The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies

this was a required text in a college political science class. the book gave concise examples of concepts and read easily. plus, dr. hertzke was one of the book's editors.

I give this book more exactly 4,5 stars. I am glad I acquired the book and included it in my personal library of political science. The authors build on a solid framework of different church-state regimes. They analyse neither too many nor two few countries. However, extension by others to cover more countries would be welcome. One can also ask if a similar approach could not be used for studying relations of the state to other organisations than churches. In all cases, the hypothesis is that explicit separation of the state from certain values leads to implicit support to those who are the strongest in pushing the values of their own.