Suchergebnisse

"On May 10, 1776, the Second Continental Congress sitting in Philadelphia adopted a Resolution urging each of the British colonies in North America "to adopt such government as shall . . . best conduce" in response to the impending crisis with Great Britain. A suitable preamble was passed on the May 15 following, and Congress then directed that the document be released to the public. The Resolution of May 15 set in motion a round of constitution making in the colonies, several of which soon declared themselves sovereign states and severed all remaining ties to the British Crown. In forming these written constitutions, the delegates to the state conventions were forced to address the issue of church-state relations. Each colony had unique and differing traditions of church-state relations rooted in the colony's peoples, their country of origin, and religion, and the state constitutional framers had to confront the issue of religion, which many would have preferred to put off. This unique volume, comprising twenty-one original essays by eminent historians and political scientists, is a state-by-state account of disestablishment in the original thirteen states, as well as a look at similar events in the soon-to-be-admitted states of Vermont, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Also considered are disestablishment in Ohio (the first state admitted from the Northwest Territory), Louisiana and Missouri (the first states admitted from the Louisiana Purchase), and Florida (wrestled from Spain under U.S. pressure)"--

Steven Shiffrin's The Religious Left and Church-State Relations is a truly remarkable book in many respects. I shall briefly note a few of its striking features, including some illustrative passages, and outline a number of its central themes, before tackling what for me is its most challenging and perplexing set of theses – the relations between constitutional and political discourse, and between religious liberals, on the one hand, and religious conservatives and secular liberals on the other. We might well think of this as two books in one: a book about the constitutional law of free exercise and non-establishment, and a book about theories of public reason and religious discourse in our political life. Shiffrin manages to squeeze all this into 136 pages of readable, eloquent, illuminating text, relegating his underlying deep, comprehensive, and penetrating scholarship in a wide range of disciplines to 99 pages of footnotes. Given the smaller type of the footnotes and the absence of page breaks in that part of the book, I was somewhat tempted to see if the footnotes actually exceeded the text, but resisted.

The Nationalist movement was the crucible in which relations between Hindus and Muslims in British India took shape. It defined the period in which the concept of a monolithic "Muslim community" solidified and in which "Hindu" and "Muslim" interests were supposedly set in contrary positions. Any attempt to comment on the relationship between Hindus and Muslims in modern India has to take into account the history of communal relations in this period as the nationalist agitation against the British gathered force. Recently Ashutosh Varshney published a work on Hindus and Muslims in India, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, that offered new insights into the nature of communal relations in modern India (Varshney 2002). Varshney analysed Hindu-Muslim riots since 1947 and proposed a series of arguments to explain the reasons behind communal conflict in modern India. I do not intend to review his work, rather I want to test his hypothesis that strong civic linkages between Hindus and Muslims are the main barriers to communal conflict and provide the best processes for the mediation of such conflict when it occurs. Varshney examined a number of Indian cities for the period 1947-1990 and combined research on communal conflict during that period with forays into the histories of the various communities concerned to substantiate his claims. Varshney's conclusions are compelling, but he does concentrate on the present and recent past, at the expense of a more in-depth analysis of the history of the communities - especially the Muslim communities - he dealt with. By discounting history to the extent that he does he has missed arguments that would help substantiate his account of the present and explain more fully the root causes of communal discord rather than simply correlating current trends. For example, Varshney argues that "vigorous associational life" is a much more effective constraint on "the polarising strategies of political elites" and discounts the impact of "everyday forms of engagement" on lessening communal ...

Intro -- Title Page -- Acknowledgments, Dedications, Permissions, and Copyrights -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: State Religious Education -- Chapter 2: State Religious Education and the Question of Religious Purpose -- Chapter 3: In Defense of State Religious Education -- Chapter 4: State Religious Education and the Defense of Religious Vitality -- Chapter 5: State Religious Education and Religious Vitality -- Chapter 6: Securitizing American Public Education in the Age of Multiculturalism -- Chapter 7: State Religious Education, Further Reasons for Concern -- Chapter 8: State Religious Education and Global Civil Religion -- Chapter 9: An Open Conclusion -- Bibliography.

"U.S. Government Printing Office: 1992-622-195/60059"--p. 39. ; "May 1992." ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This article argues that granting citizenship rights to the minorities cannot help to instil a sense of confidence in them to participate as equal citizens in the public sphere. Rather the state has to create necessary conditions both through institutional mechanisms as well as through creating a democratic and egalitarian environment where those rights can be enjoyed. A liberal democracy can accommodate both individual as well as group rights and allow for legal pluralism by desisting from imposing any law that can result in the loss of identity for a minority group. But at the same time a liberal democracy is to ensure that individual rights are not jeopardised while safeguarding the minority rights. If particularistic demands do not conflict with basic individual liberty and dignity, they can and should be accommodated within the universalistic framework of citizenship. (Asian J Polit Sci/NIAS)

Thos article argues that granting citizenship rights to the minorities cannot help to instil a sense of confidence in them to participate as equal citizens in the public sphere. Rather the state has to create necessary conditions both through institutional mechanisms as well as through creating a democratic and egalitarian environment where those rights can be enjoyed. A liberal democracy can accommodate both individual as well as group rights and allow for legal pluralism by desisting from imposing any law that can result in the loss of identity for a minority group. But at the same time a liberal democracy is to ensure that individual rights are not jeopardised while safeguarding the minority rights. If particularistic demands do not conflict with basic individual liberty and dignity, they can and should be accommodated within the universalistic framework of citizenship. Adapted from the source document.