RELIGARE: Religious diversity and secular models in Europe

International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 2013

After a period during which many in the West, especially Europe, expected religion to progressively fade away from public life, for various reasons religion has, over the last two decades, re-established itself as a phenomenon to be reckoned with in the globalized West. It has also become a favoured research topic for, amongst others, social scientists and legal scholars. While the European Union (EU) has a limited competency when it comes to matters of religion, in 2000 an important Directive was adopted, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religion or belief in the area of employment. The EU's interest, however, extends beyond the anti-discrimination framework, explaining why in 2010 it funded a three-year multidisciplinary project on religious diversity and secularism in Europe (RELIGARE). One of the areas of investigation, illustrating the various tensions that arise when religious claims are formulated in 21st-century Europe, concerned the area of employment and labour relations. This article provides an introduction -philosophical, legal and sociological -to a special issue with six contributions drawing from sociological data collected within the RELIGARE project. From a sociological perspective, these contributions illustrate the challenges and tensions raised by religion and belief both in secular workplaces (the individual religious freedom cluster) and in faith-based or religious ethos workplaces (the collective religious freedom cluster) in England, the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria, France and Turkey.

C. Durham Jr., J. Martínez-Torrón, D.D. Thayer (eds.), Law, Religion, and Freedom: Conceptualizing a Common Right. Routledge, 2021

Legal implications of religious affiliation and change of religion Montserrat Gas-Aixendri * This article is part of the activity of the Interuniversity Research Group Cultural Rights and Diversity (Drets Culturals i Diversitat), a Consolidated Research Group recognized by the Catalan Government. The funding for the research came from the Project Gestión de la Diversidad Religiosa y Oorganización Territorial (Management of Religious Diversity and Territorial Organization). Ministerio de Economía y competitividad: DER2012-31062. 1 'The autonomous existence of religious communities is indispensable for pluralism in a democratic society and is thus an issue at the very heart of the protection which article 9 affords.'

Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 2015

Book review

Marie-Claire Foblets and Katayoun Alidadi (published in BELIEF, LAW AND POLITICS. WHAT FUTURE FOR A SECULAR EUROPE? (Ashgate, 2014))

Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2016

This module will address religious diversity in contemporary Europe by paying attention to recent events and ongoing debates surrounding this subject. For example, since the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union has opened room for religious identities in post-socialist societies. Similarly, the increasing public presence of Islam by the hand of Muslim migrants and their children has challenged hegemonic ideas of secularism and citizenship. Meanwhile, the consolidation of supra-national institutions has produced a revival of ethno-religious identities that aim to recover sovereignty while targeting diverse forms of religious life. Ultimately, this module will discuss these issues by way of recent works by political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists.

Directorate general for internal policies, European Parliament, 2013

This study analyzes the relationship between freedom of religion and other fundamental rights in the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as the constitutions of the Member States by examining the relevant case law in the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, and state constitutional or supreme courts. The study will highlight present sources of conflict, underline best practices and put forward recommendations to promote both religious practice and observance and the respect of human rights.

Governance of religious diversity in Western Europe, 2019

"Governance of religious diversity" appears to be the latest term to address the relationship between the state and (immigrant) religious groups in Western Europe. Conventional/established arrangements and frameworks of state-church relations (i.e. secularism) need to be revisited to include new religions and religious groups to the equation. It is suggested that contemporary multicultural societies require a broader perspective and a sophisticated framework than established under-standings of secularism, and receiving states' governmental policies. Today, the main concern of Western European states is not the relationship between the state and church, but how to deal with Islam and accommodate distinctive religious practices in public spaces. This review article examines the current debates on governance of religious diversity through elaborating on the six books reviewed.