Abstract
Progressively, in the Occident and in other regions, state organizations have replaced religious organizations, not only by becoming the centres of the power structure but also by managing social cohesion. Whatever may be the actual controversies about deregulation and the role of the State, the State continues to occupy a preponderant role in the political and administrative regulation of the actors and social agents who are territorially bound by compulsory inclusion within it. The legal order, sensu lato, the political institutions, and the administrative machine define, frame and structure the general mechanisms of production and reproduction, and, by so doing, affect, in general and in particular, the enterprises of the sacred, even those that are transnational, which, however, are obliged to use the national framework to exercise their religious and religiously-derived ancillary activities. We discuss especially the general problem of central and national regulation of actors and of religious products starting from two ideal types: “ordonnancement pluraliste-subordonné”, and “régulation monistefusionnelle.” The development of schemes of pluralistic and monistic regulations permit the study of different roles and the articulation of religious regulation in the perspective of contemporary State transformations.