The New Governance of Religious Diversity

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November 26, 2024 | Religious diversity is a key feature of countries across the world today, but it also presents governments with very real challenges. Controversies around religious free speech, symbols, social values and morals, and the role of faith leaders as critical voices are just a few of the issues that have given rise to fierce social, political, and scholarly debate. So how do states include and accommodate religious diversity, and should this change? What are the key difficulties facing states when it comes to governing religious diversity?
Understanding this complex phenomenon means thinking through secularism, liberalism, multiculturalism, and nationalism in theory and practice. In their new book The New Governance of Religious Diversity (2024), Tariq Modood and Thomas Sealy draw on original research to present new ways of analyzing the governance of religious diversity in different regions of the world. Identifying the key challenges at stake, they also argue for a new statement of multiculturalism in relation to the governance of religious diversity, that of "multiculturalized secularism," which represents a constructive and productive response to the reality of religiously plural societies.
This event featured authors Tariq Modood, professor and founding director of the Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol, and Thomas Sealy, lecturer in ethnicity and race at the University of Bristol. Berkley Center Senior Fellow Jocelyne Cesari moderated the discussion.