Prof. Dr. Gert Pickel

In the literature on politics and religion, there seems to be a clear distinction. On the one hand, religions are often seen as harmful to the process of democratisation. This point of view is driven by Western concepts of secularity, which identify a clear distinction between religion and state as a central element of modern, secular countries. In fact, such distinctions seem not to be necessarily successful in securing peace and democratisation (e.g. Syria and Egypt). On the other hand, for religion to hold a prominent place in society and everyday life, as is the case in many Islamic societies, does not exclude the development of democratic elements. Turkey can be seen as a prototype for a combination of democratisation, secular institutions and narratives with a high religiosity. Perhaps indigenous processes of a secular understanding, which balance a strong religiosity and elements of a democratic political culture, are possible. Therefore, it is of interest to determine what the social, cultural and political conditions are for such a configuration – and what understanding of “the secular” can be identified in these contexts.

Based on a quantitative analysis of complex data about Turkey and Israel, the first phase of this project focuses on the correspondences between democratisation, or the openness for democratisation, and religious cultures. The quantitative analysis will not only take into account democratic attitudes and values, as well as indicators of forms of secularity and religiosity, but also effects of religious plurality, identity formation and social differentiation in order to find configurations of a secular understanding with regard to the relationship between religion and politics. A special focus will be on the consideration of conflicts resulting from distinctions between secular and religious actors and groups. In a second phase, configurations in other Asian countries, and finally in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, will be analysed and compared, based on a very different system design. The final comparison of those different cases will enable us to identify different configurations of a “secular” meaning of the relationship between religion and politics/state under different social, cultural and political frameworks and conditions.