Are all, or only some, of the world’s religious systems politically compatible with democracy?
About the Author
Alfred Stepan is the founding director of Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), and author (with Juan J. Linz) of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe.
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The secularization hypothesis has failed, and failed spectacularly. We must find a new paradigm to help us understand the complexities of the relationship between religion and democracy.
Must every state be a nation and every nation a state? Or should we look instead to the example of countries such as India, where one state holds together a…
