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Separation of religion and state and secularism in theory and in practice

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DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2011.621675

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 Religion, State & Society, Vol. 39, No. 4, December 2011

Separation of Religion and State and Secularism in Theory

and in Practice

JONATHAN FOX

ABSTRACT
This study examines whether states follow the religion policies they declare in their constitutions. It
identifies four types of policies which officially seek to limit religion’s role in government: absolute
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separation of religion and state (SRAS); neutral political concern; exclusion of ideals; and
secularism–laicism. I determine whether states follow these policies using the religion and state
(RAS) dataset and compare this to constitutional declarations that the state is secular and
declarations of separation of religion and state. The results show that a majority of states which
make both types of declaration do not follow these policies based on any of the four standards used
in this study. However, the presence and wording of these clauses are correlated with state religion
policy.

Introduction
This study1 examines the question of whether countries which declare in their
constitutions that they are secular or follow policies of separation of religion and state
(SRAS) in fact meet these standards.2 That is, it examines whether the formal
constitutional regimes on state religion – or the lack thereof – are consistent with state
practice. Previous empirical studies have shown that most states do not have SRAS
but do not examine whether these states claim to follow such policies by declaring
themselves separationist3 or secular (Fox, 2007, 2008). Other studies show that the
correlation between the presence of an official religion and actual state policy can be
weak (Fox, 2008; Madeley, 2009). Cross-country comparative studies often address
religion in constitutions and state religion policy but rarely systematically analyse the
correlation between the two (for example: Witte, 2001; Hendon and McDaniel, 2006;
Barrett et al., 2001; Barro and McCleary, 2005; Boyle and Sheen, 1997).
This study systematically examines whether states which declare separationist or
secularist–laicist policies in their constitutions follow these policies in practice, using
quantitative methodology. The analysis presented here, which uses the religion and
state (RAS) dataset to measure whether countries meet several standards of
separation of religion and state and secularism–laicism, finds that the majority of
states which declare separationist or secularist-laicist policies in their constitutions do
not meet these standards.

ISSN 0963-7494 print; ISSN 1465-3974 online/11/040384-18 Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2011.621675
 Separation of Religion and State and Secularism 385

Four Models of Secularism–Laicism and Separation of Religion and State

In examining the link between constitutional clauses and state policy, this study
differentiates between types of religion policy, each with different implications for
what governments may and may not do with regard to supporting and limiting
religion. On a most basic level, I differentiate between constitutions which declare a
state secular or laicist and constitutions which declare separation of religion and
state. This difference is key: separationism, on its most basic level, constitutes a state
neutrality toward religion where the state, at least officially, gives preference to no
particular religion but does not restrict the presence of religion in the public sphere;
in contrast the secularist–laicist model specifically declares that not only does the
state not support any religion, it also restricts the presence of religion in the public
sphere. These restrictions can include restrictions on public religious activities and
on religious institutions (Kuru, 2009; Hurd, 2004a,b; Haynes, 1997; Keane, 2000;
Stepan, 2000; Durham, 1996, pp. 21–22; Esbeck, 1988). This model is most strongly
associated in the literature with the policies of France and Turkey – both of which
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maintain a regime of a secular public space. In Turkey, for example, until recent
policy changes, traditional Muslim headcoverings for women have been banned in
many public spaces such as schools (Kuru, 2009). France’s now infamous 2004 law
which restricts the wearing of any overt religious symbols, including head coverings,
in state schools is also an excellent example of this model. While someone from the
US tradition might consider this a restriction on religious liberty, from the French
perspective wearing such symbols constitutes aggressively bringing one’s religion –
which should be a private matter – into the public domain. As I discuss in more
detail below, I operationalise two versions of this model for the statistical portion of
this study in order to measure it at different levels of strictness of adherence to this
model.
This study further differentiates among three models within those states which
maintain separationist policies. While the terms differ across the literature I will rely
on those developed by Fox (2007, 2008), Madeley (2003) and Raz (1986). These three
models, along with secularism–laicism, constitute the four theoretical models
examined in this study.
The first model is absolute SRAS. This model requires that the state neither support
nor hinder any religion. This is perhaps the most extreme form of neutrality among
the three separationist models because it allows no government involvement or
interference in religion at all, though within this trend, opinions on the proper role of
religion in civil society and political discourse differ (Esbeck, 1988; Kuru, 2009). Kuru
(2009) uses the USA as his primary example of this model, arguing that while there is a
struggle between conservatives and liberals over the exact role religion should play in
society and government, both sides support the expression of religion in public life.
For example, the use of religious language by politicians is acceptable, but most state
support for religion is not. As is discussed in more detail below, few states meet the
strictest version of this standard so in this study I develop two operationalisations
under the heading of near-absolute SRAS to measure this model.4 However, not all
forms of separationism avoid government entanglement in religion. Kuru (2009, pp.
44–45) points out that ‘close state–religion entanglements, including official
monotheistic references and public funding of religious schools’ are compatible with
SRAS, ‘as long as the state does not favour one particular religion at the expense of
others’. Esbeck (1988, p. 48) similarly notes that advocates of this trend in the USA
support a state that supports religion in general but ‘prefers no religion over others’.
 386 Jonathan Fox

The other two separationist models used in the empirical portion of this study fall
within this tradition.
The second model, neutral political concern, ‘requires that government action
should not help or hinder any life-plan or way of life more than any other and that the
consequences of government action should therefore be neutral’ (Madeley, 2003, pp.
5–6). This definition allows governments to support or restrict religion as long as the
outcome is equal for all religions (Esbeck, 1988). As I discuss in more detail below, I
operationalise two versions of this model to measure different levels of strictness of
adherence to it.
The third model, exclusion of ideals, requires that ‘the state be precluded from
justifying its actions on the basis of a preference for any particular way of life’
(Madeley, 2003, p. 6). This definition focuses on intent rather than outcome. Thus
religions can in practice be treated differently as long as there is no specific intent to
support or hinder a specific religion.5
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The Religion and State Dataset

The Data
While empirical studies generally discuss the specific relationships which will be
tested in detail before testing the data, the nature of the hypotheses in this study
is tied intrinsically to the data structure, so a brief discussion of the data is
necessary at this point in order to proceed. The RAS dataset essentially measures
absolute SRAS. That is, any support for religion, regulation of religion, or
restriction of religion is considered government involvement in religion and causes
the variables to be coded above 0. This includes treatment of both the
majority and minority religions in a state. I set aside for the moment the question
of how much government involvement in religion of what type can exist in a state
without violating the principles of separationism and secularism–laicism
because this can be better evaluated in the context of the specific RAS measures
used here.
Since there are numerous ways a government can become involved in
religion, the RAS dataset measures government support for, restrictions on and
regulation of religion from several perspectives. Thus any comprehensive
assessment must include an assessment of several types of government religion
policy.
The RAS data are available yearly for the 1990–2002 period for 175 states. All of
the variables are coded primarily on the basis of the behaviour of a state’s national
government, but can include the behaviour of regional and local governments if a
large plurality of such governments engage in a practice. The codings also do not
include societal practice because the dataset focuses on the behaviour of governments
and not on general societal practices. This is especially appropriate for this study
because the concepts of separation of religion and state and of secularism–laicism
represent government religion policy, not the religious behaviour of private citizens,
unless government restrictions on the religious behaviour and expression of private
citizens are involved.6
Space limitations preclude a full discussion of the reasoning behind the structure of
these variables, the items included in these variables, and the influences of previous
work on all of the above. For a detailed discusssion of these issues see Fox and
Sandler (2003) and Fox (2008, pp. 32–61).
 Separation of Religion and State and Secularism 387

Seven Variables
I use seven RAS variables to measure the various forms of separation of religion
and state and secularism–laicism examined in this article: official support; official
hostility; general restrictions; religious discrimination; religious regulation; religious
legislation; general government involvement in religion.

Official support. This variable measures the extent to which a government officially
endorses or supports a religion or several religions. It is coded on the following scale:

0 No support.
1 Supportive: The state supports all religions more or less equally.
2 Cooperation: The state falls short of endorsing a particular religion but certain
religions benefit from state support more than others.
3 Civil religion: While the state does not officially endorse a religion, one religion
serves unofficially as the state’s civil religion.
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4 The state has more than one official religion.

5 The state has one official religion.

Official hostility. This variable measures the extent to which governments are officially
hostile to all religions. It is coded on the following scale:

0 No hostility
1 Separationist: Official separation of religion and state, and the state is slightly
hostile toward religion.
2 Inadvertent Insensitivity: There is little distinction between regulation of religious
institutions and other types of institutions.
3 Hostile: Hostility and overt prosecution of all religions.7

General restrictions. This variable measures whether the state in general restricts
religious practices. It is coded on the following scale:

0 No (other) religions are illegal and there are no significant restrictions on (other)
religions.
1 No (other) religions are illegal but some or all (other) religions have
practical limitations placed upon them or some religions have benefits not given
to others as a result of some form of official recognition or status not given to all
religions.
2 No (other) religions are illegal but some or all (other) religions have legal
limitations placed upon them.
3 Some (other) religions are illegal.
4 All (other) religions are illegal.

The term ‘other’ is in parentheses to represent the difference between countries which
restrict all religions and those which have a majority religion and restrict only
minority religions.

Religious discrimination. This variable measures the extent to which a government

engages in 16 types of restrictions that can be placed on the religious practices of
minority religions.8
 388 Jonathan Fox

Religious regulation. This variable measures the extent to which a government

engages in 11 types of restrictions or regulation that can be placed on the majority
religion in a state.9

Religious legislation. This variable measures the extent to which a government

engages in any of 33 types of religious legislation. It thus looks at how a government
supports religion or legislates about religious precepts.10

General government involvement in religion (GIR). This is a composite variable which

includes the above six variables. It is constructed by rescaling each of the variables to
measure 0–20 and adding the results. It ranges from 0 to 100 because official support
and official hostility cannot both be coded as above 0 at the same time.11

Operationalising Separation of Religion and State and Secularism–Laicism

This study relies on my previous operationalisation of the three types of separationism
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examined here (Fox, 2007, 2008). These studies focused on the impact of democracy
on separation of religion and state and did not address the central question of this
study: whether states which declare separationism or secularism-laicism policies
follow these policies. Table 1 presents the operationalisations of the four types of
government religion policy examined in this study.
I operationalised an absolute-SRAS variable in which all the RAS variables were
coded as 0, but found that only the USA met this standard. Accordingly this study does
not use this variable. I implemented two versions of ‘near-absolute-SRAS’ which
follows the general principle of no government support for or restrictions on religion
but allows for low levels of both, on the basis of the argument that some states may in
general follow absolute-separationist policies but there may be a few isolated
exceptions. I developed three operationalisations of neutral political concern. These
operationalisations are strict with regard to religious discrimination and religious
legislation since the former involves differential treatment of minority groups and the
latter involves preferences given to majority groups. However they are more lenient
with religious regulation which can be applied to all religions equally. Finally, I created
a single definition of exclusion of ideals. Since this version of separationism allows
differential treatment as long as it is not due to a guiding religious ideology, the
operationalisation is lenient on all measures other than religious legislation. For religious
legislation, any of the following components of the religious legislation scale which imply
supporting a single religion is defined as violating the exclusion of ideals principle:

. Dietary laws
. Restrictions or prohibitions on the sale of alcoholic beverages
. Restrictions on conversions away from the dominant religion
. Restrictions on public dress
. Mandatory closing of some or all businesses during religious holidays including
the Sabbath or its equivalent
. Other restrictions on activities during religious holidays including the Sabbath or
its equivalent
. Some or all government officials must meet certain religious requirements in order
to hold office
. Prohibitive restrictions on abortion
. The presence of religious symbols on the state’s flag
 Downloaded by [Jonathan Fox] at 08:13 28 November 2011

Table 1. Operationalisations of separation of religion and state

Official Official General Religious Religious Religious General

support hostility restrictions discrim. regulation legislation GIR

Near-absolute-separationism 1 None None None Up to 3 Up to 3 Up to 3 Up to 5

Near-absolute-separationism 2 None Separationist None Up to 5 Up to 5 Up to 5 Up to 10
Neutral polit. concern 1 None & supportive None & separationist None None Up to 3 Up to 3 Up to 10
Neutral polit. concern 2 None & supportive None & separationist Practical limitations Up to 3 Up to 5 Up to 5 Up to 15
Neutral polit. concern 3 None & supportive None, separationist Practical limitations Up to 5 Up to 10 Up to 5 Up to 20
inadvertent insensitivity
Exclusion of ideals None, supportive, & All codings Practical & legal Up to 10 Up to 10 See list Up to 30
cooperation limitations
Laicism 1 None All codings No limit Up to 5 No limit Up to 2 No limit
Laicism 2 None All codings No limit Up to 10 No Limit Up to 4 No limit
Separation of Religion and State and Secularism
389
 390 Jonathan Fox

. The presence of an official government body which monitors ‘sects’ or minority

religions (Fox, 2008, pp. 58–59).

I used multiple operationalisations for neutral political concern and near-absolute

SRAS because these operationalisations

reflect a fair amount of ambiguities in applying these definitions and include

cutoffs that are somewhat arbitrary. Unfortunately, an element of
arbitrariness is unavoidable in this type of exercise. Thus, these . . . oper-
ationalizations are clearly not the only possible ones . . . . Nevertheless, I
argue that these operationalizations meet . . . key criteria that make them
useful and appropriate. First, they represent a good faith attempt to
operationalize the concepts at hand. Second, they range from the relatively
strict to the relatively lenient, thus allowing for the testing of a broad range
of operational definitions of separation of religion and state. In fact the
most lenient of the definitions arguably allow about as much government
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involvement in religion as any reasonable definition would likely allow and

the strictest allows the minimum possible amount of separation of religion
and state. Third, there are a sufficiently finite number of operationalizations
to make them workable in a study of this nature. (Fox, 2007, pp. 9–10)

I extend this methodology and logic to operationalise two forms of secularism–

laicism, using two operationalisations, with the second being less strict than the first.
As support for religion is specifically banned by this form of government religion
policy, the official support variable must be coded as 0 for a state to be considered as
being secularist–laicist for both operationalisations of this variable. In contrast,
hostility to religion and limits on the public expression of religion are not precluded by
the secularism–laicist model, so the codings of the official hostility, general restrictions
and religious regulation do not influence these variables. Religious legislation is
supportive of a state religion, so it clearly violates the principle of secularism–laicism;
however as only one state is coded as 0 on this variable, the operational variables
allow for low levels of religious legislation. This is also consistent with the argument
noted above that low levels of government support for religion can occur as
exceptions within a framework that generally supports separation of religion and
state. Religious discrimination is a more difficult variable to include. On one hand,
restrictions on religions are allowed, but on the other hand, restrictions placed on
minority religions that are not placed on the majority religion are a form of
favouritism. Accordingly the operational definitions allow low to moderate levels of
religious discrimination.

Operationalising Constitutional Declarations

This study uses constitutions to examine whether a state declares an SRAS or a
secularist–laicist policy. This methodology is not unprecedented as both Kuru (2009,
pp. 12–13) and Ebaugh (2002) do so in comparative analyses. Also, constitutions are
among the most authoritative declarations of a state’s ideals and basic policy. In
addition, they have the methodological advantage of being readily available for most
states and comparable across states.
As constitutions rarely go into great detail on this topic, the coding can hinge on a
few words. This study examines 166 constitutions, which are those of all states
 Separation of Religion and State and Secularism 391

included in the RAS dataset with active constitutions in 2002, save one.12
Constitutions were located primarily from the following sources: the Religion and
Law International Document Database,13 the International Constitutional Law
project,14 the Political Database of the Americas15 and the University of Richmond
Constitution Finder.16 In most cases these databases provided English-language
translations of constitutions not written in English, usually academic or official
government translations. Otherwise, I translated the constitutions using Google
Translate. To test Google Translate’s accuracy, I compared several constitutions for
which translations were available to a translation of the original document by Google
Translate. While the translations were never identical, none of the differences would
have influenced the codings.
States were considered to have a secularism–laicism policy if the constitution
declared the state secular. This is the wording used in the constitutions of both France
and Turkey – states considered to be the archetypical secularist–laicist states. All other
forms of separation of religion and state declared in constitutions were considered to
follow the separationism doctrine. These wordings include: The state may not (shall
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not, etc.) establish/institute/adopt/recognise a religion; There is no state religion; No

religion will have a state character; The state is separate/autonomous/independent
from religion or religious organisations (or vice versa); The state is not bound by
(linked to, connected with, etc.) a religion; and The state shall refrain from engaging in
religious activity.
Unfortunately, none of these wordings are in any clear manner connected to any of
the three specific models of separationism, so this study can look only at the
connection between these more specific policies and general constitutional declara-
tions of state neutrality. For purpose of comparison, this study compares states in
these categories to states whose constitutions declare an official religion and states
whose constitutions neither establish a religion nor declare separationism or
secularism–lacism. This results in four categories of comparison: (1) secular–laicist
states; (2) states declaring SRAS; (3) states whose constitutions do not address the
issue; (4) states with official religions.

Research Design
This study examines the extent to which states follow the religion policies in their
constitutions using both bivariate and multivariate methodology.
The bivariate analysis examines the percentage of states which meet each of the
eight operational standards for separationism and secularism–laicism outlined above
(and presented in Table 1) controlling for the four categories of constitutional state
religion policies based on constitutional declarations noted above.
The multivariate analysis uses binary-logistic regressions using the eight operatio-
nalisations as dependent variables. Each of these variables is coded as 1 if a state meets
that standard. The regressions include three independent variables measuring
constitutional religion policies: separation of religion and state; secularism–lacism;
and official religion. Each of these variables is coded as 1 if the constitution contains
such a clause.17
The independent variables are based on those used by Fox (2007, 2008).They are as
follows:

(1) Religious diversity measured by the Herfindahl methodology, which measures the
probability that two random individuals belong to the same religion. As this is a
 392 Jonathan Fox

measure of religious homogeneity, this study used the formula of 1 minus the
Herfindahl score for a country. The specific Herfindal measure used here is taken
from McCleary and Barro (2006a,b). It is included because the presence of
substantial religious minorities may influence whether a state follows its
constitutional religion policy.
(2) Elsewhere, I demonstrate that religious identity significantly influences religion
policy (Fox, 2008). Accordingly this study controls for whether the majority of a
country is Catholic, another Christian denomination, or Muslim. Each is
included as a separate variable coded as 1 if the majority belongs to the relevant
religion.18
(3) The log of a state’s population is included because it is possible that states with
small populations organise in a different manner from states with larger
populations.19 This variable is taken from the CIA World Factbook (CIA, 2011).
(4) This study measures regime using the Polity index20 which measures regime on a
21-point scale ranging from –10 (most autocratic) to þ10 (most democratic). It is
based on the regulation, openness and competitiveness of executive recruitment,
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constraints on the executive, and the regulation and competitiveness of political

participation. Arguably, democracies are more likely to follow the policies set
out in their constitutions.
(5) In order to measure regime stability this study includes a measure of the number
of years since the last change in the Polity index. This is because stable regimes
are more likely to follow their constitutions.
(6) Several studies have linked economic development with issues of religion and state
(see, for example, Fox, 2008; Norris and Inglehart, 2004). Accordingly, this study
controls for log-per-capita GDP.21 This variable is taken from the GDP figures
provided at the UN Statistics Division website.22

All variables are for 2002, the most recent year available in the RAS dataset.
For multicolinearity tests between the control variables see Fox (2008). In binary
logistical regressions using the three constitutional variables as dependent variables and
as independent variables all of the other independent variables from the primary regres-
sions in this study, the estimated R2 (Nagelkerke) for secularism–laicism clauses,
separationist clauses and official religion clauses were 0.192, 0.210 and 0.483 respectively.
These are well below the 0.700 cutoff where multicolinearity is considered an issue.

Data Analysis and Discussion

The results of the bivariate analysis, presented in Table 2, show that constitutional
clauses have an impact on religion policy but not exactly in the manner expected. We
would expect that separation clauses would make states more likely to follow one of
the three policies associated with the separationism philosophy – near-absolute SRAS,
neutral political concern and exclusion of ideals – than the secularism–laicism model.
Similarly a secularism–laicist clause should make a country more likely to follow that
policy than one of the separationist policies.
This expectation is not met. The results show that whether a state has a separa-
tionist or secularism–laicism clause in its constitution does not predict which of the
specific types of religion policy it is likely to follow. For example, a state which
declares itself secular in its constitution is approximately as likely to have a religion
policy that meets the neutral political concern standard as it is to meet the secularism–
laicism standard. Similarly a state with a separationist clause is actually more likely to
 Separation of Religion and State and Secularism 393

Table 2. States which meet separation of religion and state standards controlling for
constitutional clauses

Secularism Separationist No clause Official religion

clause (%) clause (%) (%) clause (%)

Near-absolute-SRAS 1 29.6 9.5 7.8 0.0

Near-absolute-SRAS 2 37.0 21.4 14.1 0.0
Neutral polit. concern 1 22.2 9.5 6.3 0.0
Neutral polit. concern 2 40.7 21.4 17.2 3.0
Neutral polit. concern 3 44.4 28.6 20.3 3.0
Exclusion of ideals 7.4 23.8 9.4 3.0
Laicism 1 25.9 11.9 9.4 0.0
Laicism 2 48.1 31.0 21.9 3.0
No. of states in this category 27 42 64 33

meet the secularism–laicism-2 model than it is to meet any of the separationist

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standards. Thus, the wording of constitutional religion clauses does not significantly
influence which among the standards of separationism and laicism–secularism a
particular state is likely to meet.
However, these clauses do influence how likely a state is to meet any of the
standards. That is, the type of clause influences the likelihood that a state will follow
some form of separationist or secular–laicist policy in general but does not influence
which specific model it will follow. States which declare themselves secular are most
likely to meet all the standards other than exclusion of ideals. States with separationist
clauses are more likely to meet all the standards than states with no clause on the
topic. However, on several of the standards the difference between states with
separationist clauses and states with no clauses is small. Unsurprisingly, with one
exception (Tajikistan), no state with an official religion meets any of the standards for
separationism and secularism–laicism.
Another important result is that among states which declare separationism or
secularism–laicism in their constitutions, a majority do not follow these policies. This
is true even using the more lenient standards which allow substantial levels of
government involvement in religion.
The results of the multivariate analysis, presented in Table 3, show that the
constitutional variables influence the extent to which states meet the separationist and
secularism–laicism standards. In all the regressions, other than the one with exclusion
of ideals as the dependent variable, states are more likely to meet the separationist or
secularism–laicism standard if their constitution contains a clause declaring the state
secular. Constitutional separationist clauses have a significant impact in two of the
regressions. Overall this confirms the results that, with the exception of the exclusion
of ideals standard, the presence of constitutional clauses impacts on the likelihood
that a state will meet the various standards equally.
More interestingly, the control variables have a limited impact on state religion
policy. In three of the regressions none of the independent variables are statistically
significant at the 0.1 level (which is a lenient standard since most consider 0.05 the
minimum level for statistical significance). Religious diversity significantly increases
the chances that a state will follow one of these policies in four of the regressions.
More democratic states (based on the regime variable) are also more likely to follow
one of these policies in four of the regressions. The other control variables are
significant in no more than one of the regressions. This means that the best and most
 394 Jonathan Fox

Table 3. Binary-logistical regressions predicting the presence of a state religion policy

Near Near Neutral Neutral

absolute absolute political political
SRAS 1 SRAS 2 concern 1 concern 2
B Sig B Sig B Sig B Sig

Constitution –
Official rel. 717.163 0.998 717.520 0.998 717.167 0.998 70.033 0.978
Constitution –
Secularism 2.762 0.002 2.677 0.001 2.101 0.020 2.070 0.004
Constitution –
Separationist 0.940 0.274 1.076 0.118 0.848 0.318 0.776 0.204
Religious diversity 2.520 0.316 3.853 0.064 3.224 0.195 4.452 0.015
Majority Catholic 1.638 0.208 1.038 0.344 1.267 0.302 1.130 0.245
Majority other
Christian 1.191 0.209 0.963 0.228 0.264 0.777 0.692 0.346
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Majority Muslim 0.143 0.907 0.314 0.754 0.344 0.768 1.184 0.185
Log of population –0.250 0.635 –0.360 0.411 –0.562 0.316 –0.299 0.458
Polity 0.019 0.778 0.134 0.055 0.035 0.621 0.114 0.060
Polity – stability 0.019 0.181 0.019 0.112 0.020 0.166 0.013 0.217
Log of per-capita
GDP –0.842 0.252 –0.956 0.115 –0.684 0.339 –0.657 0.218
N 147 147 147 147
% Predicted
correctly 92.5% 86.4% 91.2% 87.1%
Nagelkerke R2 0.314 0.388 0.252 0.311

Neutral
political Exclusion of
concern 3 ideals Laicism 1 Laicism 2
B Sig B Sig B Sig B Sig

Constitution –
Official rel. 70.482 0.681 0.021 0.988 717.519 0.998 70.743 0.521
Constitution –
Secularism 1.782 0.008 0.934 0.379 1.800 0.026 1.460 0.020
Constitution –
Separationist 1.010 0.076 1.899 0.014 0.751 0.329 0.805 0.130
Religious diversity 4.027 0.017 3.413 0.119 3.089 0.218 4.548 0.007
Majority Catholic 0.738 0.410 –0.953 0.468 –1.032 0.445 0.659 0.445
Majority other
Christian 0.088 0.897 0.699 0.466 0.030 0.968 0.158 0.796
Majority Muslim 1.150 0.169 2.382 0.080 –0.364 0.741 –0.083 0.918
Log of population –0.351 0.350 –0.925 0.091 –0.617 0.221 –0.377 0.301
Polity 0.106 0.050 0.187 0.047 0.007 0.903 –0.019 0.662
Polity – stability 0.018 0.092 –0.010 0.988 0.011 0.375 0.016 0.130
Log of per-capita
GDP –0.860 0.085 1.044 0.379 –0.109 0.858 –0.607 0.186
N 147 147 147 147
% Predicted
correctly 81.0% 89.8% 90.5% 80.3%
Nagelkerke R2 0.326 0.382 0.302 0.342
 Separation of Religion and State and Secularism 395

consistent predictor of a state religion policy is its constitution, though as noted above
as the majority of states declaring some form of SRAS, in fact, do not follow such a
policy, this predictor is flawed.
Overall, it is difficult to discern a pattern in the states which meet and do not meet
these standards. For instance, the 14 states which declare themselves secular in
their constitutions but do not meet either of the secularism–laicism standards are
Azerbaijan, the Turkish government of Cyprus, France, Guinea, India, the Ivory
Coast, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Mali, Russia, Senegal, Togo, Turkey and
Turkmenistan. These states have little in common. They are located across the
world, include states with majorities of most major religions, and include both
democracies and autocracies as well as developed and underdeveloped states.
Interestingly 11 of the 13 states which declare themselves secular and meet the
secularism–laicism standard are located in sub-Saharan Africa: Angola, Benin,
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Gambia, Mozambi-
que, Namibia and Zaire. The other two are Guyana and Kyrgyzstan. While most of
these states are underdeveloped, the multi-variate analysis does not show development
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to be a significant predictor.
Given this, many of the explanations for why a state which declares itself secular
would not follow this declaration are likely mostly country-specific. For example
Kuru (2009) argues that the extensive support in Turkey for Islamic institutions
follows the country’s policy of secularism because it is intended to tightly control
Islam rather than support it. That the RAS data show high levels of regulation of
Islam in Turkey (Fox, 2008, p. 221) is consistent with this explanation. However, the
RAS dataset shows no regulation of Catholicism in France (Fox, 2008, p. 112).
Rather, much of the religious legislation in France involves the continuation of
historical practices that predate the current regime of laicism–secularism and
harassment of religions that are considered to be non-indigenous to France (Fox,
2008, pp. 135–36). Thus, for very different reasons, both France and Turkey do not
meet the technical standards set in this study for secularism–laicism.
While the reasons why a state may not follow its religion policy specifically are often
somewhat idiosyncratic, the literature identifies two central reasons why a state may
not follow its constitution in general.
First, for constitutional precepts to become policy requires a government to be able
and willing to do so. This political will often does not exist, especially in authoritarian
states (Davenport, 1996, p. 629, 2007). Even democracies can fall short of their
constitutional principles if they lack independent media, a strong independent
judiciary, a politically neutral and professional civil service, protections for minority
political parties, and both a willingness and mechanism to fight corruption (Bugaric,
2008; Fombad 2007). In addition, national security is often used to disregard clauses
and in some cases justify a doctrine of constitutional avoidance (Davenport, 1996, p.
629; Morrison, 2006). Even when national governments respect their constitutions,
local governments often do not. For example, Nigeria’s 1999 constitution bans both
the national and local governments from adopting ‘any religion as [the] state religion’,
but from 2000 many of Nigeria’s Muslim-majority states began adopting aspects of
sharia (Muslim religious) law as state law (Fox, 2008, pp. 272–73).
Second, courts often allow governments to bypass or disregard clauses. In many
cases courts balance different constitutional clauses and interests against each other,
often giving one clause precedence over another (Beatty, 2001; McConnell 1992).
Beatty (2001) calls this the ‘pragmatic’ approach. He argues that the Federal
Constitutional Court of Germany uses the constitutional text to establish the
 396 Jonathan Fox

principles used to evaluate the law and balance competing rights. The court seeks to
reach a ‘practical concordance’ between the different rights in a case. While this does
not constitute a general disregard for constitutional ideals, it does mean that religion
clauses alone are not necessarily reliable indicators of government policies.
This role of the courts in interpreting constitutions as well as the discourse on the
US case also provides some insight on why the specific wording of constitutions does
not seem to impact on policy. The US case demonstrates that policy is the result of a
historical discourse that takes place and evolves over time within civil society and the
courts. The specific wording in the constitution can be a starting point for this
discourse, or in the case of states which have amended these clauses over time, a
snapshot of this discourse at a particular point in time. However, as much of policy is
based on interpretation of often terse clauses that have multiple potential
interpretations, it is understandable that there may be a disconnect between these
clauses and the specific religion policy a state follows.
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Conclusions
The results show that constitutional clauses impact on whether a state will, in practice,
follow a policy of separation of religion and state or laicism–secularism, but that this
impact is limited in two ways.
First, a clear majority of states with these clauses do not meet any of the standards
of separationism and secularism–laicism used in this study. States which do not meet
any of the standards include France and Turkey, two states which are often described
in the literature as states with archetypical secularist–laicist policies. Similarly, other
western democracies which declare separatist policies in their constitutions, including
Germany,23 Italy24 and Spain,25 also do not meet any of the standards.
This is true even of the most lenient standards. For instance a state can do all of the
following and still meet the standard of neutral political concern: support all religions
in the country equally; place practical limitations on some minority religions; engage
in several of the 16 types of restrictions on religious minorities included in the RAS
dataset; significantly regulate all religions in the country; and pass up to five of the 33
types of religious legislation included in the RAS dataset. That most states with
separationist or secularism–laicism clauses in their constitutions do not even meet this
standard highlights the limited connection between these clauses and actual policy.
This cannot be explained by arguing that most states which do not follow their
constitutions have autocratic governments. Among the 20 states with such clauses in
their constitutions which score nine or higher on the polity index – indicating that they
are strongly democratic – between 1 and 5 (5–25 per cent) meet the various standards.
Thus democracies with these clauses in their constitutions are even less likely to
uphold them than less democratic countries.
Second, the clauses can predict – to a limited extent – whether a state, in general,
will separate itself from religion, but the wording of these clauses does not seem to
influence the manner in which it will do so. That is, there seems to be no link between
the wording of a constitutional clause and which specific religion policy a state will
follow. However, wording is important as states which declare themselves secular are
more likely to limit the role of religion in government than are states declaring
separation of religion and state, which in turn are more likely to limit religion’s role
than are states whose constitutions do not address the issue.
In sum, this study is successful in demonstrating that most states, even those which
declare in their constitutions that they are secular or follow a separationist policy, do
 Separation of Religion and State and Secularism 397

not follow these policies. Also some which make no such declaration do follow
these policies. However, other than constitutional clauses and, to a lesser extent,
religious diversity and democracy, this study does not identify other factors which
can consistently predict the nature of a state’s religion policy. This calls for further
research, most likely case studies, to identify additional historical, cultural, political
and economic factors that may impact on a state’s religion policy.

Notes
1 This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 896/00), the Sara and
Simha Lainer Chair in Democracy and Civility, and the John Templeton Foundation. The
opinions expressed in this study are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
views of the John Templeton Foundation. For full details on the Religion and State dataset
see the project website at www.religionandstate.org.
2 For a discussion of the role religions ‘ought’ to play in government, much of which is based
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on Kant, Locke, Mill, Rawls and de Tocqueville, see, for example, Bader (1999), Blake
(2007), Fradkin (2000), Koussens (2009), Marquand and Nettler (2000) and Shah (2000).
3 This term is often used in the literature. See for example Durham (1996), Esbeck (1988) and
Kuru (2009). However different authors use the term differently. As is discussed in more
detail in the ‘four models’ section of this study, it is meant here to refer simply to a general
policy of separation of religion and state which can include several different interpretations
of that principle, all of which imply a state neutrality toward religion.
4 Esbeck (1988) identifies three trends in US thought within this tradition (and an additional
two that deviate from it). All three share the principles of state neutrality toward religion in
that ‘the state may not discriminate among religious groups or prefer religion in general over
individuals professing no religious beliefs’ (Esbeck, 1988, p. 47). Strict separationists support
a Jeffersonian wall between religion and state. While many are individually religious, they
believe that public policy should be decided on a secular basis, and that ‘no universal,
transcendent point of reference or ethical system exists or is required for judging the state’.
Pluralistic separationists ‘accept that religion may influence issues of civic government, [but]
they recoil at the thought of a religiously generated cultural mandate employing the offices
of government to achieve religious ends’ (Esbeck, 1988, p. 45). Institutional separationists
allow for religious moral traditions to influence political discussion but still hold to the rule
of no state support for religion. Despite the differences between these trends in US discourse,
in practice all of them conform to the general principle that states may not support religion
or interfere in religious practice. Thus, the empirical portion of this study, which is limited to
state policy, does not differentiate between them. The fourth trend is discussed in the main
text. The final trend identified by Esbeck (1988) is a confessional state in which one religion
is supported over others. This trend does not fit into the context of this study. Most
discussions of separation of religion and state in the USA tend to conform to the varying
levels of support for the first four categories identified by Esbeck (all other than confessional
state) over time in politics and in court decisions. For the most part, there is agreement that
the judicial and political consensus in the USA has since the mid-twentieth century
consistently supported one of the three separationist models, all of which support the concept
of no government support for religion and no preference for any particular religion. The few
exceptions follow the general but equal support for religion model. See, for example, Chopper
(1999), Davis (2001), Dawson (2008), Laycock (1997) and Witte (2006). It is also important to
note that many argue that the US separationist model is relatively strict compared with those
of most states in Western Europe and elsewhere (Don-Yehiya, 2000, pp. 105–06).
5 For a discussion of what types of state support for religion can violate the principle of state
neutrality toward religion in a democracy, see Driessen (2010) and Mazie (2006). For a
review of the western intellectual history of the concept of separation of religion and state,
see Casanova (1994), Laycock (1997) and Witte (2006).
 398 Jonathan Fox

6 The data are based on multiple sources including government and NGO human rights
reports, news sources (primarily from the Lexis/Nexis database), government websites,
archives of laws and academic sources including books and journal articles. The RAS
project compiled a report for each country in the dataset based on all of these sources which
provided the basis for the codings. A full listing of the general sources as well as those used
for each country is available in Fox (2008).
7 The official support and hostility variables are based on a typology created by Durham
(1996).
8 Each item in this variable is coded on the following scale: 0 ¼ none; 1 ¼ slightly restricted for
some minorities; 2 ¼ significantly restricted for some minorities or slightly restricted for
most; 3 ¼ significantly restricted for most minorities. The resulting scale ranges from 0 to 48.
9 Each item in this variable is coded on the following scale: 0 ¼ no restrictions; 1 ¼ slight
restrictions including practical restrictions or the government engages in this activity rarely
and on a small scale; 2 ¼ significant restrictions including practical restrictions or the
government engages in this activity occasionally and on a moderate scale; 3 ¼ the activity is
illegal or the government engages in this activity often and on a large scale. The resulting
scale ranges from 0 to 33.
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10 These items are not scaled since they measure the presence or absence of a law or policy.
11 For a full discussion of the dataset and the RAS variables used here, see Fox (2008) and the
RAS webpage at www.religionandstate.org which also houses a copy of the dataset. This
discussion includes the following relevant issues. (1) A detailed description of the variables
and the components of the composite variables. This includes an explanation of how each
category is different from the other categories. (2) The justification for combining multiple
measures into a single scale for each of the following variables: religious discrimination,
religious regulation, and religious legislation; as well as a justification for combining all six
scales into the composite general GIR measure. This also includes a discussion of why the
items on each composite measure are given equal weight even though some would argue that
some measures are not comparable, should be given different weights, or should be
combined on the basis of a factor analysis. This includes an alpha score. For a factor
analysis of the dataset see Pinkus and Meyer (2008). (3) A full discussion of the extent to
which the religious laws and policies of local governments are included in these measures. (4)
Reliability tests for this variable based on backup codings.
12 The countries with no active constitutions in 2002 are Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, Qatar,
Somalia, Swaziland, the UK and Western Sahara. Removing these countries poses no
selection bias issue because this study examines the link between constitutions and state
policies. States with no constitution in force are outside the universe of analysis. Brunei was
not included because I was unable to obtain a copy of its constitution in any language.
13 www.religlaw.org.
14 www.servat.unibe.ch/law/icl/.
15 http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/constudies.html.
16 http://confinder.richmond.edu/. This page contains links to copies of constitutions elsewhere
on the Internet.
17 As no more than one of these variables can be coded at the same time, the reference variable
is constitutions which make no declaration regarding religion policy.
18 As no more than one of these variables can be coded at the same time, the reference variable
is minorities which are neither Christian nor Muslim.
19 Population size is linked to other government policies. For example, Henderson (1993, p. 8)
argues that ‘Growth in numbers of people can create scarcity – a short-fall between what
people need and want and what they have. Under this pressure governments may . . . resort
to repression as a coping mechanism.’
20 For more on this variable see http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm.
21 This measure is used rather than others such as the HDI index and infant mortality because
it is available for more states, thus minimising issues of missing data.
22 http://unstats.un.org/unsd.
 Separation of Religion and State and Secularism 399

23 Article 137 of Germany’s 1919 constitution declares ‘there is no state church’. This
article of the 1919 constitution is declared an ‘integral part’ of the current constitution
by Article 140.
24 Article 7 of Italy’s constitution declares that the ‘state and Catholic Church are, each within
their own reign, independent and sovereign’.
25 Article 16 of Spain’s constitution declares that ‘no religion shall have a state character’.

Notes on Contributor
Jonathan Fox received his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1997. He specialises in
the influence of religion on politics, which he examines using both quantitative and qualitative
methodology. This field includes analyses of the impact of religion on domestic conflict,
terrorism, international intervention and international relations. His other research interests
include the dynamics of state religion policy and the quantitative analysis of Samuel
Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ theory, nationalism and ethnic conflict. He is the founder
and director of the Religion and State project (www.religionandstate.org) and a senior research
Downloaded by [Jonathan Fox] at 08:13 28 November 2011

fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He is the author or editor of five books
and over 60 research articles and book chapters. Email: Jonathan.Fox@biu.ac.il

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