Confessionalism (politics)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Confessionalism is a

religion and politics. It typically entails distributing political and institutional power proportionally among confessional communities
.

Governmental structure

Some countries' political system distribute power across major religions in the country. This can be required by the constitution or through unwritten tradition.

In the

Speaker of Parliament a Sunni Muslim Arab and the Prime Minister a Shi'ite Muslim Arab.[1]

The repartition of assembly seats on a confessional basis in the Middle East was invented by the

Ottoman Parliament) and continued in several post-Ottoman countries with reserved seats for non-Muslim, namely Christian, minorities (Syria, Jordan, Iraq), or for all religious communities including Muslim subgroups and Christian churches (Lebanon). A similar system
prevails in Iran for the Armenian, Assyrian, Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities.

In

Shia
Muslim speaker of parliament.

Although the system was meant to be a temporary solution "until such time as the Chamber enacts new electoral laws on a non-confessional basis",

demographic weight of those groups is unknown.[3] The constitution of 1926, amended after the Taif Agreement of 1990 and the Doha agreement of 2008 specified that there should be 54 Christian deputies and 54 Muslim deputies, even though in practice there are 64 deputies each.[4] In addition, within those two groups, seats should be shared according to the demographic weight of each community.[5]

The Lebanese constitution also guarantees segmental autonomy to 18 recognized communities in the country in domains such as education.[6] Lebanon also presents other characteristics of confessionalism. Since 2005 Lebanese politics has been polarized around two trans-religious coalitions[7] with the majority never able to govern alone. There is, however, another section of the constitution that addresses the development of outside parties not represented by popular support.

Political parties

In some countries there are political parties whose main ideology is based on a religion, such as Christian democratic parties and Islamic political parties.

In the politics of the Netherlands the term "confessionalism" refers to any political ideology based on religion. A traditional norm in society, extending to many facets of cultural life, termed pillarisation. Dutch parties usually labelled as confessionalist are the Christian Union and the Reformed Political Party, both exclusively Protestant.

Political parties with religious ideology are sometimes banned on the grounds of promoting violence and hatred (e.g. Vlamms Blok and Batasuna), altering the national character, or having outside support.[8]

In some cases bans are written into the constitution.

political parties in Portugal are forbidden from using a name that has religious connotation, although the parties are still allowed to adopt a religious ideology, thus allowing the formation of CDS – People's Party.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Iraq Elects Pro-Iran Sunni As Parliament Speaker". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 16 September 2018. Retrieved 2018-10-27.
  2. ^ Lebanese constitution, article 24
  3. ^ Harb, Imad (March 2006). "Lebanon's Confessionalism: Problems and Prospects". United States Institute of Peace. Archived from the original on 2009-07-15. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
  4. ^ Lebanese constitution, article 24 subsection a
  5. ^ Lebanese constitution, article 24 subsection b
  6. ^ Lebanese constitution, articles 9 and 10
  7. ^ Confessionalism and electoral reform in Lebanon, section 3, Arda Arsenian Ekmekji, Ph.D.
  8. ^ Rosenblum, Nancy L. (January 2007). "Banning Parties: Religious and Ethnic Partisanship in Multicultural Democracies". ResearchGate. Archived from the original on 2019-09-10. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  9. ^ "Constitution". National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria. Archived from the original on 2019-08-19. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  10. ^ "Constitution of the Portuguese Republic - Part I". Diário da República Eletrónico. Archived from the original on 2019-05-17. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
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