Religion, Secularization and Democracy in the Mediterranean Region: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Political debates in many Mediterranean countries today are increasingly framed in dichotomous terms, highlighting divisions between religious and secular worldviews. In some countries, for example Israel, the issue is so contentious that it is described as a ‘culture war’. While Israel struggles to balance its commitment to a Jewish state and a democracy, it does not seem to matter if the countries in question are democracies or non-democracies, or what their majority religious faith is. Instead, the role of religion in public life or, put another way, the ‘public return of religion’, is a pertinent and controversial political question everywhere in the Mediterranean region. How do we explain this phenomenon? On the one hand, we can point to both economic and demographic changes, while, on the other, we can trace the impact of continuing secularisation. Together these two sets of developments produce new challenges to existing political arrangements.

Notes

¹ In this special issue, the Mediterranean region is understood to comprise the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea (plus Portugal), located between about 27° to 47°N and 10°W to 37°E. This includes the following 23 European, Middle Eastern and North African countries and territories: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Hergovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Monaco, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Portugal, Serbia-Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey (http://www.fao.org/sd/climagrimed/c_2_02.html).

² A religious actor is encouraged to undertake action by religious faith. Toft et al. (2011: 23) define a religious actor as ‘any individual, group, or organization that espouses religious beliefs and that articulates a reasonably consistent and coherent message about the relationship of religion to politics’. Religious actors include: churches and comparable religious organizations in non-Christian religions; religious social movements, whose main motivating factor is their members' religious beliefs; and political parties, such as Turkey's Justice and Development Party, whose ideology has its roots in an identifiable set of religious beliefs and traditions.

³ http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/

⁴ For a useful discussion of this issue in relation to the ‘Arab world’, see Filali-Ansary (2012).

⁵ This relationship came to an abrupt end in the early 1990s, due to Democrazia Cristiana's abrupt demise consequential to a welter of serious corruption issues.

⁶ The reference to the ‘end of overt external control’ glosses over the status of the Palestinian Authority, and disregards the continuing external influence of the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia in both Lebanon and Syria, where the former two governments vie for dominance.