Blackwell Reference Online

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Western constitutionalism and modern liberalism have constructed and promoted the problematic hegemonic myth of separation of religion from state and politics in democracies ( Carter, 1998 ). Yet a careful and critical analysis of modern politics, law, and society that deconstructs formal legal categorizations would point to the irreducible significant role of religion in modern states, laws, and legal ideologies. As this essay expounds, while institutional and cultural variances between and among political regimes and religions exist, religion in the midst of neoliberal transnational and international expansion (“globalization”) is prominent as a sociopolitical and legal force. Religion is conspicuous in various states and societies despite – even in reaction to and as part of – the ethos and practices of secular rationality and teleological modernity at the outset of the third millenium. Some studies in law and society have conceived religion in constitutional terms of freedom of religion, state neutrality concerning religious institutions and faith, and freedom from religion ( Friedman, 1990 ). Other studies in law and society have looked at religion as a substantive component in tribal cultures that reflect premodern systems of law ( Currie, 1968 ; Pospisil, 1973 ). Such an inclination to identify religion and religious law with premodern social phenomena, sometimes even with ... log in or subscribe to read full text