Secular States and Religious Diversity

The series is generated by a research project started in 2006 under the auspices of Berman (emeritus political studies, Queen's U., Canada) to explore the issue of governing ethnic diversity. This volume contains 11 essays revised from presentations at an October 2008 workshop looking at religious rather than, or as a code for, ethnic diversity. The topics include religious pluralism as a self-evident problem in the context of globalization, whether secularism can be rehabilitated, tolerance and accommodation as vestiges of the empire, an analysis of B. R. Ambedkar's views on state intervention in the reform of a "religion of rules," and the changing state monopoly on religion and secular views in Thailand. Distributed in the US by the University of Washington Press and in Canada by the University of Toronto Press. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Bruce J. Berman is professor emeritus of political studies at Queen’s University and was director of the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance project from 2006 to 2012. Rajeev Bhargava is a senior fellow at and director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. Andre Laliberte is professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa.