The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (243 page)

Substantive stage of a bill's passage through Parliament, when the principles of the bill are discussed. See also
bill
.

 
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The capability to retaliate after one's opponent has launched a first strike against one's own nuclear forces; essential to a policy of
mutual assured destruction
.
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See
statute law
;
statutory instrument
.

 
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See
intelligence services
.

 
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In Britain, the head of any of the more important government departments. In the United States, the head of the State Department, which deals with foreign policy.

 
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The detachment of a state or other body from religious foundations. A controversial process both in Christian and in Islamic states.
Among states where Christianity was the majority religion, the United States was unique in being secular from the start by virtue of the
First Amendment
(‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…’). The secular institutions of the state coexist with higher churchgoing and religious belief than in any other Western democracy. Secularization has been a powerful movement in France since the French Revolution and the French state has been secular (and French state education militantly secular) for most of the time since 1789. Secularization is not complete in the United Kingdom. In England, the Church of England is established: some of its bishops sit in the House of Lords; its internal decisions are subject to review by Parliament; its finances are governed by the Church Commissioners (disastrously in the 1980s) of which the Prime Minister is a member. The Queen is the head of the Church of England, but in Scotland, she is head of the Church of Scotland, whose beliefs and organization are different. Some have questioned whether establishment is appropriate in a country in which Church of England (Anglican) churchgoers are equalled or outnumbered both by Roman Catholic churchgoers and by Muslim believers. Nevertheless, recent legislation confirms that state education must have a religious content which must be ‘broadly Christian’.
The politics of secularization have been much more violent in some Islamic countries. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, the collapse of government in Algeria in 1993–4 and serious civil disorder in Egypt are all examples of protest by
Islamic fundamentalists
against secularizing regimes. See also
religion and politics
.

 
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