant ramifications for electoral outcomes in various countries,
8
including Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, electoral successes for the Bharatiya Janata Party in India
in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and substantial, sustained political influence for various
(Jewish) religious political parties in Israel. The overall outcome is that in recent years
(where the focus has been upon, but not restricted to, the third wave of democracy), we have
seen a rapid growth of religious involvement in politics, with major ramifications not only for
democracy but also for one of its key components: civil liberties.
According to Huntington (1997), religions have a crucial impact on democratization.
For him, Christianity has a strong propensity to be supportive of democracy while other
religions, such as Islam, Buddhist and Confucianism, do not. However, focusing upon the
Central and Eastern European democratizing experience, Linz and Stepan (1996) argue that
religion was not generally a key explanatory factor explaining democratization outcomes. In
relation to Muslim countries, Halliday (2005) avers that apparent barriers to democracy in
some regional countries are rooted in social and political, not religious, factors. They include
long histories of authoritarian rule and weak civil societies. Although some of those features
tend to be legitimized in terms of ‘Islamic doctrine’, there is in fact nothing specifically
‘Islamic’ about them.
EUROPE AND ISLAM: DEMOCRACY, CIVIL LIBERTIES AND BLASPHEMY
There is broad agreement that in Europe, especially the continent’s western portion, the
public role of religion has changed significantly in recent years. Now, in most of the region’s
countries, there is a compartmentalization of societies and consequent reduction in churches’
social and political significance. One school of thought believes that this is a continuous trend
(Gauchet, 1995; Hirst, 2003). Another contends that religion is still institutionally and
politically powerful in many European societies (Casanova, 1994; Berger, 1999). Recent
9
opinion polls indicate that many – perhaps most – Europeans still perceive themselves to be
differentiated or affected by religious and/or cultural criteria, which in Europe is traditionally
Christianity; some are of relevance to political outcomes, manifested in various ways (Davie
2000). They include:

Catholic/Protestant divisions, especially in Northern Ireland and to an extent in
Germany. In the former, religious-cultural divisions are the main social basis of
competing political parties, such as the Catholic/nationalist Sinn Fein and the
Protestant/loyalist Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Unionist Party.

Religious differences – roughly along right-left political lines – internal to the
main confessional traditions. In Britain, for example, there is the cross-party,
socially conservative Movement for Christian Democracy, while both France and
Italy also have Christian political movements, also notable for their social
conservatism.

A variety of church-state relationships.
However, such concerns are only intermittently important in domestic political contexts in a
few European countries. Of more general regional concern is the role of Islam in relation to
both democracy and civil liberties, including the issue of blasphemy. Areas of concern
include:

The impact of globalisation on the religious, political and social position of
Europe’s Muslim minorities. For most European Muslims, Islam is an important
basis of identity which can impact upon various social and political concerns.

European fears of Islamic extremism. This issue came to the fore largely as a
result of the 11 September 2001 New York and Pentagon attacks, and the Madrid
and London bombings in March 2004 and July 2005 respectively. In France, in
10
addition, a focus on extremist Islam was provided by the Paris riots of OctoberNovember 2005. Some commentators claimed that the riots were indicative of a
new trend in France: alienated youths from Muslim backgrounds did not see
themselves primarily as French but as Muslims, part of the global Islamic ummah,
empowered and radicalised by extremist ideas.

Muslim Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Fears of Islamic extremism
encourage some Europeans to oppose Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.
Would Europe’s ‘Christian cultural identity’ be destroyed by admission of
Turkey, with its nearly 80 million – mostly Muslim – people? Would it open up
Europe to increased infiltration from Islamist extremism?

Blasphemy issues. Blasphemy – that is, irreverence toward supposed holy
personages, religious artifacts, customs, and beliefs – has become a key civil
liberties issue in many European countries in recent years, especially in relation to
Islam.
Civil liberties are an individual’s basic human or civil rights. They are central to a
recognizably democratic environment. In Britain, for example, the Human Rights Act of
1998 guarantees various rights, which are fundamental to democratic life, including: the right
to life, freedom from torture, freedom from slavery and forced labour, the right to liberty and
security, the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy, freedom of conscience, freedom of
expression, freedom of assembly and association, and the right to marry and have a family.
Certain civil liberties, including freedom of speech and religion, have long been of
interest to philosophers, political scientists, and scholars of jurisprudence (Dworkin, 1977;
Feinberg, 1980; Helwig, 1995). Various civil liberties issues have become causes célèbres in
North America and Europe in recent years. These include an obscenity trial over the showing
11
of a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; public reaction to a proposed
amendment to the US Constitution outlawing burning of the American flag; debate in Canada
over laws restricting English language on business signs in French-speaking Quebec;
attempts to prohibit or restrict potentially racist, misogynous, or violent content in popular
music and on university campuses across North America, and, the issue of freedom of speech
versus the ‘right’ to denigrate Islam.
In recent years, in Europe and elsewhere, there is increased attention to blasphemy in
the context of freedom of expression, with Islam a focal point. For many European Muslims,
freedom of expression is a controversial issue. At the same time, blasphemy laws are now
rarely used in many European countries, a reflection of a continuing process of
secularization. Table 1 shows a list of recent blasphemy issues and illustrates how the
relevant laws are decreasingly used.
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Table 1: Blasphemy in Europe
Country
Denmark
Norway
Britain
Germany
France
Italy
The
Netherlands
Austria
Poland
Law(s)
Denmark is the country where the infamous
‘Muhammad cartoons’ were first published in
September 2005. A law exists providing for fines
and up to four months in jail for anyone who
‘publicly offends or insults a religion that is
recognized in the country’. A court case was
brought against the paper (Jyllands-Posten) that
printed the Danish cartoons by 11 Muslim groups.
Norway has a public order law dating from the
1930s. The law in principle outlaws blasphemy
with a possible penalty of up to six months in jail.
Yet, in recent times the law has not been used.
Britain has an old, little-used law against
blasphemy, and a new law that outlaws incitation to
religious hatred. However the former explicitly
applies only to the Anglican Church, as Muslim
leaders discovered when they tried to use it against
the writer Salman Rushdie for his novel, The
Satanic Verses, published in 1989. The terms of
reference of the new law on religious hatred have
been kept deliberately narrow, to take in only acts
or words explicitly aimed at sparking violence.
Germany has an anti-blasphemy law dating from
1871, rarely used in recent decades.
France outlawed blasphemy at the time of the 1789
revolution; the law has never been reinstated.
Italy has a law against ‘outrage to a religion’.
The country has a law proscribing what is called
‘scornful blasphemy’, and providing for up three
months in jail and a fine of €70. The last major case
brought under the law was in 1968 against a writer
who wrote a poem about having sex with God. The
case was eventually thrown out of court.
Austrian law prohibits the ridiculing of a religion,
with a potential penalty of up to six months six
months in jail if someone is found guilty of the
offence.
Poland has a legal provision against publicly
offending a person’s religious feelings, with up to
two years in prison. Artist Dorota Nieznalska was
sued under the law for a sculpture in which male
genitals were shown attached to a Christian
crucifix.
13
Recent issues
Case dismissed, with the judges
considering that the issue of freedom of
expression was more important than the
ban on blasphemy.
None
None
First, in 1994 there was a ban on
musical comedy that ridiculed the
Catholic doctrine of the immaculate
conception by portraying crucified pigs.
Second, a man – ‘Manfred van H.’ who insulted the Islamic holy book by
printing the word ‘Koran’ on toilet
paper received a suspended jail sentence
of a year in prison and 300 hours
community service.
N/A
Law used against journalist Oriana
Fallaci over her outspoken statements
and writings on Islam in 2005. She died
in September 2006.
None
In 2002, Gerhard Haderer published a
book of cartoons depicting Jesus as a
marijuana-smoking hippie. He received
a six-month jail term, later reversed.
Nieznalska was finally acquitted in June
2009 following numerous appeals
against sentence.
Source: ‘Europe’s Blasphemy Laws’, Deutsche Welle, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1894686,00.html
(‘Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international broadcaster that produces television, radio and online content in 30
languages. It provides a European perspective to its global audience and promotes intercultural dialogue.’
[http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,3325,00.html])
In 2005, a focal point for Muslim concerns about blasphemy was the publication of the socalled ‘Muhammad cartoons’ in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten (in English, The
Morning Newspaper/The Jutland Post) in 2005. 2 The controversy erupted after 12 cartoons
were published in the newspaper on 30 September 2005. Several of the cartoons portrayed
Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, and some seemed to equate him with terrorism. The purpose,
the newspaper claimed, was to contribute to a continuing debate regarding criticism of Islam
and self-censorship. The effect however was almost certainly not what the newspaper
intended, as publication of the cartoons was followed by public protests from Danish Muslim
organizations,
3
which helped to disseminate knowledge about them around the world. The
controversy swiftly grew, with newspapers in over 50 countries reprinting some or all of the
cartoons. The result was often violent protests in many countries, especially in the Muslim
world. Both Jyllands-Posten – whose office received a bomb threat in January 2006 – and
Denmark became a focus of Muslim anger. Demonstrators in the Gaza Strip (Palestinian
territory) burned Danish flags, Saudi Arabia and Libya withdrew their ambassadors to
Denmark, Danish goods were boycotted across the Middle East, and many Middle Eastern
and Asian countries saw violent clashes, with demonstrators attacking the Danish and
Norwegian Embassies in Tehran and thousands of protesters taking to the streets in Egypt,
the West Bank, Jordan and Afghanistan. Overall, the main complaint expressed by critics of
the cartoons were that they were both islamophobic and blasphemous, while their main
purpose was to humiliate a marginalized Danish minority and more generally to insult Islam.
In February 2006 Denmark’s then Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, announced that
the Prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy was Denmark’s worst international crisis since
World War II (Times Online, 2006).
14
There were major international ramifications beyond Denmark and Europe. For
example, in Egypt, a government-owned newspaper, Al-Gomhuria, stated on 2 February
2006: ‘It is not a question of freedom of opinion or belief. It is a conspiracy against Islam
and Muslims which has been in the works for years. The international community should
understand that any attack against our prophet will not go unpunished’. From Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia, a journalist, Amr Al-Faisal, writing in the pro-government Arab News,
commented four days later: ‘Muslims are not doing enough to stop the aggression of
Western countries, shown by the incident of the Muhammad cartoons. This aggression
stems from their weakness.’ Al-Faisal proposed a gradual boycott of Western economies
coupled with increased self-reliance on Muslim manufacturing capacity (Worldpress.org,
2006).
Supporters of the cartoons claimed they illustrate an important issue in an age of
‘Islamist religious terrorism’: their publication exercises the right of free speech – a key
civil liberty – which, it is claimed, extremists abhor. In addition, the furore was said to
illustrate the intolerance of Muslims: similar cartoons about other religions are often
printed, supporters claimed, illustrating that Muslims were not being targeted in a
discriminatory fashion. In Amman, Jordan, a weekly tabloid newspaper, Al-Shihan
published three of the cartoons on 1 February, 2006, accompanied by pleas for Muslims of
the world to ‘be reasonable’. Jihad Momani, the editor-in-chief, explained his decision to
print because ‘people are attacking drawings that they have not even seen’. His action was
not however accepted in the spirit that he claimed: Momani was swiftly removed from his
post and the newspapers withdrawn from the newsstands (Worldpress.org, 2006).
There were international attempts to dampen down the furore. The Organization of
the Islamic Conference (OIC) joined the United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU)
15
in appealing for calm over the cartoons. A statement attributed to the OIC secretary
general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, along with the then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan,
and the then EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said: ‘We are deeply alarmed at the
repercussions of the publication in Denmark several months ago of insulting caricatures of
the Prophet Muhammad and their subsequent republication by some other European
newspapers, and at the violent acts that have occurred in reaction to them’ (Solana quoted
in Bilefsky, 2006).
Iran attempted to take the lead among Muslims in the controversy. EU officials
expressed concern that Iran, at the time increasingly isolated over its nuclear programme,
was said to be seeking to exploit the crisis to try to unite the Muslim world against the
West (Tisdall, 2006). Iran’s largest selling newspaper, Hamshahri, announced it was
sponsoring a contest to draw cartoons caricaturing the Holocaust in response to the
publishing in European papers of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Hamshahri stated that
‘private individuals’ would offer gold coins to the best 12 artists — the same number of
cartoons that appeared in Jyllands-Posten. The purpose of the competition, according to
the newspaper, was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive
material in the name of freedom of expression (Worldpress.org, 2006).
CONCLUSION
The article has illustrated that, in Europe, religion is now deprivatized, becoming politically
active in various ways and with assorted outcomes. This necessitates a rethinking of our
understanding of the public roles of religious actors, in relation to issues of fundamental
political importance, including: democratization, democracy and civil liberties.
16
The article provided a brief overview of key debates and main arguments concerning
the current interaction of religion, democracy and civil liberties, with the main examples
drawn from Europe. The article highlighted how implausible it is to essentialize religious
traditions, while seeing the necessity of accepting the existence of religious discourses’ multivocal natures – which can, for example, provide resources both in support for, and in
opposition to, democracy and civil liberties. It also stressed that the impact of various cultural
factors – including those explicitly linked to religion – are normally of secondary importance
in explaining democratic outcomes and successful development of civil liberties. Overall, the
article pursued two lines of enquiry. It provided: (1) a brief survey of the main theoretical
perspectives on the issue of religion, democratization, democracy and civil liberties; and (2) a
concise review of the attitudes towards democracy and civil liberties, with a focus on
blasphemy and Islam.
Turning to the blasphemy issue, the ‘Muhammad cartoons’ controversy underlined
how the issue of Islam and the position of Muslims in European countries generates intense
debate both in Europe and around the world. Many non-Muslim Europeans may regard
blasphemy as a passé issue and perhaps cannot understand why Muslims in Europe could get
so animated about a few cartoons. Perhaps it implied that Islam and a fundamental civil
liberty – freedom of speech – are incompatible? If so, what does this tell us about the
willingness of European Muslims to live in democratic European countries?
It is of course necessary to separate out the two issues: democracy and blasphemy. On
the one hand, there is no evidence that European Muslims do not for the most part appreciate
living in democratic environments. On the other hand, there is clear evidence – shown by,
inter alia, the furore over Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses (1989) and the Danish cartoons
17
imbroglio (2005) – that freedom to denigrate the most sacred aspects of Islam is not regarded
by many Muslims as a sacrosanct democratic right.
18
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Key Quotes
p.3: “...there is now a need to rethink the public role of religion.”
p.8: “...modernization does not necessarily lead to secularization...”
p.11: “...Europeans still perceive themselves to be differentiated or affected by religious
and/or cultural criteria...”
p.19: “...in Europe, religion is now deprivatized...”
Notes
1
A religious actor is encouraged to undertake action by religious faith. Such actors include: Christian churches
and comparable religious organisations in non-Christian religious contexts; social movements whose main
motivating factor is, while variable, always centrally motivated by members’ religious beliefs and worldviews;
and political parties, whose ideology identifiably has its roots in religious beliefs, worldviews and traditions.
Jyllands-Posten, based in a suburb of the city of Aarhus, is Denmark’s biggest selling daily newspaper, with a
weekday circulation of approximately 150,000 copies.
2
3
Denmark is home to approximately 150,000 Muslims, amounting to less than three percent of the overall
population of 5.4 million. Around a quarter are of Turkish ethnic origin. Earlier migrants came primarily for
economic reasons, while from the 1980s many came as refugees. Currently about 40% of all Muslims in
20
Denmark have a refugee background. Most Muslims live in Denmark’s larger cities; most inhabit Copenhagen
(http://euro-islam.info/pages/denmark.html).
21