Patterns of Religion State Relations

This article discusses the construction of the measuring instrument for the study of social perception of religious freedom (SPRF). We provide an overview of existing definitions of religious freedom from a social-science perspective, which ground the empirical research of religious freedom and describe the conceptualization of SPRF. We focus on the operationalization model and introduce the operational variables for the SPRF research, also emphasizing the political, religious, and human rights contexts of independent variables. Finally, the results of exploratory factor analysis that allow to construct the balanced model of SPRF based on statistically weighted factors and scales are presented. The theoretical and statistically tested instrument is discussed as a result of this analysis.

Section: Five Dimensions Of Religious Freedom Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Social Perception of Religious Freedom: A Sociological Perspective

Breskaya

Giordan

2019

“…The observations briefly mentioned above provided the background to the process of identification between State and Church as a first step in addressing the Moldovan debate on religious freedom, going beyond the rhetorical standardisation of speeches regarding this right. According to Durham (2012), the patterns of correlation in positive or negative identification between governmental and religious institutions are a key indicator of the social role of religion. Some noticeable examples revealed a clear tendency towards a positive identification between governmental actors and Orthodox Churches, with the BOC confirming and at the same time further entangling this pattern.…”

Section: A Post-soviet Republic a New Orthodox State Approaching Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Context-Grounded Approach to Religious Freedom: The Case of Orthodoxy in the Moldovan Republic

Carnevale

2019

This paper explores the relationship between human rights and social analysis within the main historical and theoretical perspectives adopted by social sciences. In particular, religious freedom will be analysed as one of the central issues in the recent engagement of the social sciences with human rights. After examining current narratives and mainstream approaches of the social sciences towards the right to religious freedom, this article will then underline the importance of a social epistemology which goes beyond a normative and legal perspective, bridging the gap between the framework of human rights and the social roles of religion in context. Within this framework, religious freedom represents a social construct, whose perception, definition and implementation dynamically evolves according to its influence, at different levels, in the lived dimension of social relations. The second part of the article proposes a context-grounded analysis of religious freedom in the Republic of Moldova. This case study is characterised by the impressive growth of Orthodoxy after the demise of the Soviet Union and by a complex and contradictory political approach towards religious freedom, both as a legal standard and as a concept. Emerging through the analysis of local political narratives and some preliminary ethnographical observations, the social importance of religion will be investigated both as a governmental instrument and as an embodied means of dealing with widespread socio-economic insecurity, creating tensions between religious rootedness and religious freedom. The local debate on religious freedom will then be related to the influence of geopolitical borders, the topic of traditional identity and the religious form of adaptation to the ineffectiveness of the new secular local policies, with orthodox institutions and parishes having new socio-political roles at both a global and local scale.

“…Even though studies on the topic are still few at the moment, those that do exist have two main limitations. On the one hand, most of them address political secularism as a 'competing ideology' to religion (Durham 2012;Fox 2015bFox , 2018Fox , 2020Fox et al 2021;Glendon 2018), and little space is given to the comparative empirical analysis of political secularism's more moderate or radical manifestations, even though that distinction is well studied in both sociological (Baubérot 2015;Casanova 2009Casanova , 2011 and political theory (Modood 2010), as well as in comparative politics (Kuru 2009;Philpott 2019). On the other hand, the majority of studies examine the relationships between political secularism and religious freedom from a governmental policy perspective (e.g., Fox 2015bFox , 2020.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Models of Political Secularism and Religious Freedom in Italy and Croatia: Findings from a Survey among Youth

Leofreddi

2023

Interest in political secularism is growing, due to its proven relevant role in affecting people’s political behaviours and attitudes toward human rights. However, until now, only a few studies have analysed its influence on religious freedom and those which exist do so mostly from a governmental-policy perspective. Drawing upon the sociology of religious freedom, this article seeks to address this gap. Comparing two Catholic EU countries, Italy and Croatia, and adopting an empirical perspective, it aims to understand whether the endorsement of political secularism enhances or limits support for religious freedom. More specifically, the study draws a key distinction between two models of secularism, ‘institutional’ and ‘ideological’, whose impacts on different aspects of religious freedom are assessed. In doing so, this research presents the results of a cross-national survey on Social Perception of Religious Freedom (SPRF) that was carried out among university students in Italy (=714) and Croatia (=603). The results show the strong positive influence of moderate forms of political secularism in shaping a positive culture of religious freedom. At the same time, they validate the hypothesis that it is necessary to consider political secularism’s multiple facets to fully understand its influence on support for religious freedom in different countries.