Religion and Politics in Post-Secular Europe - Empirical Insights and Analytical Approaches

Hennig, Anja

8 ECTS

Seminar: BA, Sozialwissenschaften-Vertiefung

Dienstag, 16.15 - 17.45 Uhr,

Ort: GD 05,

Veranstaltungsbeginn: 09.04.2013

PLEASE NOTE: registration in moodle is required! (=> moodle.europa-uni.de => Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät => Vergleichende Sozialwissenschaften => Politik 1 => Religion and Politics => Login with your EUV mailadress-name and password. The Code: relpol13. If you don´t have an EUV-account yet, you can login as guest.

In Europe strict institutional separation between religion and politics is a rare exception. The prevailing pattern of Church-state relations in Europe can be described as cooperation. This might surprise some observers inasmuch as Europe is considered to be the most secular continent in the world. Against this counter-intuitive background, this course analyzes and compares the development and regulation of the complex relations between religion and politics in selected European nation-states, but also in the European Union, as a supranational entity. In particular, we will study the role and effect of religious values and institutions in political processes. To that end, the first part of the course introduces basic concepts related to research on “religion and politics and the Habermasian notion of “post-secular” societies as well as José Casanova’s notion of “Public Religion,” both of which address the recent public emergence of religion in secularizing Europe. From these conceptual and theoretical insights the course then turns to an in-depth, empirical examination of the main intersections of religion and politics: church-state arrangements in selected countries and at a supranational level; religious actors in politics (parties and churches); and the policy outputs in conflicting issue areas such as abortion, or in debates about Muslim women wearing the veil in the public. The complex phenomena of religious fundamentalism and extremism are beyond the scope of this course. By the end of the semester, students will not only be familiar with key concepts in the comparative study of religion and politics; they will also be able to evaluate to what extent religion still matters in European politics, or perhaps has once again started to matter.

Literatur:

Bruce, Steve (2010): Secularization and Politics. In: Jeffrey Haynes (Hg.): Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics. [S.l.]: Taylor & Francis, Inc, S. 145–158.

Jelen, Ted G. Wilcox Clyde (2002): The Political Roles of Religion. In: Ted G. Jelen und Clyde Wilcox (Hg.): Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective. The one, the few, and the many. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, S. 314–324.

Leuștean, Lucian; Madeley, John T. S. (Hg.) (op. 2010): Religion, Politics and Law in the European Union. London; New York: Routledge.

Teilnahmevoraussetzungen: Very good command of language (English)

Leistungsnachweis: „Course Diary“, presentation and final paper

Sprache: English