Unity Through Separation: On the Construction of Danish Secularism

This PhD thesis asks how we can conceptualize the current separation doctrine of religion and politics in a country like Denmark, where the structure of the established church and peoplehood overlap. In order to answer this question, Hans Bruun Dabelsteen maps the current discussion of secularism and proposes two conceptual expansions. The first is to include modest establishment in a framework of secularism defensible by political liberalism, and the second is to consider secularism in close connection to a theory of peoplehood.

Methodologically positioned between interpretive realism and policy analysis, Dabelsteen study Danish secularism as an ideological concept. He finds that the conceptual structure of Danish secularism holds separation-as-principled distance at its core. Institutionally this particularly pertains to the establishment arrangement, and in practice it translates into the principle of treating everybody equally (with religious freedom, equality and Danish peoplehood as the most important principles adjacent to secularism).

In a study of the historical roots of the separation doctrine and two current policy cases (same-sex marriage and reforms of church governance), Dabelsteen shows how an ideological concept like secularism does not hold one clear and final conception. Rather, its meaning is fluid and subject to constant contestation over time. Based on these empirical analyses, he identifies two variants of Danish secularism dominating the ideological discourse today: assertive secularism and accommodationist secularism. It is argued that it is the development of these two positions, and their mutual struggle that defines the future of political conditions of the established church and other minority religious communities in Denmark.