Politicized Religion and The Reframing Of Fundamental Rights

Politicized Religion and the Reframing of Fundamental Rights provides a systematic account of how recent politicization of religion has been used by proponents of illiberal nationalism and populism to reframe constitutional and human rights in exclusionary anti-pluralist ways. This reframing enhances the rights of those who belong to the majority religion or are steeped in its culture, at the expense of the rights of women, sexual minorities, and adherents to minority religions.

The book is composed of two parts. Part I draws on history as well as political and constitutional theory to examine the ideal of 'institutional secularism' as an areligious means to safeguard pluralism by separating the state from religion. Illiberal nationalists and populists attack institutional secularism as anti-religious and tend to equate it with 'ideological secularism', a conception of the good that rejects transcendence.

Part II deploys comparative constitutional analysis to understand the ways in which fundamental rights have been illiberally reframed throughout a wide array of jurisdictions ranging from Europe to Russia, the United States, India, Turkey, and several African states. Special emphasis is also placed on the increasing role of transnational NGOs in spreading and coordinating such illiberal reframing.

Through these combined approaches it becomes clear that the politicization of religion undertaken by contemporary nationalists and populists differs significantly from previous attempts to inject more religion into the affairs of the state, most notably in its new appropriation of the language of constitutional rights. Nevertheless, the book argues that pluralism can still be safeguarded through a renewed recourse to institutional secularism or by insistence on the staunch protection of ideological secularism to match its religions counterparts.

Susanna Mancini, Full Professor of Comparative Public Law, Department of Legal Studies, University of Bologna,Michel Rosenfeld, University Professor of Law and Comparative Democracy, Justice Sydney L. Robins Professor of Human Rights, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University

Susanna Mancini holds the Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Bologna. She has held several visiting professorship positions, and has lectured extensively throughout the world. She has published numerous books and articles exploring issues of law and religion, reproductive rights, feminism and cultural pluralism, minority rights, and secession. Her most recent book is Constitutions and Religion (Elgar, 2020).

Michel Rosenfeld is the University Professor of Law and Comparative Democracy, and Justice Sydney L. Robins Professor of Human Rights, at the Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. He has lectured extensively throughout the world and was president of the International Association of Constitutional Law (1999-2004) and founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Constitutional Law (2001-2014). He has published numerous books and articles and has been translated into a dozen languages. His most recent book is A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice (OUP 2022). He has received many awards, including the French Legion of Honor in 2004.

Part I. The Theoretical, Historical, and Constitutional Context1. Overcoming the Wars of Religion: The Enlightenment and the Constitutional Enshrinement of Institutional Secularism2. Repoliticized Religion and the Dialectic Between Religious Appropriation of Politics and Political Appropriation of Religion3. Religious Nationalism and Religious Populism: Religious Rule of the Nation and the People Versus National and Popular Acculturation of Religion4. The Dynamic Between Institutional and Ideological Secularism and Its Uses in Anti-Secular Attacks in the Name of ReligionPart II. Applications: Illiberal and Anti-Pluralist Recasting of Fundamental Constitutional and Human Rights in the Name of Religion5. Secularism as Religious Majoritarianism6. The War on "Gender Ideology"7. Reinventing Traditions to Subvert Constitutional Law and the International Human Rights Regime