Pasquale Annicchino

Bio: Pasquale Annicchino is an academic researcher from University of California, Berkeley. The author has contributed to research in topics: Human rights & European union. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 12 publications receiving 72 citations. Previous affiliations of Pasquale Annicchino include European University Institute.

Winning the Battle by Losing the War: The Lautsi Case and the Holy Alliance between American Conservative Evangelicals, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican to Reshape European Identity

Abstract: The compulsory display of crucifixes in Italian public schools does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. The victory before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the Lautsi judgment of a variegated coalition of actors ranging from the strong alliance between the Vatican and the Italian Government to the Russia of the New Orthodoxy as well as to American Conservative Evangelicals, promises to change our understanding of church-state relationship in Europe and signals the emergence of a ‘new ecumenism’ in which the religious groups of different traditions work together toward common political goals. But was this judgment a real success for the Holy Alliance that successfully overturned the first Lautsi decision? I will argue that the March 2011 decision may result in a pyrrhic victory. The continuous reliance on State support to defend majority religious privileges may endanger, rather than benefit, religious vitality.

Winning the Battle by Losing the War: The Lautsi Case and the Holy Alliance between American Conservative Evangelicals, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican to Reshape European Identity

Abstract: The compulsory display of crucifixes in Italian public schools does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. The victory before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the Lautsi judgment of a variegated coalition of actors ranging from the strong alliance between the Vatican and the Italian Government to the Russia of the New Orthodoxy as well as to American Conservative Evangelicals, promises to change our understanding of church-state relationship in Europe and signals the emergence of a ‘new ecumenism’ in which the religious groups of different traditions work together toward common political goals. But was this judgment a real success for the Holy Alliance that successfully overturned the first Lautsi decision? I will argue that the March 2011 decision may result in a pyrrhic victory. The continuous reliance on State support to defend majority religious privileges may endanger, rather than benefit, religious vitality.

Is the european union going deep on democracy and religious freedom

Abstract: In recent years, the European Union (EU) has, like the United States and a number of other countries around the world, begun to explicitly affirm a foreign policy role for freedom of religion or be...

Cross, Crucifix, Culture: An Approach to the Constitutional Meaning of Confessional Symbols

Abstract: In the United States and Europe the constitutionality of government displays of confessional symbols depends on whether the symbols also have nonconfessional secular meaning (in the U.S.) or whether the confessional meaning is at least absent (in Europe). Yet both the United States Supreme Court (USSCt) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) lack a workable approach to determining whether secular meaning is present or confessional meaning absent.The problem is that the government can nearly always articulate a possible secular meaning for the confessional symbols that it uses, or argue that the confessional meaning is passive and ineffective. What matters, however, is not the possibility that secular meaning is present or confessional meaning absent, but whether this presence or absence is historically and culturally authentic. Courts largely ignore this, routinely appealing to history and culture to justify government use of confessional symbols without undertaking a serious investigation of either history or culture.Drawing on the work of C.S. Peirce, we propose that courts ask three successive questions in religious symbol cases: (1) Is the ordinary meaning of the symbol confessional or otherwise religious?(2) Does the immediate context in which the symbol is displayed suggest a possible historical, cultural, or other secular meaning?(3) Is this alternate secular meaning authentically present and genuinely recognized in the history and culture of the place where the symbol is displayed? We illustrate this approach with Salazar v. Buono, in which the USSCt upheld government display of a Christian cross, and Lautsi & Others v. Italy, in which the ECtHR deferred to Italian court decisions upholding government display of a Catholic crucifix. While the USSCt in Buono and the Italian courts in Lautsi imagine conceivable nonconfessional meanings for the confessional symbol at issue, neither meaning can be found in American or Italian history or culture. In Lautsi, therefore, the ECtHR ends up deferring to an Italian “tradition” that doesn’t exist.Judicial denial of obvious confessional meaning and invention of substitute secular meanings for confessional symbols betrays a cultural schizophrenia: Majoritarian religions rail against the secularization of culture and its subversion of belief, yet they insist that their confessional symbols remain at home in this culture. But confessional symbols no longer fit in mainstream culture as confessional — hence the characterization of their meanings as secular or passive, even and especially by the majoritarian religions that use them. Ironically, judicial secularization or minimization of the meaning of these symbols to validate their use by government is likely to accelerate and entrench the very secularization that such religions deplore.

Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? Lautsi v. Italy Before the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract: In the first part of this note I will go through the facts, the decision and the reactions to the judgment of the ECtHR in the Lautsi case (November 2009). Secondly, I will briefly describe the composition of the court and focus on analyzing the judgment by focusing on the central issues of the meaning of the crucifix, the holding of the case and the concept of neutrality adopted by the court. I reach the conclusion that the holding of the Court, according to which the compulsory display of the crucifix represents a violation of the Convention, is right. Nevertheless, some criticism to the decision may be raised. The general concept of neutrality adopted in a dictum of the judgment by the ECtHR has the paradoxical effect of neglecting the very same value of pluralism, which according to the interpretation of the court, is an important element of the democratic regime envisioned by the Convention. To this extent I argue, contrary to the court’s stand, that parents’ should be free to require the display of the different religious symbols. This is consistent with the pluralistic democratic principle as envisioned by the ECHR and with the principle of the 'best interest of the child'. I also argue that public schools must accept a degree of religious expression within their walls.

The Russian Orthodox Church as moral norm entrepreneur

Abstract: Conflicts over religious symbols in the public sphere, gay marriage, abortion or gender equality have shown their disruptive potential across many societies in the world. They have also become the subject of political and legal debates in international institutions. These conflicts emerge out of different worldviews and normative conceptions of the good, and they are frequently framed in terms of competing interpretations of human rights. One newcomer voice in conflicts over rights and values in the international sphere is the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which in recent years has become an active promoter of ‘traditional values’ both inside Russia and internationally. This article studies the ideational prerequisites and dynamics of Russian Orthodox ‘norm protagonism’ in the international arena.

Illiberal Secularism: A Critical Approach to the Study of Social and Religious Governance in Liberal Democracies

Abstract: Taking note of the emergence of illiberal forms of governance across Western Europe, a liberal and democratic region, this thesis endeavors to unravel one particular manifestation of this tendency, illiberal secularism. Specifically, it asks how secularism has been discursively (trans)formed in political contexts so as to allow for the emergence of illiberal forms of social and religious governance. To address this question, this thesis analyzes the discursive enactment of ideological secularism by Italian state actors in three cases—the Crucifix, the Burqa, and the Charter cases. Building on critical and discursive perspectives, this thesis argues that secularism is an ideology that shapes thinking and action and provides a conceptualization of, and an answer to, the problem of diversity. Thus, it proposes to study secularism as a political category that works as a stake in, and as a means through which contemporary contests over religion and diversity are conducted. In methodological terms, these considerations lead to a combined analytical endeavor, which focuses on both the conceptual grammar of secularism and the discursive practices through which state actors (re)construct this ideological formation. Conducting conceptual and critical discourse analyses, this thesis reveals the argumentative structures and the main ideational and relational assumptions of Italian state actors’ discourses. It demonstrates that, in all three cases, these actors revise secular–religious demarcations in ways that expand the secular power of the state over the religious realm and, moreover, allow for the revision of liberal entitlements and for the resetting of the boundaries that define the political community. Notably, this thesis finds that it is through the secularization of Christianity, the culturalization of liberalism, and the othering of Muslims that some state actors reconcile secularism and illiberalism, thereby promoting practices that restrict and violate important liberal values and achievements, such as religious freedom and political unity.

Les catholiques québécois et la laïcité

Abstract: Science politique Particulièrement novateur dans les études sur les liens entre religion et politique au Québec, cet ouvrage s’attache aux logiques de ceux qui ont compté parmi les principaux acteurs de la laïcité québécoise : les catholiques. Qui sont-ils ? Quels discours ont-ils porté dans les débats laïques des cinquante dernières années et comment ont-ils appuyé le processus de laïcisation du Québec ou s’y sont-ils opposés ? Rendant compte autant de la diversité des positionnements ecclésiaux, moraux et sociopolitiques des catholiques québécois que des rapports de force qu’ils ont engagés avec l’État depuis la Révolution tranquille, cet ouvrage ouvre résolument de nouveaux horizons de recherche sur la laïcité au Québec en portant une attention particulière à ceux qui, au gré des débats sociaux, politiques et juridiques, contribuent à la façonner.

Engaging with the other : religion, identity, and politics in the Mediterranean

Abstract: The Mediterranean has long been a space of encounter between different nations, religions, and cultures. The fusion of national and religious identity in the region has added complexity to current debates regarding the recognition and accommodation of religious minorities. In this introduction, we outline recent scholarship on religious nationalism and the governance of religious diversity in the Mediterranean. We draw upon the articles included in this special issue to highlight the distinctive modalities of the religion-national identity link that exist in the region, and the manner in which these modalities have influenced policies of religious accommodation and strategies of political mobilization among religious minorities. In concluding, we draw attention to the need for more studies that help to connect recent analyses of ethno-religious and political transformations in the Mediterranean with the work of historians and social scientists on the historical constitution and evolution of the region as an interconnected space in which core socio-political and cultural dynamics are shaped by cross-border flows, engagements, and exchanges.

The formula "freedom of religion or belief" in the laboratory of the European Union

Abstract: This article argues that more and better knowledge about the past and present of the formula ‘freedom of religion or belief’ is likely to result in a stronger consistency between the terminology and the concept, while being conducive to a richer national and international conversation on the protection and promotion of ‘religion or belief’ related rights and freedoms. In the first section (The emergence) the author maps the chronology and context of the emergence of the formula: while confirming the importance of the United Nations, it is emphasized that UN documents were not alone, and were not in isolation. In particular, the importance of the Conference, then Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and of a general international conversation, accelerated by the adoption in 1998 of the US International Religious Freedom Act, is underlined. In the second section (The features) the most significant features of the formula are identified, and it is suggested that those features should be taken as the reasons why in the last two decades the formula has proved successful at the UN and OSCE level, as well as in the context of the European Union, mainly in its external action. In the third section (The EU laboratory) the formula is mapped in the EU context and the EU framework is interpreted as a laboratory where the formula is received, challenged and reinvented in a variety of ways. In the fourth and final session (The translation) ten sets of questions are offered with respect to the linguistic and legal translation of the formula in EU Member States. If addressed, it is held, those questions might considerably improve knowledge on the formula in both its top-down and bottom-up dynamic unfolding, thus empowering scholars and actors engaged with combining the global power of the formula in English and its variations in different languages and cultures.