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AbstractThis article examines four typologies of secularism in China from the sixteenth century onward, through an analysis of the triadic relationship between the secular, religious, and superstitious. These notions have been considered to be derived from the particular intellectual and political history of the West, but this fails to grasp the complexity of non-Western belief systems. This article proposes to instead examine how Chinese policymakers and intellectuals actively fabricated religion and produced secularization. It goes beyond a simple rebuttal of Eurocentrism, and arguments regarding the mutual incomparability of Western and Chinese experiences of secularization. It distinguishes four typologies of secularism that emerged successively in China: (1) the reduction of Christianity from the sixteenth century to the 1900s; (2) the Confucian secular and (3) atheist secular that were conceptualized, respectively, by royalist reformers and anti-Manchu revolutionaries during the final two decades of the Qing Dynasty; and (4) the interventionist secularism pursued by the Republican and the Communist regimes to strictly supervise and regulate religious beliefs and practices. The paper argues that, if secularization is indeed Christian in nature, secularism and religion were not imposed in China under Western cultural and political hegemony. Instead, the Christian secular model was produced in China mainly via pre-existing cultural norms and the state's ad hoc political needs, making the Christian secularism itself a multipolar phenomenon.

Political secularism takes many forms but a fundamental distinction is between radical and moderate kinds. The latter is a genuine secularism and not just a failure to take secularism to its logical conclusion. The failure to appreciate this obscures the secularism that exists in western Europe. Namely, an accommodation of organised religion which sees it as a potential public good or national resource (not just a private benefit), which the state can in some circumstances assist to realise—even through an 'established' church. I adumbrate five types of reasons the state might be interested in religion: truth, danger, utility, identity and respect. The challenge facing such secularism today is whether it can be pluralised or multiculturalised, in particular whether it can accommodate Muslims. A ground for optimism is the respect that some people, especially some Muslims, have for religions other than their own.

Confluence of Politics an Religion: An Introduction -- Civilization as Secularization: The Transformation of European Identities -- On Multiple Epistemologies of Secularism: Towards a Political Economy Critique -- The Westernization of a Western Country. Between Liberalization and the Continuity of Corporate Models: Économie Politique, Secularism and the Organisation of Industry -- The Modern Is Not Secular: Mapping the Idea of Secularism in the Works of Steve Bruce, Charles Taylor and Talal Asad -- The Socio-Anthropology of Secularism: From Genealogy to the Multiple Manifestations of the Secular -- Understanding Turkish Modernization in the Midst of Conjectural Changes in Ethics and Politics -- The Political Economy of Secularism in Turkey: Beyond Culturalist and Ideational Explanations -- Does Religion Matter? In Search of a Secular Rationale of the EU Neighborhood Policy: Cases of Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan -- Concluding Remarks.

Reviewing both the claims and various definitions of Jewish and Palestinian nationhood, the author assesses the prospects for a two-state solution to the pivotal issue of Middle Eastern policies. (DÜI-Sdt)