From Asset to Liability–Considerations on the Constitutionalizing of Religious Freedom Within the European Union Member States

This paper examines the usage of different phrases naming “religious freedom” in international treaties and European Union member states constitutional texts in order to identify traces of contemporary ideological polarization in relation to the main political ideologies, socialism, liberalism and conservatism. Considering the methodological approach, I theorize the meaning of “religious freedom” as the right to believe or not in a higher power or divinity, while also discussing the positive and the negative aspects of religious freedom together with the three major political doctrines. The results present clusters on the way each phrase used to name “religious freedom” is tied up with each of the three major political doctrines: freedom from/within religion (socialism), freedom of religion or belief (liberalism), and religious freedom (conservatism). The main conclusion of the paper is that within the contemporary political and administrative democratic spectrum, the three different phrases used at international level to name “religious freedom” and corresponding to socialism, liberalism and conservatism are describing religious freedom in a polarized manner, from liability to asset: in socialism as liberation from the negative and discriminatory power of religion, in liberalism as an civic attitude, while for conservatives religious freedom stands is coined a political value within the nation building process.