The links between basic human values and political secularism: Evidence from Germany

Abstract

Scholarly interest in political secularism is currently growing. Political secularism is not the absence of religious belief, membership or practice, but the conviction that politics and religion should be kept separate and that religious arguments should have no standing in political debates. Little is known about the roots of this attitude, particularly outside the United States. This is unfortunate because politically secular attitudes strongly affect citizens' views on so-called morality policies (e.g. the regulation of abortion, assisted suicide or experiments with stem cells) which are often highly controversial.

In this research note, I focus on the link between political secularism and basic human values. From Schwartz's own work and from the extant literature on religion, secularism and basic human values, I derive two hypotheses: self-direction should be linked to higher levels, and tradition should be linked to lower levels of political secularism.

Multivariate analysis of current survey data from Germany, a prototypical ‘religious-world country’, supports both hypotheses. Crucially, the relationships hold when controlling for three main facets of religion, for region (east vs west), and for socio-demographics. The results show that net of their well-documented association with religion, basic human values contribute to our understanding of political secularism. More generally, the findings demonstrate once more the impact of basic human values on all areas of political life.