Secularism is perhaps best understood as a cluster term around which a series of academic and public debates gather. These debates typically are about the role of religion in societies and what are or should be the limits to religion’s public and private influence. It is a particularly tricky area of scholarship for beginners and seasoned scholars alike, as few agree on basic terms. Berlinerblau offers a refreshing primer to these debates, starting with what he calls a universal, “skinny” definition of secularism, before using the definition to navigate complicated historical and conceptual terrain. Scholars may debate the “skinny” definition itself, but in providing a clear starting line, he offers a book of use to scholars wherever they are on their academic journey.

Berlinerblau’s book offers a helpful cartography, focusing on one subset of these debates: the regulatory behaviour of the state regarding religion. Berlinerblau sets out 10 key principles of political secularism. The book is then organised chronologically to chart their historical emergence over the course of 500 years. This effectively demonstrates his argument that political secularism evolves very gradually, with reversals, rather than exploding onto the scene in the 20th century, fuelled by industrialization, Marxist-Leninism, the end of empire and the earthquake of two world wars. The 10 key principles allow him to build a typology of four historically important types of political secularism: American separationism, French laÏcité, Indian accommodationism and Soviet-style atheist secularism. While not included in this book, the burgeoning literature on Multiple Secularities, which builds on debates over Multiple Modernities, has made excellent headway in disentangling secularism as systems of political organisation (secularism) from the ways in which actors imagine and enact a separation between religion and other social spheres (secularity) (Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt 2012). Secularity often, though not always, precedes the emergence of secularism as a set of political arrangements. Berlinerblau’s careful unpacking of differences between an accommodationist and separatist framework on the one hand and between laÏc and atheist frameworks on the other are useful conceptual contributions to scholarship in their own right. In his lively style, Berlinerblau also offers a working account of several case studies (Uruguay, Ethiopia and China) which have not yet received much attention in the academic literature on political secularism. Berlinerblau’s observations about secular constitutions in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside a useful map, is also novel. Hopefully this will spark the imaginations of future scholars turning to this book for a way into the topic.

One of Berlinerblau’s most useful chapters sets out what he calls a “swerve,” whereby proponents of atheism as an ontological-ethical personal stance came to embrace secularism as a system of political organisation. He places this fusion’s origins in 19th century Great Britain. The book then traces its development through the promotion of Soviet-style atheism in Eastern Europe in the 20th century and the New Atheist position which captured public imaginations globally in the 2000s. While this history may be familiar to an experienced reader, its conceptual novelty comes in pithily capturing the link between secularization as a social phenomenon and anti-religious secularism as a principle of political order. This in itself is a helpful addition to the literature. There are so far limited attempts among scholars to fully theorize connections between private commitments, attitudes towards religion’s role in public life, and systems of political organisation and governance. An exception is Gutkowski (2020), where Bourdieu’s framework of field and habitus are linked to Schutz’s conception of the lifeworld, to capture and theorize this “swerve,” applying it to the case of Palestine/Israel.

The ideological fusion to political authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union, its satellites, and China post-cultural revolution entangled atheism and secularism in global histories of extreme violence. Of course, atheist secularism is not the only form of secularism to be ideologically mobilized alongside state violence: Ataturkist laiklik in the early Turkish state and modernizing efforts in Iran under the Shah were part of this dark historical legacy. However, what is particularly helpful in Berlinerblau’s account is that he places the origins and continuation of this fusion squarely in the West. Western New Atheists may trumpet atheism as a staunch affiliate to liberalism and reason, at odds with radicalizing political jihadism. But New Atheists have inherited, conceptually and historically, the same baggage as non-Western states seeking to radically accelerate social change and compete with Western industrialization and capitalism in the 20th century.

In the conclusion, Berlinerblau makes several intriguing, related observations about secularism as normative political movement that would perhaps benefit from further reflection. He asserts,

[I]t must be noted that there has been very little innovation in secular theory over the past half century. In fact, that has been almost none. It is hard to think of an individual secular theorist, let alone a think tank, or school of thought that has tried to refresh, update or improve the secular vision as it lurches into its third millennia.

Berlinerblau 2022, 185

It seems to me that it depends on what we mean by secular theory. It strikes me here, if I have understood correctly, that Berlinerblau means specifically liberal advocates for political secularism, that there have been no radically novel claims by political theorists that could be marshalled for the pursuit of greater human freedom. Indeed, the 21st century has not yet found its own John Locke. It is also interesting that he does not seem to see greater bureaucratic efforts by American and European governments and the UN around religious freedom as a new vector to secular freedom of unbelief around the world, though I agree with his assessment of their limits. He points out, rightly in my view, that some of the freest places to be a non-believer are in non-secular Northern European states with established churches, which take a “laissez faire” attitude to private commitments (Berlinerblau 2022, 180). This is an interesting coda to his previous observations about fusions of secularism and atheism, showing that atheism and other forms of non-religiosity do not require secular political arrangements to thrive.

However, the purpose of theory is not merely to advocate for the virtues of governance without theological inflection. Berlinerblau makes the same observation in his account of critical, post-modern and post-colonial theories about the secular. Though mentioned only briefly in the book, over the past two decades, theorists engaged on questions of the post-secular and also political theology have produced exciting new theories which engage questions about the secular. They are not pro-secularism. Their work however captures well the fact that religious belief and practice continue to animate the largest proportion of the world’s population. Perhaps the most promising arenas of future theorization by those committed to “more” secularism lie in mining the seamline between those who hope the world will be more friendly to non-religious ethical commitments and those seeking richer recognition of religion’s virtues for building the common good. Incorporating substantial advances in political theory that are not directly religion related could also move things forward. Critically, the 21st century has not yet radically advanced the core question of human freedom—which is of course the basis upon which these other, dialectical questions rest.

On a final, related note, in the conclusion Berlinerblau offers some comments on the Middle East. The region is widely accepted to have, globally, some of the most religious populations with most state constitutions also legally recognizing sharia as a source of legal basis or inspiration. It has, he suggests, societies likely to benefit from ‘more’ secular governance. He proposes,

Given the religious strife that engulfs the [Middle East], a functioning secularism is certainly a plausible governance option … [however, globally] there are no major secular international movements. Those that do exist are generally small and under-subscribed. This means, among other things, that ‘secular nationalists’ in non-secular countries (e.g. Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iran) are completely isolated from one another. Can secular citizens in the non-secular Middle East, from Tel Aviv, to Amman, to Beirut, to Riyadh, to Tehran join a common cause?

Berlinerblau 2022, 186–187

That political secularism has its own violent history has been established. This history shows it is not irenic and it is not a panacea. Scholars also widely concur that violence in the Middle East is due to high levels of authoritarian governance and disputes over material resources. Its roots are not religion-related, however often ethno-religious and sectarian idioms have been mobilized during conflict. Additionally, since the Arab uprisings which began in 2011, there have been substantial debates and rising support for a dawla madaniyya, a civil state, in countries effected. These have taken a different direction than what President Erdogan proposed in 2011, when he suggested that Arab states should follow the Turkish laÏc model. Arab proposals place this version of secularism closest to accommodationism, with critical variations from the Indian model. This has been happening at the highest levels of politics and has been endorsed by Islamists participating in or seeking to participate in democratic processes. Where movements towards a civil state model have stalled, this is due to wider problems of democratization. Across the Arab world, there are transnational conversations on these issues though not enough. That secular advocates in Israel and Iran—in many ways the states in the region with the richest, most developed conversations on these issues—still remain outsiders to these debates is the perennial problem of geopolitics hampering transnational solidarity.