KOUSSENS, David

Max Weber Fellow 2010-2011

From September 2011:

Professeur adjoint
Faculté de théologie et d'études religieuses
Université de Sherbrooke
Quebec
Canada

Email David.Koussens@eui.eu  / 

david.koussens@usherbrooke.ca  
 

Koussens Homepage   

 

 

I am a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow in social and political sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. I will defend my PhD in sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) in january 2011. My research interests are in sociology of religion, politics and religion, sociology of law and law and society.
My thesis is titled “Neutrality of the State and Regulation of Religious Diversity in Quebec and France”. Based on the analysis of juridical data, my research pursued a double objective. On the one hand, it involved studying the philosophical grounds that legitimate policy decision-making, as well as the juridical reality of secularism. On the other hand, my research evaluated the effects of plurality on forms of neutrality detectable in political governance on the articulation of other fundamental principles of secularism. In so doing, my doctoral work focused on the coexistence of different models of secularism in a same society according to the nature and the moment of the social fact that the State must treat.
My current project is titled “The Ethical Grounds for the Prohibition of Polygamy in North America: Another Look at the Management of Secularism in Canada and the United States”.