Secular State Research Articles

Ethno-Religious Crises and Its Implications on Security and National Development in Nigeria

There has been upsurge in the incidents of religious violence in Nigeria and to a large extent; the country is no longer safe for the citizens and the investors. Based on this premises, this paper x-rayed historical background to religious crises, causes of religious crises, religion and development, and the implications of religious crises on national development. Survey research method was used to asses this situation and empirical results were found. From these results, it was discovered that, religion was the genesis of ethno- political crisis that infiltrates the present day Nigeria. This paper posits that religion which is supposed to be a unifying factor has contributed immensely to division, acrimony and all sorts of evil that permeates our contemporary Nigeria. However, it was noted in the paper that, many of the crises considered to be religious crises in Nigeria were actually political and tribal crises. To stem the tide of religious violence in Nigeria will be a herculean task because; the country is a fertile land for all forms of religion fundamentalists. Also, religion has been politicized in the county despite the fact that the country is a secular state. Finally, this work posits that, religious crises run counter to the tenets, teachings and ethical values of the three major religions which are in practice in the country. Meanwhile, religious fanatics and fundamentalists who originated and still promote religious crises in Nigeria violate religious tenets, ethical codes and teachings from the holy books. This paper concludes that, religious leaders as a result of their influence on the adherents must intensify efforts in sensitizing them on the dangers of crises in the country. Equally, religious leaders should desist from being an instrument of destruction in the hands of the political leaders.

Statement of Retraction: Muslim women between secular state and religion

This article refers to: RETRACTED ARTICLE: “Muslim women between secular state and religion”. International Review of Sociology Volume 25 Issue 12, published online on 9 February 2012 10.1080/03906701.2011.581805 We, the Editor and Publisher of the Journal of International Review of Sociology, have retracted the following article: “Muslim women between secular state and religion”. International Review of Sociology 25 (12), 2012 10.1080/03906701.2011.581805 Since publication, it has been brought to our attention that this article has substantial overlap with several previously published sources. The main sources are: Eva Pföstl, (2011). Between Fear and Integration: Islamophobia in Contemporary Italy, European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online. Link: https://brill.com/view/journals/ymio/8/1/article-p45_3.xml Dominic McGoldrick (2009). Accommodating Muslims in Europe: From Adopting Sharia Law to Religiously Based Opt Outs from Generally Applicable Laws Reporter. Human Rights Law Review, 9(4): 603-645. Link: https://academic.oup.com/hrlr/article-abstract/9/4/603/683680?redirectedFrom=fulltext Ayelet Shachar (2010). Chapter 13: Faith in Law? Diffusing Tensions Between Diversity and Equality, Eds by: Joael A. Nichols – Marriage and Divorce in a Multicultural Context. Page 341-356. Link: https://epdf.tips/marriage-and-divorce-in-a-multicultural-context-multi-tiered-marriage-and-the-bo.html Maleiha Malik (2009). Muslim Legal Norms and the Integration of European Muslims, EUI RSCAS, 2009/29, MUSMINE. Link: https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/11653 Ayelet Shachar (2009). Entangled: State, Religion, and the Family, Harvard International Law Journal. These are the sections with most overlapping text: (pages 341-342) Introduction (page 342) The myth of legal centralism (pages 342-346) Approaches to diversity: Sharia councils in Italy? (pages 346-349) Conclusion (pages 349-350) Notes (page 350) As this represents a serious breach of publishing ethics and of warranties made by the author with respect to originality and provenance, we are retracting the article from the journal. We contacted the author for an explanation, but none was provided. The author agrees with the retraction. We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions. The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as ‘Retracted’.

Friday Sermons in Singapore: The Voice of Authorities toward Building State-Centric Muslim Identity

This article examines to what extent Friday sermons are used by the government of Singapore through its statutory board, Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS) or Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, to enact government policies and communicate it’s approved Islamic interpretations. A content analysis methodology was employed to discursively elucidate Friday sermon texts delivered in 2019 in Singapore, which were all taken from MUIS websites. Findings showed that the religious authority modulated religious discourses and utilized the Friday sermons as an avenue of forging state-centric Muslim identity and modulating interpretations of Islam. This content analysis study stresses the importance of how Friday sermons could be used to construct Muslim identity in secular state policies and shape a socio-political harmony between state vision and development and Muslim minorities. This paper implies that the current entanglements of religion and development are closely intertwined in which religion and state-building initiatives led by the government reciprocally interact and mutually benefit. Keywords: Authority, Friday Sermon, Islam, Muslim Identity, Singapore

National Identity between the Principle of the Secular State and Freedom of Religion

The religious symbols exposed in public buildings, such as schools, courtrooms, etc., in recent years animated the debate not only public but also jurisprudential. It turns out that, after centuries of attempts to “purify” states of religious influences, after years of attempts to “purify” public spaces of religious symbols, it seems that the modern state has failed to do so. In this century of globalization, we see a return of the sacred, a clash between different cultures, a "duel" between the different absolute truths that everyone believes they possess. In particular, there is a symbol, representative of all, under which all citizens are subject, regardless of their religious or philosophical conviction, and it is precisely the flag. It turns out that, one in three flags, that is, one third of the flags in the world contain religious symbols, predominantly Christian symbols, followed by Muslim ones and the rest Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish symbols and traditional religions and cults (Theodoru, 2014). The cross and the crescent moon are the most common where the majority of nations recognize themselves. The cross and the crescent are the most common where the majority of nations recognize themselves. The intent of this work is to be able to give a stricto jure answer to a complicated diatribe, analyzing whether the exhibition of religious symbols contained in flags can constitute a justified reason to believe that the principle of neutrality and secularity of the State, the principle of equality and non-discrimination, is violed. Through these principles the freedom of religion of each individual is also guaranteed, also taking into account the negative dimension of the latter. This problem affects many democracies, including European ones, yet the European Union itself aims to build a European identity, an identity in which everyone identifies and recognizes.
 
 Received: 5 September 2022 / Accepted: 20 October 2022 / Published: 5 November 2022

Monks, the State, and Monastic Governance in Contemporary Thailand

AbstractThe relationship between Buddhism and politics in Theravāda communities has been a subject of regular scholarly investigation since at least the 1970s. However, in much of this scholarship, the primary problem has been to understand how the secular state interacts with religious actors. An assumption exists that the Thai state governs the sangha, and how monks in Theravāda sanghas govern one another has received insufficient attention. In Thailand, monks live in conditions of legal pluralism, subject to religious, state, and ecclesiastical law. This article examines these legal regimes, focusing on ecclesiastical law, which has largely been ignored up to this point. The article argues that conditions of legal pluralism are important for understanding the possibilities of monastic action as well as the effort to govern the sangha in contemporary Thailand.

Embracing and denouncing the ‘Mecca uniform’ in Nigerian mass media, 1950s–1970s

AbstractNigerian Muslims have undertaken the hajj for centuries. As Nigeria approached independence in the 1950s, Muslims began to discuss and debate this practice on a national scale, through Islamic associations and political committees and in the Nigerian press. At the same time, Muslim politicians began to publicly don the ‘Mecca uniform’, the white robe (thawb) and black cord (‘iqāl) common to Saudi Arabia. While Nigerian pilgrims had worn these garments for decades, their conspicuous adoption by the political elite was novel. This sartorial link between politicians and the East was amplified by photographs and commentary circulating nationally in the press, and generated a mix of admiration and concern. Christians (and some Muslims) questioned whether a secular state ought to oversee the hajj. Within roughly a decade, politicians ceased their official use of the Mecca uniform as the press became saturated with exaggerated stories of ‘corrupt’ pilgrims engaged in smuggling and other crimes. The proliferation of other mass media, such as radio and novels, contributed to this critique. This was not the end of the Mecca uniform’s public life, however, as others – such as Yoruba women in the south-west – continued to employ it in self-fashioned public images, including obituary notices. The transformation of the Mecca uniform into an object of national discourse engaging a range of Muslims and also Christians speaks to the complex dynamics shaping Islam in modern Nigeria.

Russian Foreign Policy Dynamics in the South Caucasus. Continuity and Existing Problems

History helps us to create a wider picture of the reality in which the South Caucasus exists now. That is why we are going to discover the influence of the Russian Imperial and Soviet eras on the states in the region and identify the causality of foreign policy relations between Russia and the South Caucasian states. The main question is why neither Russia nor any of the individual South Caucasian states succeeded in developing an effective strategy towards each other despite their shared borders in the Russia-Azerbaijan and Russia-Georgia cases and being a proclaimed strategic partner in the case of Armenia? How did the Soviet period influence the current state of relations between Russia and the South Caucasian states? Those are the issues analyzed in this paper. International relations in the South Caucasus are convoluted because of their rich and complicated past, among other things. Over the centuries, interstate relations inside the region developed in unpredictable directions. Georgia was a real partner for Russia in the conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century. Yet, since 1991, relations between Russia and Georgia have been tense at best. The proclaimed secular states of Azerbaijan, though mainly Shia, and Turkey, which is mostly Sunni, are now solid allies, whereas Armenia enjoys a relationship of trust with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Turkey, Iran, and Russia are still the main external players in the region though they have, to some extent, even become “domesticated”. Except for a brief period of turmoil during the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing Russian Civil War, the entire Caucasus remained within the Russian sphere of influence until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even now Russia continues to play a significant role in economy, energy and security policy in the South Caucasus.

PERGUMULAN SYARI'AT ISLAM DENGAN POLITIK DI ACEH

Actually, Islamic shariah has been united with Acehnese society for a long time from the era of Sultan Iskandar Muda in the seventeenth century until nowadays. The relationship between the government and Acehnese society especially for Islamic shariah has long been agreed and accepted in their daily life. Historically, when Islam was first introduced in this area, the Acehnese society were accepted by the whole society without having any obstacle. They accepted Islam peacefully and there was no coercion as well as refusal. This can be proved when Islam was introduced in Peureulak, there had not been happening chaos and riot within Acehnese society. This circumstance can also be read in the history book related to the coming of Islamic shariah in Aceh. Anyway, it was different from the spread of Islam in Java which was brought and propagated by the Acehnese ulama-Fatahillah. At that time, most of Hindus particularly those who were from the middle and high class community refused Islam and even fought against Islam and a few of them escaped to Bali. Then the questions coming up; why Islamic Shariah and politics in Aceh are in chaos and how to solve this problem. Truely speaking, the dispute between politics and Islamic shariah in Aceh has been happening since Aceh became a part of Indonesia in 1945. Probably this was happening when Indonesia started applying under secular country especially based on the law applied here. Therefore, the dispute between Islamic shariah and secular regulation automatically occured. It is not exaggeration to say that Islamic shariah cannot be appropriated with the concept of secular state. Next solution is to change the concept of Indonesian secular law or to give a specific autonomy to Aceh forever.

INDIA’S CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT (CAA) OF 2019: A CASE STUDY OF ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT IN INDIA

Ethnic violence has long been prominent in India, especially among Hindus and Muslims. Debates have taken place over the value of India’s secularist principle, as Muslims in India are continuously faced with discrimination. They are subjected to hate crimes with the rise of Hindu Nationalism. The government’s legislature and policies must embody national unity rather than fuelling the already existing divisions among Hindus and Muslims as a secular state. This study examines India’s Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 and how it has led to anti-Muslim sentiments in the country. Drawing from the concept of Nationalism, the research will focus on the relation between Hindu nationalistic ideals and the Citizenship Amendment Act. The analysis results revealed that the Citizenship Amendment Act was flawed and had overtones of anti-Muslim sentiments. Further analysis revealed that the Citizenship Amendment Act had violated Articles 13,14, and 25 of the Indian constitution directly and indirectly. In addition to this, the study also showed the link between ultra Hindu Nationalism and the Citizenship Amendment Act. It also found that the intention of the Act to protect minorities facing religious persecution has failed as India lacks proper refugee laws. The overall research of this study concludes that the Citizenship Amendment Act has led to anti-Muslim sentiments in the country and furthered the identity crisis Muslims face in India.

PRAGMATISM IN IRAN’S FOREIGN POLICY AND RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA

The South Caucasus region has been one of the key directions of Iran’s foreign policy since 1991. Iran is closely interested in the processes that take place in the region, as it has historical ties, neighborly relations and common security interests. In the first years after the countries of the region regained their independence, analysts predicted that Iran would be able to establish closer ties with Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus. Such predictions were based on the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a Muslim state and prefers an ideological approach to foreign policy. However, it soon became clear that Iran’s foreign policy is undergoing a transformation. There are elements of the transition from idealism to pragmatism in the country’s foreign policy. Contrary to expectations, Iran’s relations with Christian Armenia began to develop better than with Muslim Azerbaijan. The article examines the place of pragmatism in the foreign policy of Iran in the context of relations with Armenia. At the same time, it analyzes the effectiveness of the idealist approach in the foreign policy of Armenia, as a secular state. The article suggests that, although the conceptual foundations of Iran’s foreign policy are defined by the principles of idealism, they are pragmatic in their relations with Armenia. If we look at the Iran’s policy on the Caucasus since the 1990s, we can conclude that this policy was largely realistic and pragmatic, rather than ideological. In fact, the years when the Caucasus states, including Armenia, regained their independence coincided with Iran’s withdrawal from an ideological approach to foreign policy. At that time, Iran’s new regional foreign policy was based solely on national interests due to the ongoing geopolitical processes, and the expansion of the revolution was no longer a priority.

Secular statehood and its specific aspects

the secularism of the state as the second main principle of the relationship between politics and religion has long been conceptually formed and, perhaps, has not yet been completed. For the first time, France officially declared its secularism at the end of the 18th century. After the Great Revolution, the French government abandoned the previous system of relations between politics and religion, declaring the secular (secular) character of the new state. However, if for the XVIII century, such a phenomenon was an exception and revolutionary innovation, then in modern conditions, secularism has become a civilizational norm of the position of the state in relation to religion. Today, the political and legal principle of a secular state is proclaimed in the constitutions of Russia, France, Angola, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Congo, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, and others. Although there is no direct statement in this regard in the constitutions of certain states, there is talk of a non-religious nature and a characteristic state system. However, the list of countries traditionally considered secular is much wider. This usually includes most European countries, the USA, Canada, etc. However, if the declaration of secularism today has become a generally accepted norm in modern countries, then it is by no means clear to understand the political content of the principle of secularism.

An Over-View of the Literary Evidence of Afghan Rule in Kashmir

Kashmir was ruled by the Afghans from 1752 to 1819. This period is mainly recognized for its literature contains historical evidence. The determination of this study is to evaluate the historiography of “Afghan Rule” in Kashmir. The historians who have been writing about the 18th and 19th centuries think that the literary evidence of Afghan rule in Kashmir can be understood within the context of an intermittent of power struggle. Tribally minded people fought against proponents of a proposal to establish a secular state run by a centralized, unbiased bureaucracy under the control of a dictator. The comprehension of the time period's political and cultural aspects does not seem to have been a priority for the historians. The political system and political dynamics of the Afghan Rule are still unknown because of the odd nature of the chronological evidence that has survived from that time. This is an attempt to highlight the literary evidence of cultural history of Afghans over Kashmir. This study depends on the on secondary sources.

Making Hell Through Policy: Exploring Happiness in the Hell in Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Snow is a political and philosophical exploration to reveal the hellish atmosphere that is made by secular state forces and political Islamists, a hell made by severe “clashes” between opposite forces and ideas. After twelve years of exile from the fatherland, as a poet, Ka travels to Kars from Germany to obtain happiness. The purpose of this study, however, is to examine the role of happiness in Pamuk's Snow, but also to show how the kinds of hell are made by secular and Islamic politicians. Is it possible to find happiness in the hell? How does it happen? Searching for happiness in hell is another purpose of this article. What shape should hell take between the clashes of political Islamists and secularists? Another aim of this study is to increase imperative critique of Islamic and secular terrorism discourse. In Snow, Pamuk criticizes the policy of the republic seriously. This article attempts to reveal the factors behind the severe anti-secularism beliefs in fundamental Islamism through comparison its political point of view to the secular totalitarian policy. To illuminate the social and political conflicts and clashes in Snow, this article reads the novel from different sociopolitical theoretical conceptual sources.

An assessment of committed effective dose and lifetime cancer risk due to the ingestion of infant milk

Infant milk is a manufactured food designed for feeding babies and infants under 12 months of age. This product is indicated when, for some reason, the baby can not be fed by breast milk. It is used in case of intolerance to milk from farmed animals and is widely used for the nutrition of newborns in artificial lactation, in place of breastfeeding. It can be used as a complete or partial substitute for human milk. In the current study, the committed effective dose and lifetime cancer risk due to ingestion of 4 K, 226Ra, and 228Ra were estimated using activity concentration obtained from high-resolution gamma spectrometry. Consumption data and dose coefficients were obtained from Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and data published by ICRP 119. Infant milk and water samples were collected in the Rio de Janeiro trade, placed in a polystyrene container, and then sealed to reach the secular radioactive equilibrium condition (at least 45 days). The samples were analyzed by gamma spectrometry using a High Purity Germanium (HPGE). Detection efficiency for each sample was obtained with LabSOCS software. For infant milk samples, the highest values of activity concentrations were (242 ± 9) Bq.kg−1 for 4 K, (5 ± 1) Bq.kg−1 for 228Ra and presented values below the detection limit for 226Ra. The higher values obtained for water samples were (10 ± 1) Bq.l−1, (5 ± 1) Bq.l−1, (5.3 ± 0.1) Bq.l−1 for 4 K, 226Ra and 228Ra, respectively. These values of committed effective dose are below the values stipulated by UNSCEAR (290 μSv.y−1) and by the ICRP (1 mSv.y−1). The values obtained for lifetime cancer risk are considered negligible, once they are below the limit considered for taking action (10−4). It can be concluded that the values calculated do not present a significant risk regarding the intake of infant milk in the first two years of the child's life.

Religious Minorities in Secular Autocratic Arab Regimes: The Political Discrimination of Christians in Syria

The main focus of this article is the political discrimination and/or exclusion of Christian minorities in Syria, with a particular focus on the era of Hafez al-Assad. It begins by analyzing the characteristics of the political regime in the pre- and during Hafez al-Assad era and then tackles and measures the level of state secularization from 1950 until the al-Assad period. Political discrimination against the Christians of Syria will then be measured and identified to understand better how and why secular regimes in the Arab region discriminate against religious minorities at a political level, in this case, the Christians of Syria.

Https://panor.ru/articles/religioznoe-obrazovanie-v-svetskom-gosudarstve/86417.html

A brief retrospective journey into the history of the formation of religious education in Europe and Russia is made. The greatest attention is paid to the Middle Ages and the New Age. General aspects and criteria of religious education in a secular state are considered. The participation of the state and the church in educational policy and public education is shown. The materials of the article can be useful in the study of the General History and the History of Pedagogy.

Faith-based social service practitioners negotiating the secular state service sector: a New Zealand context

ABSTRACT This opinion piece discusses three aspects that can cause tensions for Christian social service practitioners who work in secular employment. We bring our observations as educators of social service practitioners in the vocational setting. Our specific geographic and historical context of Aotearoa New Zealand adds to the aspects presented. The training of social service workers necessitates covering values and ethical decisions that may be faced in practice. Codes of practice and societal norms may at times, be in conflict with the values held by the practitioner. There is growing awareness that the state in some Western democracies is less secular today and may be entering a post-secular age in which religious pluralism is the norm. How this impacts the Christian practitioner and their training is still under-researched. We add to the discourse by providing a unique context to issues already expressed by others.

DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS OF RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR VALUES BALANCE RATIO IN MODERN KAZAKHSTAN

Based on the results obtained from sociological research, the authors of this article analyzed the perception of religious and secular values by the inhabitants of modern Kazakhstan. The specificity of value orientations of Kazakhstani society was comprehended in the context of mutual influence of religious and secular content. The authors examined in detail the phenomenon of secularism, a secular state and its legal principles. Secularism is defined as a prerequisite for the possibility of freedom of choice of a person and guarantees creation of conditions for realization of religious needs in a polyconfessional society. In their study, the authors reveal the concept of value foundation of society, its determining factor in human behavior. The comparison of basic values is made through the prism of the influence of the ratio of the balance of religious and secular values on the formation of the public consciousness of the inhabitants of modern Kazakhstan. The article provides an analysis of the results of in-depth interviews and focus groups conducted among representatives of the creative intelligentsia and youth. Questions asked to respondents in the course of these studies were devoted to understanding the essence and characteristics of secular and religious values, their functions, social and individual significance, personal attitude to secular and religious values.

Surviving the Secular: Faith, Grief, Parody

Surviving the Secular: Faith, Grief, Parody Michael Kirwan (bio) In The Diary of a Country Priest, George Bernanos offers an unsettling image: [T]he Church is not only ... a kind of sovereign state with laws, officials, armies – a moment, as glorious as you please, in human history. The Church is on the march through time as a regiment marches through strange country, cut off from all its ordinary supplies. The Church lives on successive regimes and societies, as the soldiers would from day to day on the inhabitants.1 I am aware the metaphor of military occupation is problematic, given the present state of war in Europe, but I am intrigued by its audacious and honest assertion, that there is something parasitic about the Church’s relation to the space it is occupying (if only temporarily). How do we imagine the Church’s survival into a post-Christendom future? Is it possible, as Bernanos suggests, that the contemporary Church, apparently burnt out and running on empty, can nevertheless draw sustenance from its environment – no matter how indifferent or hostile the local population? While not losing sight of Bernanos’s fugitive regiment, I will suggest in the conclusion that the musical term ‘parody’ might better describe the relation of dependency that he has in mind. Regarding the Church’s post-Christendom survival, there are other indications that the future may be different from what is generally predicted. Crawford Gribben concludes The Rise and Fall of Christian Ireland with some striking assertions: What passed as Christian Ireland is finally over – and Christians should be glad ... What has passed as Christian Ireland is dead. But its critics cannot relax any more than believers ought to despair.2 Gribben’s book narrates the ‘rise and fall’ of Irish Christianity, as we commemorate the historical markers of Ireland’s ascendency, its ‘coming of age’ as a modern secular state (independence in 1922, constitutional amendment to remove the ‘special position’ of the Catholic Church in 1972). The see-saw picture would appear to be a vindication of the standard ‘subtraction’ model of secularisation: ‘the common notion that the secular is [End Page 239] a natural substrate that remains when the fantastical ideas of the supernatural are finally shed’.3 Religion is irrelevant to human flourishing and may even impede it. However, the subtraction model has come under testing scrutiny. According to Charles Taylor, author of the monumental A Secular Age, it is simply not the case that stripping away religion reveals a fully coherent and autonomous (oven-ready?) secular social order.4 Ireland’s commemoration of its emergence into autonomous statehood occurs just as the continued feasibility of the secular state is at risk. Its vulnerabilities are dramatised in millennial convulsions: religious extremism, financial collapse, the surgence of populist, ‘post-truth’ politics and the coronavirus pandemic. Each of these shockwaves has further damaged the late twentieth-century consensus around an international, rules-based world order. The German commentator Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde initiates discussion of the ‘post-secular’ when he poses the question, as far back as the 1960s, as to whether the free, secularised state exists on the basis of normative presuppositions that it itself cannot guarantee.5 In short, the secular state does not have enough in its account to satisfy its creditors; we might say that the various crises listed above are the equivalent of a frenzied run on the bank. This challenge is taken seriously by the social theorist Jürgen Habermas, and by Joseph Ratzinger, in their conversion on the ‘pre-political foundations of the free democratic state’ in Munich, 2004. With this ‘post-secular’ possibility in mind, Gribben’s surprising predictions seem more plausible. The passing of ‘Christian Ireland’ might in fact be a source of gladness and hope for Christian believers. ‘After the failure of religious nationalism, what looks like irredeemable failure might actually be a second chance.’6 Gribben considers two scenarios for the continuance of Irish Christianity: an ‘Augustinian’ option and a series of ‘Benedict’ options. The first of these, inspired by the City of God, resists the sectarian temptation to exclusivism as a response to traumatic collapse. The second envisages smaller, more intensive Christian communities...

From reciprocity to welfare: Rerum Novarum, Catholicism, and early social security in Latin America

AbstractThis article explores the role of Catholicism after the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), in shaping early Latin American social security. While social security is often interpreted as the outcome of organized distributional struggles, recent scholarship has begun to pay attention to the religious origins of a variety of social security systems. Building on this “religious turn”, the article reviews how research on religious traditions and the welfare state illuminate Latin American early developments of social security. By placing these experiences within welfare research at the beginning of the 20th century, this review aims to shed light on two understudied themes. First, new questions emerge connecting cultural understandings to their institutionalization through social policy. Second, Rerum Novarum and the social doctrines of the Catholic Church provided a vocabulary to nurture and legitimize secular state interventions in line with traditional ideas of reciprocity and charity. Social security models inspired by early German and French experiences, through the recommendations of the International Labour Organization, were adapted to local realities without challenging previous forms of social organizations that favored Catholic notions of in‐kind support and encouraged personal relationships. Building on recent scholarship, the article ends by calling for further research on how Catholic in‐built conceptions of reciprocity shape secular policies.