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Secular Regimes and State Engagement with Religion in post-Soviet Eurasia

Abstract

The post-Soviet region is the only area of the world in which every state is secular. Since independence in 1991, each of the 15 states has formally declared its secular nature; however, they have had drastically different policies towards religion. The Baltic states and Ukraine have relatively liberal policies in which religious groups and people are more or less free to operate without much restriction. In Armenia, Russia, Moldova and Georgia there is a certain level of cooperation between the state and religious groups, including state subsidies or formal support for religions of declared people or nations. In the Central Asian countries, Azerbaijan and Belarus, the state poses considerable regulations and restrictions on religion, and controls religious activities by incorporating (or subjugating) religion into the state order.

This project analyzes the determinates of the level of state engagement with religion (SER) in the 15 post-Soviet countries, with special focus on Estonia, Georgia and Uzbekistan as three examples of countries with low, medium and high SER, respectively. It examines SER in terms of state funding for religion, use of religious symbols by the state, formal incorporation of religion into the state, and regulations and restrictions placed on religion. The project assesses several possible explanatory variables (i.e. regime type, economic development, predominant religion and religious fractionalization), and shows SER is impacted by regime type, predominant religion, and presence or absence of consensus between secular leaders and religious authorities in each country during the state-building period after 1991.

This study is the first systematic comparative analysis of secular state regimes and SER across the 15-post-Soviet countries. The project also provides more explanatory power to the term secular state and shows that there are a variety of secular states throughout the world. Finally, the research connects this region with the vast body of literature on state-religion relations from which it is has been largely absent.

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