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WPSA – Annual Meeting: April 21-23, 2011 – San Antonio

Dear APSA Members,

I would like to invite everyone to participate in the 2011 annual  meetings of the Western Political Science Association,  April 21-23 at the Hyatt Regency, River Walk in  San Antonio, Texas.   The theme for the annual meeting is Transnational Borders, Equity and Social Justice.  The deadline for paper proposal submission is September 24, 2010.   We hope to see you all in beautiful San Antonio!  For more information, visit the WPSA website at http://www.csus.edu/org/wpsa/

Sincerely,

Manuel Avalos
2011 WPSA Program Chair
Associate Vice Chancellor
Faculty Support and Development
Academic Affairs
University of North Carolina at Wilmington

Featured Books

Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey
(2009)

Cambridge Press Page Ahmet T. Kuru
San Diego State University

Why do secular states pursue different policies toward religion? This book provides a generalizable argument about the impact of ideological struggles on the public policy making process, as well as a state-religion regimes index of 197 countries. More specifically, it analyzes why American state policies are largely tolerant of religion, whereas French and Turkish policies generally prohibit its public visibility, as seen in their bans on Muslim headscarves. In the United States, the dominant ideology is “passive secularism,” which requires the state to play a passive role, by allowing public visibility of religion. Dominant ideology in France and Turkey is “assertive secularism,” which demands that the state play an assertive role in excluding religion from the public sphere. Passive and assertive secularism became dominant in these cases through certain historical processes, particularly the presence or absence of an ancien régime based on the marriage between monarchy and hegemonic religion during state-building periods.

amazon | barnes&noble

[Section members – suggest your book below with press url]