European Enlargement, Secularisation and Religious Re-publicisation in Central and Eastern Europe
This article investigates the relationship between closer integration into the European Union and the vitality and public presence of religion in three relatively recent accession states: Poland, Hungary and Romania. Using Moyser's (T. Moyser, Politics and Religion in the Modern World, London,...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
2009
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| In: |
Religion, state & society
Year: 2009, Volume: 37, Issue: 1/2, Pages: 81-97 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article investigates the relationship between closer integration into the European Union and the vitality and public presence of religion in three relatively recent accession states: Poland, Hungary and Romania. Using Moyser's (T. Moyser, Politics and Religion in the Modern World, London, Routledge, 1991) model of five levels of political secularisation, we find that there is evidence of growth of religious influence in public life in each of these societies between 1989 and 2007, while using World Values Survey data we find that different patterns of religious vitality are exhibited: growth in Romania, decline from a high level in Poland, and decline from a modest level in Hungary. We argue that to explain this religious ‘re-publicisation’ (growth in the public presence of religion) and different patterns of religious vitality, it is necessary to move beyond secularisation theory to a model which views the social processes identified as underlying secularisation not as the direct cause of decline in religious vitality, but rather as second-order factors creating conditions which can tend, depending on intermediate variables, as much towards growth in public presence of religion as to decline. |
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| ISSN: | 1465-3974 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion, state & society
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/09637490802693668 |