What is discriminatory secularism?

The secularism literature generally distinguishes between two primary forms. The first, which we term benign secularism, describes a model in which the state maintains neutrality toward religion while permitting the public expression of religious beliefs. This model upholds both freedom of religion and freedom from religion, accommodating religious practices in public life as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. It fosters a positive and cooperative relationship between religion and the state while preserving institutional separation. Religion is acknowledged as a public good, and religious voices are welcomed in the public sphere, ensuring that all religious groups operate on a level playing field (Iannaccone, Finke and Stark Reference Iannaccone, Finke and Stark1997; Stark and Finke Reference Stark and Finke2000). Importantly, benign secularism neither subjugates religion to the state nor reduces it to a captive entity; instead, it allows religious institutions a degree of autonomy to govern themselves relatively free from governmental interference (Toft, Philpott and Shah Reference Toft, Philpott and Shah2011). Simultaneously, the state relinquishes any authority to regulate or suppress individuals’ free exercise of their religious beliefs (Stepan Reference Stepan2000).

The second form of secularism is what we term hostile secularism. Unlike benign secularism, hostile secularism demands a strict separation between religion and the state, often seeking to exclude religion from the public sphere altogether. It regards faith as a private matter and aims to minimize or eliminate religious influence on public policy, education, and government affairs. While hostile secularism may single out certain religious minorities for especially harsh treatment, its foundational ideology is fundamentally anti-religious, leading to the broad suppression of religious difference and the restriction of religious freedom (Kuru Reference Kuru2008).

Hostile secularism manifests in two general forms. The first – religious subjugation – is characteristic of atheistic states that adopt an openly antagonistic stance toward all religion. In the former Soviet Union, for example, the state demonstrated hostility toward religion across the board. It targeted both majorities and minorities; it destroyed both churches and mosques. Today, the communist model of secularism is evident in countries such as China, Cuba, and North Korea. A variation of this model exists in the Southeast Asian countries of Laos and Vietnam. The second form is religious co-optation, exemplified by secular Arab nationalism. Unlike the communist model, states governed according to the logic of secular Arab nationalism do not seek to eliminate religion but instead regulate it extensively to reinforce autocratic power and serve national interests. This model differs from other forms of hostile secularism in that rulers attempt to control religion by co-opting it. Secular Arab autocrats often support a moderate strain of the dominant faith tradition, making religious institutions dependent on and beholden to the government as a means of keeping religion’s public influence in check.

While benign and hostile secularism represent opposite ends of the religious freedom spectrum, they share a key similarity: neither seeks to create an intentionally unbalanced religious playing field where certain religions are favored by the state while others are disproportionately repressed – at least in principle. In benign secularism, the state remains religiously neutral, neither discriminating against nor favoring any religion (or doing so only minimally). In hostile secularism, the state represses all religions without (or with minimal) discrimination. Although in some cases of hostile secularism – particularly in the Arab world – the state may co-opt a dominant religious tradition by granting it unique privileges, even that tradition remains subject to strict state regulation (Fox Reference Fox2015: 2).

Discriminatory secularism differs from other forms of political secularism by creating, in practice, an unbalanced religious playing field where minority religious groups face disproportionate discrimination by the state compared to majority religious groups. States restrict the religious practices of minority communities because these practices are perceived to contradict the secular foundations of the state and to threaten social harmony and stability (Esbeck Reference Esbeck1988; Linz and Stepan Reference Linz and Stepan1996; Kuru Reference Kuru2008). Increasingly, discriminatory secularism is institutionalized across Europe through rulings by the European Court of Justice, which has issued landmark decisions on the rights and limits of Muslim employees wearing religious headscarves in the workplace, as well as the rights of employers to make religious affiliation and conformity prerequisites for employment or grounds for differential treatment of employees (Pin and Witte Reference Pin and Witte2020: 223).

Interestingly, discriminatory secularism is prevalent in countries often regarded as bastions of freedom, with most states practicing it clustered in Europe (Fox Reference Fox2019a; Fox Reference Fox2021). Europe is not only the most secular region globally in terms of religious belief and practice, but this secularism is also deeply embedded in government institutions and often expressed through laws and policies that disproportionately target religious minorities (Cesari Reference Cesari2013; Fox and Akbaba Reference Fox and Akbaba2015a; Fox Reference Fox2019a; Fox, Finke and Eisenstein Reference Fox, Finke and Eisenstein2019). For example, the French model of secularism – laïcité – incorporates elements of benign secularism, such as state neutrality in religious affairs and freedom of conscience, while simultaneously imposing strict limits on public religious expression and restricting practices perceived to conflict with the secular founding principles of the French Republic. In practice, religions seen as threatening the neutrality of the public square or liberal values face greater restrictions. While most European states do not fully adopt the laïcist model, many draw inspiration from it, particularly in efforts to regulate religion in public life. As a result, Europe experiences higher levels of anti-minority religious discrimination than other liberal democratic states. One global analysis of minority religious discrimination finds that ‘non-Orthodox Western and European democracies’ exhibit far greater frequency and intensity of anti-minority discrimination than democracies elsewhere (Fox Reference Fox2021: 331). Supporting this, Pew Research Center data show that Europe has experienced some of the largest increases in restrictions on religious minorities in recent years (Diamant Reference Diamant2019).

European secularism has developed over the longue durée, shaped by complex social, economic, and political changes across centuries. Yet, this distinctive form of secularism has recently combined with new developments to produce something unprecedented. In particular, demographic shifts driven by immigration, increasing religious diversification, and high minority birth rates have fueled widespread societal anxiety that European countries are rapidly losing their cultural heritage and identity. This anxiety, in turn, has created fertile ground for a culture of hostility toward minority groups to take hold, often expressed through antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Opportunistic political leaders have capitalized on these anti-minority sentiments, portraying religious pluralism as an existential threat to national unity, stability, and security. In countries such as Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, and Switzerland, politicians have routinely scapegoated Muslim communities, blaming them for various societal problems to mobilize electoral support. Right-wing parties – France’s National Front, Germany’s Alternative and PEGIDA parties, Hungary’s Jobbik, Austria’s Freedom Party, Poland’s Law and Justice Party, Slovenia’s Democratic Party, Switzerland’s People’s Party, Italy’s Northern League, and Greece’s Golden Dawn – have increased their political influence partly by rejecting minorities. These parties have championed laws and policies that impose increasingly restrictive measures on religious minorities, purportedly to safeguard national religious heritage and identity from perceived external threats (Fox Reference Fox2008, Reference Fox2016, Reference Fox2020).

Restrictions on minorities often arise in response to a range of motivating events, both domestic and international. These triggers may be religious or nonreligious in nature. Religious factors can include demographic shifts caused by immigration and refugee crises, cultural diversification, and violent acts committed by members of particular faith traditions abroad (Grim and Finke Reference Grim and Finke2010). Anti-minority restrictions may also stem from nonreligious developments – economic downturns, pandemics, or foreign policies enacted by distant states – for which local minorities are unfairly scapegoated. Consequently, religious minorities who visibly and openly practice their faith in ways that challenge the dominant culture are especially likely to bear the brunt of faith-based restrictions.

The European commitment to secularism results in restrictions on the practices of minority faith communities across several key areas. These include bans or limitations on wearing religious garments in public, prohibitions on ritual animal slaughter as practiced in Jewish kosher and Muslim halal traditions, and regulations on infant male circumcision (Cesari Reference Cesari2013; Fox Reference Fox2020: 140, 155–156). These restrictive laws and policies disproportionately affect minority religious groups – primarily Jews and Muslims – and are justified through secular ideological principles (Fox Reference Fox2021). Below, we examine each of these issues in more detail.

First, several European countries prohibit or restrict Muslim women from wearing Islamic face coverings such as the niqab and burqa in public – garments that many Muslims consider religious obligations (Behiery Reference Behiery2013). Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have implemented full or partial bans on the veil. Other countries, including Croatia, Italy, Malta, Norway, and Spain, impose restrictions in specific regions or municipalities. The European Court of Justice has upheld the right of European employers to ban headscarves in the workplace. Although these laws do not explicitly mention any religion, they are widely understood to target Muslims and are therefore often referred to as ‘burqa bans’ (Saiya and Manchanda Reference Saiya and Manchanda2020a).

Supporters of these policies justify their opposition to the public wearing of Islamic dress on explicitly secular grounds, particularly through a secular conception of women’s rights. Islamic face coverings are seen as symbols of female oppression that dehumanize women. As Federiga Bindi explains, the veil ‘goes against the most basic Western principle: looking into someone’s eyes as the way to build trust’ (Dempsey Reference Dempsey2016). Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, defending legislation to outlaw burqas, condemned public veiling as a violation of ‘women’s dignity’ and a sign of ‘subservience and debasement’ (Chrisafis Reference Chrisafis2009). Proponents argue that such bans empower Muslim women by liberating them from oppressive cultural norms that inhibit their participation in public life. In sum, the public wearing of the Islamic veil is viewed as incompatible with shared secular Enlightenment values regarding women’s rights (Fetzer and Soper Reference Fetzer and Soper2005).

Second, discriminatory secular states restrict the practice of ritual animal slaughter as performed in the Muslim halal and Jewish kosher traditions (Van Der Schyff Reference Van der Schyff2014). In both faiths, ritual slaughter is considered mandatory for food production and has been practiced for centuries in Islam and millennia in Judaism. A key aspect of these practices is the prohibition against stunning animals prior to killing. Opponents of ritual slaughter argue that the practice constitutes senseless cruelty and ground their objections in animal welfare and rights concerns (Zoethout Reference Zoethout2013). In 2020, the European Court of Justice ruled that states may lawfully prohibit halal and kosher slaughter methods. Currently, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland have laws restricting ritual slaughter (Fox Reference Fox2020: 155), with several other countries contemplating similar legislation. Once again, we observe that these restrictions, justified through secular commitments, disproportionately impact religious minority communities.

Third, some European states regulate the circumcision of infant males – a practice central to both Islam and Judaism, with roots tracing back to the ancient covenant between God and Abraham in the biblical book of Genesis. Opponents of infant circumcision invoke children’s rights, arguing that the procedure causes significant pain to a non-consenting child and is irreversible. In 2012, a German court ruled that a ‘child’s right to physical integrity trumps religious and parental rights’. (Following public protests by Jewish and Muslim communities, the federal government later enacted legislation permitting infant circumcision.) Fox (Reference Fox2020: 155) observes that while most European countries do not ban infant circumcision outright, some, such as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, impose strict regulations. The issue has also sparked intense debate in Belgium and Finland, although proposed restrictions on infant male circumcision were ultimately rejected.

In all three cases – restrictions on the public wearing of the veil, ritual animal slaughter, and infant male circumcision – these limitations apply exclusively to religious minorities, primarily Jews and Muslims. Majority Christian populations do not engage in these specific practices: Christian women do not wear face coverings and generally do not cover their hair; Christianity places no dietary restrictions on its followers; and circumcision is not a religious requirement for baby boys in Christianity. While Fox (Reference Fox2020) demonstrates that the causes of religious discrimination are complex and multifaceted, it is clear that the form of political secularism prevalent in much of Europe is distinctly discriminatory. Importantly, restrictions on minority religious practices are justified not on religious or theological grounds but on secular ideological principles – specifically women’s rights, animal rights, and children’s rights (Saiya Reference Saiya2025c). European policymakers tend to frame these restrictions using secular Enlightenment values rather than religious language. Moreover, the particular ways in which European states restrict minority religious communities are unusual and rarely found outside this context. Table 1 provides a summary of the differences among the three forms of secularism discussed.

Table 1.

Three forms of secularism

Still, one might argue that the pervasive anti-minority discrimination throughout Europe is not secular but religious in nature, given that many European states establish or favor traditional forms of Christianity. We contend, however, that it would be mistaken to interpret this discrimination as religious rather than secular. This is because Christianity in Europe has largely become a secularized religion. Even when European states support Christianity, they do so within a secular framework designed to serve secular purposes (Modood and Sealy Reference Modood and Sealy2022). In this context, Christianity functions more as a marker of identity than as a theological belief system, emphasizing Europe’s shared Christian civilizational heritage (Brubaker Reference Brubaker2017). Unlike Christianity in the United States, Latin America, or Africa, which often has a stronger theological foundation, European Christianity coexists with secular liberalism (Cremer Reference Cremer2023). Brubaker (Reference Brubaker2017) calls this paradox ‘civilizationalism’ – a distinctly European ideology rooted in Christian heritage, secular liberalism, and Enlightenment values and defined in opposition to perceived non-European or non-Western ‘others’. This secularized form of Christian identity is unsurprising given the generally higher levels of religious belief and practice found in Christian-majority countries outside Europe. Nevertheless, European secularists broadly value Christianity’s cultural and historical contributions, acknowledge the deep entanglement of secular institutions with Christian heritage, and view the presence of foreign religions as a serious threat to these Christian traditions. As a result, Christian identity in Europe overlaps significantly with secular identity.

None of this is to suggest, of course, an unqualified set of rights for religious communities. Freedom of religion, like any freedom, presupposes justifiable limits, most notably when the right to act on one’s religious beliefs infringes on the rights of others, undermines the common good, endangers the rule of law, or threatens the secular foundations of the state. With these caveats acknowledged, a genuinely secular state guarantees freedom to religious groups and individuals to the fullest extent possible, in this way circumscribing its own power and ambit by acknowledging what many people consider to be most important in their lives.

Furthermore, research indicates that higher levels of religiosity tend to reduce support for restrictions on minority faith communities within the secular contexts of Europe (Bohman and Hjerm Reference Bohman and Hjerm2014; Helbing Reference Helbling2014; Carol, Helbling and Michalowski Reference Carol, Helbling and Michalowski2015; Hoffman and Rosenberg Reference Hoffman and Rosenberg2023). Fox, Finke, and Mataic (Reference Fox, Finke and Mataic2021) argue that increased religious activity and commitment lead to less discrimination against Muslim and Jewish minorities because these groups are perceived as potential allies in resisting secular encroachments. In other words, people from different faith traditions often unite to oppose the state’s secularizing pressures.

In summary, existing theories of political secularism generally hold that religion should be separated from governmental institutions, fostering a neutral and balanced religious landscape where no faith community is favored or repressed disproportionately. While these frameworks have been valuable in advancing our understanding of religion-state relations, we argue that this key assumption is flawed. In Europe, political secularism often produces an uneven religious playing field, privileging certain religious groups over others. We term this phenomenon discriminatory secularism. The following section explores how states practicing discriminatory secularism contribute to societal religious violence.

How discriminatory secularism encourages violence against religious minorities

The laws and policies discussed earlier – restrictions on religious dress, ritual animal slaughter, and male infant circumcision – have fostered an environment of hostility toward religious minority communities. This anti-minority culture is reinforced by various actors within majoritarian groups, including secular politicians, right-wing extremists, and Christian civilizationalists, who view minority religious practices as threats to national culture and identity. We argue that discriminatory secularism extends beyond issues of religious freedom and has profound consequences for societal cohesion. In countries where minority religious groups face discrimination, dominant faith traditions often feel entitled by their privileged status to treat minorities as second-class citizens (Finke, Martin and Fox Reference Finke, Martin and Fox2017). Finke and Harris (Reference Finke, Harris and Fox2012: 55) note that ‘when a religious group achieves a monopoly and holds access to the temporal power and privileges of the state, the ever-present temptation is to openly persecute religious competitors’. While such hostility often appears as nonviolent prejudice or harassment, discriminatory secularism can also foster violent attacks against minority groups. For example, in France, laïcité-based policies have alienated Muslim communities, fueled the growth of a radical right political movement, and promoted societal discrimination against Muslims (Almeida Reference Almeida2017; Hauser Reference Hauser2021). This marginalization has, in turn, contributed to increased attacks against French Muslims.

Accumulating evidence indicates that attacks against Jews, Muslims, and their holy sites have sharply increased across various European countries, particularly in the aftermath of major crises like the 2008 global financial recession and the Covid-19 pandemic. Both events fueled Islamophobic sentiments and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, creating fertile ground for violence against minority communities Blum Reference Blum2023). While some of this violence is perpetrated by other minority groups – for instance, the Israel–Hamas conflict has triggered Muslim-Jewish violence in Europe (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2024: 66) – such minority-on-minority violence represents only one dimension of the issue. A potentially more consequential dynamic, and the focus of this article, involves majority-on-minority violence (Henne, Saiya and Hand Reference Henne, Saiya and Hand2020; Saiya, Manchanda and Wadidi Reference Saiya, Manchanda and Wadidi2024; Suntay Reference Suntay2025; Saiya Reference Saiya2025a, Reference Saiya2025b). Majority violence carries weight for two reasons. First, by definition, religious majorities outnumber minorities, meaning there are more individuals who can become radicalized and give greater societal support for majoritarian violence. Second, majorities often pursue grander ambitions, such as purifying their countries from perceived ‘contaminating’ forces, whereas minorities tend to advocate for more limited goals, like securing equal rights.

Studies have shown that discrimination at the state level – including specific laws and policies targeted at minorities – fosters anti-minority violence within society (Saiya Reference Saiya2017a, Reference Saiya2017b; Saiya and Scime Reference Saiya and Scime2019; Saiya and Manchanda Reference Saiya and Manchanda2020a, Reference Saiya and Manchanda2020b; Henne, Saiya and Hand Reference Henne, Saiya and Hand2020; Saiya Reference Saiya2021; Saiya, Manchanda and Wadidi Reference Saiya, Manchanda and Wadidi2024; Saiya Reference Saiya2024, Reference Saiya2025b; Saiya and Manchanda Reference Saiya and Manchanda2025a, Reference Saiya and Manchanda2025b; Suntay Reference Suntay2025). This can include attacks against minority holy sites (Zellman and Majli Reference Zellman and Malji2023). Importantly, however, none of these works speak directly to the issue of political secularism.

We argue that a commitment to a discriminatory form of secularism can encourage anti-minority violence arising from three different sources. First, it can originate from Christian actors. This secularized Christianity is not theological but instead emphasizes the Christian histories, identities, and cultures of traditionally Christian European states, along with the perceived necessity to defend Western Christian civilization against the perceived threat of multiculturalism in its various forms. Christian civilizationalists are particularly opposed to the spread of Islam across Europe and to visible Muslim religious expressions in public spaces, such as Muslim women wearing the burqa.

Consider the case of Anders Breivik, a Christian terrorist responsible for nearly 400 deaths and injuries in separate attacks in Oslo, Norway, in 2011. These sequential attacks constituted the worst episode of violence in Norway since World War II, with most casualties occurring at a summer camp organized by the Workers’ Youth League. Breivik’s 1500-page manifesto, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, outlines his grievances in detail (Breivik Reference Breivik2011). Fundamentally, Breivik believed that Norway – a Christian country – was engaged in a hidden war against multiculturalism and religious pluralism. He wrote, ‘Christians then must commit themselves to the struggle of bringing to bear every political framework to perfect submission under God!’ (Breivik Reference Breivik2011: 407). He strongly opposed the multicultural policies of the Norwegian Labor government, which he saw as corrupting Christian European culture. He declared that ‘multiculturalism (protolegitimized moral relativism) must be deconstructed and delegitimized’ (Breivik Reference Breivik2011: 407). Breivik viewed Europe as under siege from mass immigration, particularly from the Islamic world, which he believed was contaminating ‘monocultural Christian Europe’, and he saw himself as the ‘Savior of Christianity’ (Breivik Reference Breivik2011: 1404).

Second, violence can also originate from extremist secular groups such as neo-Nazis and other white supremacist organizations. Unlike Christian civilizationalists, these groups tend to justify violence against religious minorities primarily through racist, rather than religious, arguments – although they often appropriate Christian myths and symbols for their own purposes. Groups such as Blood and Honour, Combat 18, Feuerkrieg Division, Generation Identity, National Action, Nordic Resistance Movement, and Order of Nine Angles have gained notoriety for their commitment to ethnic purity. These organizations promote hatred against both racial and religious minorities and have increasingly engaged in violent acts in recent years. Their ideology is largely driven by the theory of the ‘Great Replacement’, which posits that the indigenous European population is being systematically replaced by non-European migrants (Counter Extremism Project 2021).

Third, anti-minority violence can arise from a broader culture of hostility toward religious minorities that is diffuse and not tied to any specific organized group or ideological movement. In such cases, attacks often take the form of spontaneous or opportunistic ‘hate crimes’ carried out by individuals or small groups within society. These acts of violence are frequently fueled – whether indirectly or directly – by the incendiary rhetoric of right-wing politicians and religious leaders who stoke fear and suspicion of minority communities. Notable examples include Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders’ vocal campaign warning of an Islamic takeover of European civilization, French President Emmanuel Macron’s expressed intent to shut down certain Islamic social and educational organizations, former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s legislative proposals to ban political Islam, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s framing of Muslim migration as a national security threat. Far-right political parties have similarly mobilized significant popular support by promising to defend their nations against the perceived threat to Western civilization posed by religious minorities.

In other cases, the targeting of minorities may have less to do with overt discrimination, but rather the asymmetric application of secular principles, which reflects structural and cultural majoritarianism in which Christian norms are embedded in national identity and public institutions to such a degree that they are perceived as ‘neutral’ or ‘traditional’, while minority religious expressions – especially Islamic and Jewish practices – are treated as ‘foreign’, ‘threatening’, or ‘incompatible’ with liberal-democratic values. This does not necessarily imply conscious or coordinated discrimination by policymakers. Instead, it highlights how ostensibly neutral laws (such as bans on headscarves or religious symbols) can have disproportionate effects on religious minorities. In some cases, these patterns may be reinforced by latent cultural biases, including Islamophobia or anti-Semitic tropes, but the mechanism is often one of implicit exclusion rather than overt hostility.

Whether the targeting of minorities is deliberate or the product of the asymmetrical application of secularism, it frequently leads to what scholars have termed ‘securitization’, a concept defined as the process by which ‘an issue is presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure’ (Buzan, Waever and de Wilde Reference Buzan, Waever and de Wilde1998: 23–24). Applied to religion, securitization theory posits that political and religious leaders intentionally stoke anti-minority hostility by framing minority religious communities as threats to the nation’s culture and way of life, thereby indirectly legitimizing violent hostility against them (Cesari Reference Cesari2013; Fox and Akbaba Reference Fox and Akbaba2015a, Reference Fox and Akbaba2015b; Saiya and Manchanda Reference Saiya and Manchanda2020a, Reference Saiya and Manchanda2020b). This perceived threat to the social fabric posed by religious outsiders is constructed as requiring urgent responses outside the normal legal and political channels, even in liberal democracies – manifesting as discriminatory laws and policies targeting these communities (Cesari Reference Cesari2013; Fox and Akbaba Reference Fox and Akbaba2015a, Reference Fox and Akbaba2015b). Religious minorities, cast as existential threats, must be neutralized for the preservation of the dominant religion and the nation’s cultural identity (Fox, Finke and Eisenstein Reference Fox, Finke and Eisenstein2019; Fox and Topor Reference Fox and Topor2021). Such discriminatory frameworks at the state level provide rhetorical justification for societal-level anti-minority bigotry and violence, as dehumanizing discourse from political and religious elites offers extremists the cover to target minorities with impunity (Giner-Sorolla, Leidner and Castano Reference Giner-Sorolla, Leidner, Castano, Michael and Danielle2016; Piazza Reference Piazza2020). In short, there is a powerful and reciprocal relationship between anti-minority rhetoric emanating from the top and extremist violence from the grassroots (Saiya Reference Saiya, den Dulk and Oldmixon2014; Saiya Reference Saiya2015a, Saiya and Scime Reference Saiya and Scime2015; Saiya Reference Saiya2017a, Reference Saiya2017b; Saiya Reference Saiya2018; Saiya and Fidler Reference Saiya and Fidler2018; Saiya Reference Saiya2019a; Saiya and Scime Reference Saiya and Scime2019; Saiya Reference Saiya2020; Saiya Reference Saiya2021a; Saiya Reference Saiya2021b; Saiya Reference Saiya2022; Saiya Reference Saiya2024; Saiya Reference Saiya2025a, Reference Saiya2025b).

Some research suggests that religious hostility within society may be a cause, rather than a consequence, of government discrimination against religious minorities (Grim and Finke Reference Grim and Finke2010; Fox Reference Fox2020). For instance, Henne and Klocek (Reference Henne and Klocek2019) find that regimes experiencing religious conflict tend to adopt more repressive policies toward religious groups within their borders. Conversely, other studies indicate that government policies concerning religion can actively encourage social hostilities, including religion-related violence (Akbaba and Taydas Reference Akbaba and Taydas2011; Basedau, Pfeiffer and Vullers Reference Basedau, Pfeiffer and Vullers2016; Saiya Reference Saiya2018; Henne, Saiya and Hand Reference Henne, Saiya and Hand2020). One reason for these differing findings may lie in the distinct variables used to measure religious group treatment – some focus on state support for religion (eg Henne, Saiya and Hand Reference Henne, Saiya and Hand2020), while others examine anti-minority discrimination (eg Grim and Finke Reference Grim and Finke2010).

We argue that the relationship between governmental discrimination and societal violence is likely cyclical. Prejudice against minorities within society may prompt states to adopt discriminatory policies (Sarkissian Reference Sarkissian2015), which in turn can fuel further religious hostility and violence in society. Nonetheless, we maintain that religious violence rarely emerges absent an enabling environment – one often shaped or facilitated by state treatment of religion. For example, in a study of global religious terrorism, Saiya (Reference Saiya2018: 8) asserts that ‘a careful examination of the historical record shows that widespread terrorism usually follows rather than precedes repressive policies’. Naturally, religious violence in society can then lead governments to impose additional restrictions, perpetuating a cycle. Governments have the power to break this vicious cycle by relaxing restrictions on minority faith communities. In the context of Europe – the focus of this study – it is evident that discriminatory state policies have preceded and exacerbated societal violence.

In summary, across all three pathways, anti-minority violence is justified under the guise of defending a distinctly European or Christian secularism. In this way, secularism becomes an insidious rationale for intolerance, hostility, and violence directed at religious minorities (Adida, Laitin and Valfort Reference Adida, Laitin and Valfort2016). We theorize that higher levels of discriminatory secularism in Europe correspond to increased physical attacks against religious minorities. From this, we propose the following hypothesis:

Data and methods

To test for our hypothesis, we first compiled a panel dataset consisting of 28 European countries for the period 2003–2017 (a time period corresponding to data availability). The dataset contains information on our theoretically central independent variable, secular discrimination, several control factors, and our dependent variable – attacks on Jews, Muslims, and their associated holy sites. We limit our analysis to Europe because, as we have argued, it is the region of the world most likely to see the widespread practice of discriminatory secularism. At the same time, the fact that many countries in Europe do not practice discriminatory secularism provides ample variation on the independent variable (see below). The total number of observations may be slightly less than expected owing to missing data for some of the control variables.