Political Values and Religion: A Comparison Between Western and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Against the background of successful right-wing populist movements in recent years, a question arises as to whether the democratic political culture remains stable in Europe’s democracies. The EVS 2017 confirms that a high level of legitimacy is still attached to democracy, but that there are differences in support for the current democratic system. In Eastern Europe, we find a strong openness to alternative anti-democratic systems, which helps right-wing populists to gain influence and power. Prejudice provides a bridge between right-wing populists and religion. While socially engaged believers are pro-democratic, fundamentalist have an elective affinity with anti-democratic beliefs. Gender identities that do not follow the heteronormative pattern of binary couple relationships in particular prove to be a bridge to right-wing beliefs (Schneider et al., Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik (ZRGP) 5(2), 2021). It is possible that the ongoing progress of secularisation and modernisation in Western Europe is conducive to this. The validity of the secularisation theory must be assumed, because the East-Central European states had swung into line with Western European secularisation shortly after an upheaval of religiosity directly after 1989. If in the Russian region and Southeastern Europe the revitalisation process is confirmed, many Eastern European states have now reached the ‘normal’ level they would have had without socialist repression.

Empirical legitimacy as core of comparative democracy research

“…They use the fulfillment of these obligations as a yardstick for evaluating their political support. The general acceptance of democracy as a form of government is limited only when ideological factors (socialist legacies, rejection of the market economy) or structuralinstitutional deficiencies (restriction of the rule of law, presidential type of system) stand in its way (Lauth et al, 2000;Lauth, 2004;Kratochwil, 2006;Müller and Pickel, 2007;Pickel and Pickel, 2023). To all appearances, citizens do not expect half-measures from an established democracy.…”