The Rise of the State as a Process of Secularization [1967]

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-167
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
The Core ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Legal Structures ◽  
Investiture Controversy ◽  
The Church

Böckenförde shows how and why the modern state is a product of the historical process of secularization. Three key conflicts between papacy and European kings led to the establishment of administrative, political, and later legal structures independent from the Catholic Church: the Investiture Controversy (1087–1122), the confessional wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the declarations of rights as universal rather than based on religion in the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 and the French constitution of 1789. The modern state emerged from this process independent from the Church, without claims on the religious lives of its citizens or questions of sin and salvation. Böckenförde regards the constitutional recognition of freedom of religion as the bedrock of modernity. In the article, Böckenförde identifies what he regards as the core challenge facing the liberal democratic state, formulated in his most prominently cited sentence: ‘The liberal secularized state is sustained by conditions it cannot itself secure.’ Böckenförde argues that the modern state relies on a moral substance, thriving only under conditions of solidarity and cohesion that need to emanate from within society. Religiosity is one potential source of this moral substance. At the same time, one of the goals of the liberal state is the promotion and safeguarding of pluralism: If the modern state were to promote a given worldview or a sense of morality, it would violate the very liberalism on which it is founded. This dilemma has become known in the literature as the ‘Böckenförde dictum’.

Engaging the liberal state: Cardinal Manning and Irish home rule

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-54
Author(s):  
Jeffrey von Arx
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Modus Vivendi ◽  
Otto Von Bismarck ◽  
The Church

In the course of his long career (1865–1892) as Archbishop of Westminster and head of England’s Catholic Church, Henry Edward Manning articulated a position on the engagement of voluntary religious organizations like the Church with the liberal state, now understood, at least in the British context, as religiously neutral and responsive to public opinion through increasingly democratic forms of government and mediated through political parties. The greatest test and illustration of this position was his involvement in Irish Home Rule, where he deferred to the Irish hierarchy in their support of Charles Stuart Parnell’s Irish Parliamentary Party against his own inclinations and the immediate interests of the Catholic population in England. Manning’s position was in sharp contrast to that of Pope Leo XIII, who negotiated directly with Otto von Bismarck, and over the heads of the hierarchy and Germany’s Catholic Centre Party, to end the Kulturkampf. Thus Manning worked out a modus vivendi for the Church in relation to the liberal, democratic state that anticipates in many ways the practice of the Church in politics today.

States and state systems: democratic, Westphalian or both?

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
CORNELIA NAVARI
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Transition ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Transition Theory ◽  
Modern State ◽  
English School ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State

AbstractTwo rival accounts have come to dominate discussion of the origins and character of the contemporary international system. One, closely associated with the English School and the traditional account, places its origins with the appearance, and acceptance, of the centralised authority of the modern state. We might call this ‘the Westphalia version’. In this account, the modern state system is often represented in terms of what it is not. It is not a feudal regnum with a multiplicity of functionally distinct authorities. It is not a theocratic imperium where one power aimed at ‘the control and protection of Christendom’. It is a society of sovereigns, of de jure equals, each of whom accorded the others’ right to exist, and whose common ideological quantum is low. The rival is located within democratic transition theory. It postulates the modern state system as an extension of the liberal democratic state. The liberal state is not sovereign in the Westphalian sense: liberal authority is diffuse. Moreover, the liberal state produces its own, distinctive, international impulses that distance it in significant ways from the Westphalian pattern. Both see the state system as ‘produced’ by the state, as an immanent effect of stateness, but the account of the state’s trajectory differs radically.

The Model Penal Code and the War on Crime

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus D. Dubber
Keyword(s):  
Penal Code ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Model Penal Code ◽  
State Punishment ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Penal State ◽  
War On Crime ◽  
Integrate State ◽  
State 1

Part III of Dual Penal State uses dual penal state analysis to generate a comparative-historical account of American penality. With comparative glimpses at Germany and, to a lesser extent, England, it distinguishes between two responses to the shared challenge of legitimating state penal power in a modern liberal democratic state: (1) the failure to appreciate the legitimatory challenge of modern state penal power in particular (United States) and of modern state power in general (England); and (2) the failure to address the legitimatory challenge of modern state penal power as an ongoing existential threat to the legitimacy of the state (Germany). Chapter 7 brings the narrative of modern American penality up-to-date, following on the heels of the discussion of Jefferson’s Virginia criminal law bill of 1779 in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 focuses on the Model Penal Code of 1962, which was far superior to Jefferson’s draft in every respect but one: it, too, failed to integrate state punishment into the American legal-political project, leaving the penal paradox unaddressed and unresolved to this day.

Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Criminal Law Bill

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus D. Dubber
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Penal State ◽  
State 1

Part III of Dual Penal State uses dual penal state analysis to generate a comparative-historical account of American penality. With comparative glimpses at Germany and, to a lesser extent, England, it distinguishes between two responses to the shared challenge of legitimating state penal power in a modern liberal democratic state: (1) the failure to appreciate the legitimatory challenge of modern state penal power in particular (United States) and of modern state power in general (England); and (2) the failure to address the legitimatory challenge of modern state penal power as an ongoing existential threat to the legitimacy of the state (Germany). Chapter 6 undertakes a critical analysis of Jefferson’s 1779 draft of a criminal law bill for the State of Virginia, concluding that it fell well short of a criminal code that reflected the ideals of the American legal-political project as spelled out, for instance, in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence of 1776.

In the Name of God: State and Religion in Contemporary Italy

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-104
Author(s):  
Carlo Panara
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Artificial Insemination ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Media ◽  
Silvio Berlusconi ◽  
The Church ◽  
Law Making

AbstractDuring the last few years the influence of the Catholic Church on law-making and government policies in Italy has dramatically increased. The Italian Episcopal Conference established a solid alliance with the Centre-Right led by the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi. This political situation favoured the introduction of a number of hyper-conservative policies on ethical matters, from artificial insemination to abortion. In contrast, the influence of the Church was not significant in other key areas such as immigration policy. This article argues that the Church-inspired hyper-conservatism has led to the introduction of considerable restrictions to individual rights and freedoms. This situation is undermining the secular character of the Italian State and the original liberal-democratic inspiration of the Constitution.

scholarly journals Godsdienspluraliteit en die liberale staat – die illusie van sekulêre neutraliteit

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francois Venter
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Religious Issues ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
Legal Thinking ◽  
Universal Values

Religious pluralism and the liberal state – the illusion of secular neutrality. Whereas church and state have long been separated since the emergence of the modern state, law and religion have not been separated and can never be separated. The notion of the liberal-democratic state, which is still dominant in legal thinking, induces state authorities to seek refuge in secular neutrality when confronted with religious issues to be resolved by law and judicial resolution. This article sketches the constitutional background, the undeniable relationship between law and religion, the standard liberal response to resulting difficulties and the dawn of a post-secular era. Examples are discussed from German, Canadian and South African jurisprudence that dealt with religious issues, leading to an assessment of the viability of secular neutrality. It is found that neutrality is unachievable. A suggestion is made that objective reciprocity founded on the teachings of Jesus and accepted as a universal human norm, independently of Christian teachings, may present an appropriate approach to avoid the dilemmas brought about by secularism. The implication of this analysis is that some firm arguments based on biblical justification have universal persuasive power, because they appeal to universal values also acceptable to non-believers and other religions. These arguments may be used in courts and by other organs of state for the resolution of religious matters that have legal implications in the pluralistic society of the 21st century.

America’s Internal Penal Exceptionalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus D. Dubber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
State Punishment ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Penal State ◽  
State 1

Part III of Dual Penal State uses dual penal state analysis to generate a comparative-historical account of American penality. With comparative glimpses at Germany and, to a lesser extent, England, it distinguishes between two responses to the shared challenge of legitimating state penal power in a modern liberal democratic state: (1) the failure to appreciate the legitimatory challenge of modern state penal power in particular (United States) and of modern state power in general (England); and (2) the failure to address the legitimatory challenge of modern state penal power as an ongoing existential threat to the legitimacy of the state (Germany). Chapter 5 differentiates between external and internal American penal exceptionalism. External exceptionalism focuses on the comparative harshness of American state punishment compared to other countries’ criminal justice systems. Internal exceptionalism, by contrast, highlights the exceptional status of state penal power within the American legal-political project.

Globalization and the Liberal Democratic State

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Held ◽  
Anthony McGrew
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Fundamental Challenge

At First Sight it Might Appear Somewhat Curious to be studying the efficacy of the liberal democratic state just at that historic moment when liberal democracy seems to have triumphed on a global scale. Yet within contemporary Europe, the nature of political community and sovereign power have been thrown into question by the resurgence of ethnic nationalism, the intensification of regional integration and global turbulence. Taken together, these forces appear to deliver a fundamental challenge to the democratic ideals which underpin liberal democratic states. This article seeks to evaluate the nature of this challenge. It invites specific consideration of the consequences of these ‘threats from above’ and ‘threats from below’ for the character of the modern state.

Liberal Democracy and the Right to Religious Freedom

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-635
Author(s):  
Michael J. Perry
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Dignitatis Humanae ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe Roman Catholic Church was famously late to embrace the right to religious freedom. Some have plausibly maintained that when, in 1965, the cardinals and bishops at the Second Vatican Council overwhelmingly adopted the Declaration on Religious Freedom—known by the first two words of its official Latin version: Dignitatis Humanae—the church betrayed one of its most traditional and established theological teachings. The right to religious freedom, according to international law, rests in part on respect for human dignity. Thus there is a prima facie link between the liberal democratic justification and the church's 1965 justification. But, as I will argue, the appeal to human dignity is not a preserve of modern liberal democracy. Indeed, we can imagine a government that limits religious freedom because it wishes to save souls, and this precisely out of a respect for human dignity. A similar view was held by the pre-Vatican II church. Thus the appeal to human dignity is not evidence of a fundamental shift by the church. What then does account for the church's undeniable change of direction? Human dignity by itself cannot provide the fundamental justification for the right to religious freedom. Another ingredient is needed: distrust, born of long historical experience, of government authority to adjudicate questions of religious truth. The church in Dignitatis Humanae accepted this lesson of history, a lesson available to believers of a variety of stripes as well as nonbelievers.

scholarly journals Menafsir Dekonstruksi Derida dalam Sosok Paus Fransiskus

Humaniora ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1246
Author(s):  
Frederikus Fios
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Spiritual Leadership ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Core ◽  
Immoral Behavior ◽  
The World ◽  
Open Horizon ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Church

Jacques Derida is a phenomenal philosopher through his philosophy of deconstruction theory. Derida showed systematically the death of structuralism. His speech shocked the world of academics in France and almost all of America and Europe. Deconstruction is a new way of reading the text, by shifting the core of a text to the side, and put the idea on the edge (the unnoticed, hidden ideas) to the center or importance. Derida rejected dichotomous, binary opposition, bipolarity, thinking model or ways of thinking that one is privileging and marginalizing other ideas. Derida thought the model that would proclaim democratic, open, and dynamic diversity that would make room for multiple interpretations of meaning or open horizon that tolerate differences in interpretation of a text. What was conceptualized by Derida is found legitimacy in practical adequacy in the figure of Pope Francis, the Catholic Church's highest leader. Francis shows a deconstructive way to lead contemporary Catholic Church. Francis has opened a new, broader, and other meaning in looking the praxis of the Church. He does not prioritize elitist lifestyle, yet puts a simple and frugal lifestyle. He changes conservative theology into progressive-liberal theology. He realized Church needs not theology but a living testimony of a good, caring, generous, compassion life that does not use religion for immoral behavior, dehumanization, and corruption. Derida did philosophical deconstruction, Francis did spiritual-leadership deconstruction. What unites both of them is a word called "deconstruction".  

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