Support or Control? Explaining Variation in the Governance of Religious Affairs

• In Event: The Politics of Church and State

Abstract

There is great variation in the relationship between religion and state in avowedly secular regimes. While some secular regimes attempt to keep religion separate from the workings of government, others include relatively high levels of intervention into religious affairs or cooperation between religion and state. To manage these relationships, states construct different types of institutions, including advisory councils, departments, and cabinet-level ministries of religious affairs. This paper investigates the variation in institutions to govern religious affairs across regimes. It seeks to answer several questions: Why do some states institutionalize the governance of religious affairs more than others? What types of powers are these offices given, and how do they wield it? How do institutions of governance of religious affairs serve states and/or religious groups? Does the governance of religious affairs fundamentally differ across democracies and autocracies, and if so, what do those differences explain about the role that religion plays in promoting or sustaining particular regime types? Using an original cross-national dataset, it argues that by investigating state policies toward religion on an axis of whether they are intended to support or control religion, we can better understand why institutions of governance of religious affairs exist, how they function, and which constituencies they ultimately serve.

Author

• Ani Sarkissian, Michigan State University