Religious Discrimination and Religious Governance Across Secular and Islamic Countries: France and Indonesia as Limiting Cases

Abstract

In this article, the author explores resemblances and overlaps of very different regimes of religious governance, the secular and the religious, in the ways they address religious discrimination. The author defines religious discrimination broadly and considers the possible solutions available to those (usually) democratic states that respond to complaints of discrimination. The author considers two limit cases: Indonesia, which bases its Islamic judicial system on scripture; and France, which proclaims that it does not recognize or support any religion. The author argues that although these two countries begin at opposite ideological positions with respect to the state’s relationship to religion, in fact they adopt policy positions that share several features, including granting formal privileges to recognized religions and maintaining the state’s legal superiority to scripture as the source of law. The author argues, not that this overlap is to be expected in all cases, even of democratic societies responsive to discrimination claims, but that we ought to pursue further comparative research into its scope.