Protestant Legacies in Nordic Law: Uses of the Past in the Construction of the Secularity of Law

The overarching goal of the project is to provide a nuanced and critical genealogy of the negotiations of law and religion in the Northern parts of Europe from the Reformations and up to the present. The research efforts focus on the particular constellations between law and religion in the West-Nordic realm (Denmark and Norway), the East-Nordic realm (Sweden and Finland), and the German realm, in order to analyze the use of theological norms and standards as a framework for a general understanding of law as secular – not only in early modernity, but also beyond the era of the Enlightenment (in contrast to the French pattern of laïcité). Four overlapping periods are identified: (I) Confessionalization & Institutionalization (ca. 1530s-ca. 1730s) (II) Consolidation & Codification (ca. 1660-ca. 1820) (III) Constitutionalization & Hegemonization (ca. 1800s-1950s) (IV) Re-confessionalization and Internationalization (ca. 1914-today) Importantly, within and across each of these overlapping periods, the project conducts research on minority issues in order to identify tensions as well as also the darker sides of majority cultures on law.