Open Access BASE2014

How Secular Should Democracy Be? A Cross-Disciplinary Study of Catholicism and Islam in Promoting Public Reason

Ingram, David

Open Access

Abstract

I argue that the same factors (strategic and principled) that motivated Catholicism to champion liberal democracy are the same that motivate 21st Century Islam to do the same. I defend this claim by linking political liberalism to democratic secularism. Distinguishing institutional, political, and epistemic dimensions of democratic secularism, I show that moderate forms of political and epistemic secularism are most conducive to fostering the kind of public reasoning essential to democratic legitimacy. This demonstration draws upon the ambivalent impact of Indonesia's Islamic parties in advancing universal social justice aims as against more sectarian policies.

Report Issue

If you have problems with the access to a found title, you can use this form to contact us. You can also use this form to write to us if you have noticed any errors in the title display.