Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2008/04/06/theocrats_in_a_democracy.php

Theocrats in a Democracy

Sunday, April 6, 2008

For all the debate over policies or ideals, the majority of us at this point can agree on the basic tenets of classical liberalism—the liberalism of the Bill of Rights, not of Maureen Dowd—and have little contention with the separation of powers or the establishment clause. At the heart of American civic life has been a healthy appreciation of religious tolerance, or at the very least, a minimal amount of religious persecution. However, the resurgence of fundamentalist religion in both the East and the West, and the increasingly political nature of their religious leaders, coupled with a more secularized political sphere, have caused questions on the proper relationship between state, religion and citizen to come to the forefront of political debate.

Lucas Swaine, an Associate Professor of Government here at Dartmouth College, has proposed to help resolve the contention between fundamentalists—or theocrats as he calls them—and liberal democracy in his first book, The Liberal Conscience, a spirited addition to modern political philosophy. Professor Swaine came to Dartmouth only a few years ago after having received doctorates from both the University of Sussex and Brown University, then spending time at St. Andrew’s in Scotland as the Gifford Research Fellow. Since his arrival, Swaine has become a popular professor of political philosophy, while enjoying the northern climate that is reminiscent of his native Manitoba and intelligent undergraduates at a “first-rate intellectual institution that doesn’t have second-rate graduates” to watch over. He’s also taken advantage of the time to write his first book, the aforementioned The Liberal Conscience, and another untitled project on the autonomous life and its value that he’s working on currently.

— Professor Lucas Swaine —

The Liberal Conscience is a novel approach to the problem of theocrats living in a liberal democracy, a problem which has too often been dismissed out-of-hand by political theorists, including one giant in the field, John Rawls. When asked as to why he chose this topic, one that has invited flak from both sides of the aisle, Swaine commented that while studying at St. Andrew’s he “thought of the toughest issues in the next 10 or 20 years” and realized that current standards for “squaring liberalism with faith” were simply insufficient.

Theocrats create both a moral and a practical problem for a liberal democracy. Moral, in that a liberal democracy aims at being as inclusive as possible, but history has shown they have built a poor record on treatment of theocrats, frequently coercing them through legislation to conform to community standards. Practical, because a theocrat can neither be excluded from a liberal democracy nor forced into adopting more moderate religious practices, creating the need for a doctrine or system that allows their incorporation into society without compromising the values of either the theocrat or the society. The problems that arise from active theocratic elements in a society touch on practically all domestic political questions from school choice to abortion to gay marriage.

The principles of toleration, fairness, and equality all struck him as unable to bridge the gap between liberalism and faith. To rectify this issue Swaine has proposed his own definition of “liberty of conscience” through which theocrats could affirm liberal democracy, if not necessarily endorse it, and the prospect of “semi-sovereignty” for cohesive religious groups. The book lays out a framework for groups like the Amish to legally control many elements of their society as long as they meet several basic prerequisites for semi-sovereignty, such as protection of human rights, standards for education, and the ability for members to safely exit the society.

This solution would allow for a liberal democracy to feel that it had met its own standards in treatment of its citizens, while at the same time allowing those citizens to pursue a particular and separate existence.

However, a flaw seems to appear when reconciling certain theocratic beliefs—such as denying or promoting the existence of aberrant sexual practices—and common conceptions of human rights. For Swaine the 1948 declaration of human rights is an insufficient basis on which to ground the rights of a semi-sovereign community as its “long and problematic” due to its desire “to include a great deal” instead of trying to define the most basic, universal, and necessary rights. Thus, the most basic set of rights must be protected while allowing the community to pursue whatever values it wishes, as long as the right of exit is protected for those who would feel persecuted.

Swaine’s argument for why theocrats would support a liberal democracy and how they should reasonably dismiss a theocracy due to issues over corruption and perception of the Good have interesting implications for the Middle East. Essentially, his argument for a country like Iran is that different types of theocrats exist in Iran who have prioritized religious values in separate ways, but are forced to conform to Ayatollah Khomeini’s definition, which stifles their ability to pursue their own beliefs. Thus, a more religious Iran could be achieved through the implementation of liberal democracy in which an Iranian can passionately pursue Islam in his own way, instead of with disinterest because of disagreement with a temporal authority.

Closer to home, it helps resolve major issues concerning communities that object to things such as teaching evolution or abortion. If the community can decide to enforce these rules within their own semi-sovereign community, there would be less reason to attack the policies of the wider community. Though Swaine may have overestimated the geographic density of theocrats for his semi-sovereign argument, it does succeed in creating a reasonable framework for reclusive communities such as the Amish to be treated by the government. A definite success in proposing and arguing a new and sympathetic view on theocrats, reader be warned that even though The Liberal Conscience has already won the North American Society for Social Philosophy’s Best Book Award for 2006, it is an academic read and a companion to the greater body of work on liberalism.