We are facing, not a simple trade-off between liberty and public health, but a more complex challenge to maintain liberty as non-domination, despite the erosion of liberty as non-interference.   The coronavirus pandemic has led to the severe curtailment of civil liberties and the lockdown of billions of people worldwide. Some states’ reaction to the pandemic has been seen as more effective than others. In particular, authoritarian governments, such as China, boast about their efficient management of the crisis and are now providing support and advice to European and other nations. Consequently, many citizens are questioning the purported advantages of democratic governance. As both democratic and authoritarian states have imposed exceptional measures restricting political and civil liberties, there is a nagging …

Should the liberal state be secular? Does liberalism demand strict separation between state and religion? The issue is not merely a theoretical one. Most western states are secular states, even as they accommodate various forms of religious establishment and accommodation. Yet the great majority of people in the world live under regimes that are either constitutional theocracies – where religion is formally enshrined in the state – or where religious affiliation is a pillar of collective political identity. In countries otherwise as different as Egypt, Israel, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Poland, and many others, politics and religion are interconnected in ways that belie any simplified model of secular separation. Many such states, for example, appeal to religious tradition in making the …