The German term  Kulturkampf  (pronounced[kʊlˈtuːɐ̯kampf], literally "culture struggle") refers to power struggles between emerging constitutional and democratic nation states and the Roman Catholic Church over the place and role of religion in modern polity, usually in connection with secularization campaigns. In the ancien régime, states were confessional and religion governed private and public life and the Catholic Church had been closely associated with reactionary governments and ideological conservatism, thus, "the struggle against the ancien régime, its remnants, or its restoration was necessarily a struggle against the church" and such conflicts were a central theme of Western European history from the mid-19th century until 1914.