POLITICAL LIBERALISM

The Peace of Westphalia, which ended thirty years of European warfare in 1648, is said to have re-embraced the principle ‘cuius regio, eius religio’, by which the religion of the governed should be that of their territorial ruler. So Europe, exhausted by wars in which, according to some estimates, half of its population was killed, settled for being religiously diverse. Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed states remained and coexisted. In this particular arena of international conflict, the critical ingredient of religion was largely removed. The Westphalian settlement, however, though recognising religious diversity across the continent, did not end the argument about diversity within states. By the middle of the seventeenth century claims for religious liberty were increasingly being advanced by individuals and groups. These recalled arguments already rehearsed by Renaissance humanists and reformers a century earlier. Now they were presented with greater clarity and cogency, especially amongst dissenters in England.

During this early modern period developments of a position (or set of related positions) now known as political liberalism appear in Europe. According to a standard interpretation of the matter, liberalism emerged from the realisation that a basis for public life had to be found that was relatively independent of religious loyalty. To put the point most minimally, people of differing faith commitments had to find a way of living together without recourse to violence.