When church attendance is not enough: For a two-dimensional typology of religiosity in studies of political behavior Sarah Nicolet and Anke Tresch Department of Political Science, University of Geneva sarah.nicolet@unige.ch, anke.tresch@unige.ch Working paper, prepared for the staff seminar of the Department of Political Science, University of Geneva, 17 November 2008 Introduction As churches grow increasingly empty across Western Europe, the importance of the religious cleavage for the understanding of political behavior is more and more put in question. Once identified as one of the four main cleavages in Western European states (Lipset and Rokkan 1967), its relevance for the understanding of political behavior has since then been heavily challenged. In line with theories of secularization, various authors (Dalton, Flanagan, and Beck 1984; Franklin 1992; Norris and Inglehart 2004, ch.9) contend that the process of modernization has resulted in a decline in the influence of religion on the vote and on political attitudes more generally. As a consequence, a growing number of studies of political behavior only account for religiosity as a control variable when they do not completely leave it out. In this article, we argue that measures of religiosity that are traditionally used in studies of political behavior only give a partial account of the political influence of religiosity. Classic categorizations of religiosity usually differentiate among individuals with respect to their frequency of church attendance, sometimes in combination with their religious denomination. We claim that these kinds of categorizations no longer adequately reflect the current religious landscape of Western European countries, since they only focus on the type of relationship that an individual has towards the institutionalized churches, and neglect whether and what individuals believe. As shown by a variety of studies in the sociology of religion (e.g., Davie 1994; Heelas 1996; Hervieu-Léger 1999), the dimension of religious or spiritual beliefs has 1
gained importance since the 1960s as Western Europe has experienced not only strong religious decline but also dramatic religious change. With the loss of the established churches monopoly on worldviews, more privatized and individualized religious beliefs have developed outside of the bounds or religious institutions (Luckmann 1967). As a consequence, church and religion have become increasingly distinct in recent decades (Davie 1994; Hervieu-Léger 1999). 1 To account for this dual evolution, we propose a two-dimensional typology of religiosity that includes a measure of individuals relationship to the established churches, what we call the institutional dimension of religiosity, and a measure of people s personal religious beliefs, the spiritual dimension of religiosity. By combining the two dimensions, we come up with a sixfold categorization of religiosity that permits to synthesize the main forms of contemporary religiosity in Western Europe. Based on this typology, we study whether and how these different forms of religiosity affect individuals political attitudes on the two main lines of division structuring the Western European political space, that is the cultural libertarian vs. authoritarian division and the economic free market vs. state intervention division (e.g., Kitschelt 1994; Kriesi et al. 2006). The article is structured as follows. The next section discusses in more details the weaknesses of the existing categorizations of religiosity. Then, we introduce our two-dimensional typology of religiosity, and highlight its implications for political attitudes on economic and cultural lines of conflict. In the following section, we show how the typology can be operationalized on the basis of indicators available in the widely used World Value Survey data. Next, we offer empirical evidence on the shape of the religious landscape across Western Europe, and examine to which extent political attitudes differ in relationship to 1 In addition to the emergence of more privatized and individualized forms of religiosity, the recent decades have also been characterized by an increase in the percentage of believers of non-christian religions, as a consequence mainly of immigration and subsidiary from conversions. In this study, however, we leave out individuals who belong to the other main religious communities, like Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, or Hinduism. 2
contemporary forms of religiosity. The last section synthesizes our main findings and discusses the importance of a two-dimensional typology of religiosity. Religiosity beyond church attendance In their seminal work on cleavage structures and party systems, Lipset and Rokkan (1967) identified the religious cleavage as one of the four critical lines of cleavage in Western European states around which party systems organized. Early empirical research on electoral behavior has confirmed its importance for the formation of the vote (Rose and Urwin 1969, 12; see also Converse 1974). Lijphart (1979: 454) even concluded that religion was the most important dimension of party choice in the 1970s. Since then, however, the relevance of social cleavages in general, and of religion in particular, have been heavily disputed. In line with theories of secularization, there was a wide consensus that the process of modernization had resulted in a decline in the influence of religion on the vote (e.g., Dalton, Flanagan, and Beck 1984; Franklin 1992; Norris and Inglehart 2004, ch.9). As a consequence, in a growing number of electoral studies, religiosity is no longer included, or is only accounted for as a control variable. In sum, from the 1980s and onwards, the standard view on the influence of religiosity has centered around what Lago, Montero, and Cebolla (2008, 3) summarize as the framework of decay according to which religion has lost its relevance for the formation of the vote. 2 Works focusing explicitly on the influence of religiosity on political attitudes, rather than party choice, are much rarer. The few studies on the topic confirm that religion has lost of its importance for the understanding of political attitudes. On a large set of issues (cultural, economic, political), there are no significant differences in attitudes among various denominations (e.g, Norris and Inglehart 2004, ch.7; Geissbühler 1999); important variations 2 There are however a number of studies that disagree with the general consensus on the loss of relevance of the religious cleavage, and argue that religiosity still significantly influences electoral behaviour, at least in some countries (see in particular Broughton and ten Napel 2000; Elff 2007; Knutsen 1995; Kotler-Berkowitz 2001). 3
among different church affiliations remain only with respect to moral issues (e.g, Norris and Inglehart, ch.7). In this paper, we make the argument that these studies offer an incomplete account of the influence of religiosity on political preferences, since they only analyze the effect of the institutional dimension of religiosity. Indeed, religiosity is commonly measured on the basis of frequency of church attendance. In addition, if the country counts more than one main religious denomination, this indicator is often added to the categorization of religiosity. On this basis, one can differentiate, for each denomination, among practicing individuals who regularly attend services, non-practicing ones, who only occasionally go to church, often only on special occasions such as weddings, funerals or specific holydays, and non-religious people, who rarely or never attend services. Reducing religiosity to individuals relationship to the institutionalized churches is however becoming quite problematic, given the tremendous evolution that the religious landscape of Western European states has experienced since the 1960s. This evolution has taken two forms. First, in line with theories of secularization (e.g., Berger 1967; Bruce 2002), one has witnessed an important religious decline across Western Europe. As a consequence of the process of modernization, religion has gradually lost the encompassing and important role which it had in traditional society (Halman and Draulans 2006, 265). Its importance for the operation of non-religious institutions such as those of the state and the economy has weakened, and at the individual level, one has seen a decline in the extent to which people engage in religious practices, display beliefs of a religious kind, and conduct other aspects of their lives in a manner informed by such beliefs (Bruce 2002, 3). Secondly, next to religious decline, Western Europe has also experienced religious change. Proponents of the religious individualization thesis (e.g., Hervieu-Léger 1999; Luckmann 1967) make a clear distinction between church and religion (Pollack and Pickel 2007, 604). In their 4
perspective, the decline in institutionalized religion is expected to give rise to more private and individualized forms of religiosity that develop autonomously, freed from the authority of the church (Pollack and Pickel 2007, 604; Luckmann 1967). These so-called post-traditional forms of religiosity can be of two kinds. First, they can develop inside of the Christian faith but outside of the churches leading to believing without belonging (Davie 1994; 2002; Hervieu-Léger 1999). Secondly, they can take the form of alternative types of religion or spirituality outside of the Christian realm. What we will refer to as post-christian spirituality has emerged in the counter-culture of the 1960s and has become a central element of the New Age movement of the 1980s (Houtman and Aupers 2007, 306; Heelas 1996; Heelas and Woodhead 2005). The dual evolution of the religious landscape characterized by institutional decline and spiritual change questions the adequacy of a categorization of religiosity limited to its institutional dimension. As long as the official churches dominated the religious sphere, one could assume a certain degree of homogeneity in people s religious beliefs, and a certain degree of congruence between their religious practice and their religious beliefs. However, with the current flourishing of more privatized and individualized forms of religiosity that have developed outside of the official churches, this is no longer the case. As a consequence, a more complete categorization of religiosity is needed that is able to account for both people s relationship to the church as an institution and for their religious or spiritual belief systems. This has been well understood in the sociology of religion where multi-dimensional typologies of religion are commonly used (see e.g., Halman and Draulans 2006; Glendinning and Bruce 2006). Recently, some efforts in this direction have also been undertaken in the political field. In the current rediscovery of the study of religion and politics that has taken 5
place in the US, 3 scholars have identified three components of religiosity (Leege and Kellstedt 1994; Layman 1997; Layman and Green 1998). 4 The so-called three B's are usually defined in the following way (see Kotler-Berkowitz 2001, 254; Montero et al. 2008, 11-14). Belonging refers to people s affiliation and attachment to a religious community, and is commonly measured by religious denomination. Behaving covers what is related to the practice of faith; church attendance, or involvement in religious activities are the most commonly used indicators of this component. Believing captures people s personal faith and acceptance of religious tenets. This component is often assessed by questions related to the importance of religion for a person, to his/her personal spiritual or religious beliefs or his/her assessment of degree of religiosity. In sum, religiosity is not only expressed in a person s frequency of attendance of religious services (behaving) but it is also manifest in his/her degree of attachment to the church (belonging), and in his/her personal faith (believing). So far, however, there have been no attempts at developing a systematic and comprehensive typology combining the different components of religiosity, and examining its political consequences. 5 This is the object of the next two sections. How to measure religiosity: A two-dimensional typology Drawing on insights from studies on religiosity in contemporary Western Europe and on the conceptualization of religiosity, we propose a more encompassing typology of religiosity. We 3 See Wald and Wilcox (2006, 527-528) and Kotler-Berkowitz (2001, 524-526) for a brief overview. 4 Authors often refer to the notions of belonging, behaving, and believing as the three dimensions of religiosity. As we will discuss more extensively below, our conceptualization of religiosity is slightly different since it differentiates between an institutional dimension and a spiritual one. To avoid confusion, we thus use the term component for the three B s of religiosity, the word dimension being reserved to its institutional and spiritual facets. 5 Kotler-Berkowitz s (2001) study of the influence of religion on voting behavior in Great Britain examines the impact of the three components of religiosity on party choice. However, each component is studied separately and there is no attempt at building a typology combining all three factors (for a similar approach with respect to the influence of religiosity on moral attitudes, see also Scheepers et al. 2002). Halman et al. (1999) for their part build a General Religiosity Score that is based on individuals level of personal religiosity, orthodoxy, and church adequacy, and examine its influence on different types of values. In this case, the index is mainly focused on the belief component and does not permit to differentiate among different types of believers. 6
conceive religiosity as a two-dimensional concept that consists of an institutional and a spiritual dimension. The institutional dimension deals with individuals relationship to the church as an institution. It comprises a behaving and a belonging components of religiosity that we conceive both as expressions of people s relationship to the established churches. With respect to the behaving component, we are interested in people s degree of involvement in the church, which we measure by objective signs. These signs can take the form, for instance, of attendance of religious services, participation in church activities, or membership in church organizations. In addition to these objective signs, people s relationship to the church can also be expressed by less visible means. This second aspect focuses on people s sense of belonging to the established churches. We conceptualize belonging as a sense of attachment to the church. Our conceptualization of this component differs from traditional definitions that use church denomination as an indicator of belonging. In the Western European context, it is doubtful that denomination still reflects people s sense of attachment to a church; it often tends to be a reflection of traditions or social convenience rather than of a real closeness to the church. Instead, we look at people s subjective assessment of the church as an institution as a way to capture their degree of attachment to the church. This assessment is articulated, for example, in people s judgment on the church, on their level of confidence in it, or in their degree of satisfaction with it. Table 1 summarizes our conceptualization of the institutional dimension. On this basis, one can differentiate between three types of relationships to the church as an institution. The parishioner type is characterized by a strong involvement in the church. For this type, regular church involvement is the key feature, irrespective of subjective assessment of the church. Given that regular church involvement requires a strong commitment from people, 7
parishioners are assumed to still display a solid relationship to the institutionalized church, even though they might not have a positive assessment of the churches in general. The ambivalent type consists of individuals who are not regularly involved in the church but do not overtly reject the church (they don t have a negative assessment of the institution). Finally, the distanced type comprises people who have taken their distance from the church as an institution both objectively by not being regularly involved and subjectively by having a negative judgment on it. Table 1 about here The spiritual dimension of religiosity focuses on the believing component of religiosity, that is on people s faith or creed. In this perspective, we first deal with people s relationship to the spiritual or religious spheres: we are interested in assessing whether people believe in transcendence irrespective of the type of transcendence (a godly power, supernatural energies, or any kind of superior force), or whether they reject the notion of transcendence, either because they are convinced of its non-existence (atheism) or because they don t know what to believe (agnosticism). In a second step, we differentiate among individuals depending on the type of transcendence they believe in; our typology draws a distinction between people who share the main tenets of the Christian faith (belief in the God of Jesus Christ, and in the Bible) and the ones who express beliefs in other forms of transcendence. We do not push further the differentiation among beliefs in other forms of transcendence. As a consequence, we do not adequately characterize the various forms of post-christian spiritualities that cover a very heterogeneous set of beliefs such as holism, esotericism, or New Age, to only mention a few examples. The choice of this simple categorization is however motivated first by a practical concern about the operationalization of our typology; indeed, most political surveys only include a very limited set of indicators of individuals religious beliefs that do not permit to go further in the measure of the spiritual dimension. Secondly, from a theoretical viewpoint, 8
we expect the distinction between Christian beliefs and beliefs in other forms of transcendence to be more relevant to the understanding of political attitudes than a more subtle differentiation among various types of post-christian spirituality (see next section). As summarized in table 2, we distinguish three types of beliefs. Table 2 about here The Christian type is characterized logically by beliefs in the Christian tenets. The second type is summarized under the generic term spiritual and includes individuals who express religious or spiritual beliefs in transcendence that is not the God of Jesus-Christ. Finally, the last type is defined as atheist or agnostic and groups people who either do not express any religious or spiritual beliefs, or don t know what to think about the existence of transcendence. The combination of the three types of institutional relationships and the three types of spiritual belief systems can be clustered into six groups (table 3). The first three groups belong to the traditional forms of religiosity that either develop within the official Christian churches (for the practicing Christians and the belongers without believing) or at least not in opposition to them (for the uncommitted Christians). Table 3 about here The first group consists of practicing Christians, namely individuals who are of the parishioner type on the institutional dimension, given their involvement in the church, and are of Christian obedience on the spiritual dimension. Second, so-called uncommitted Christians are characterized by their Christian beliefs and their ambivalence on the institutional dimension; they have a weaker institutional relationship than the previous category since they are not regularly involved in the church but they still have a positive assessment of the churches. Finally, individuals who belong but don t believe display a strong involvement on the institutional dimension (parishioner) but they do not believe in the Christian tenets, either 9
because they hold other types of religious beliefs (for the spiritual type) or because they have no religious beliefs (for the atheist/agnostic type). This group is likely to consist of people who remain close to the church by tradition or social conformity but without sharing the religious beliefs that usually go with the sense of belonging. These traditional forms of religiosity stand in contrast to what we call post-traditional forms of religiosity that are characterized by their distance, or at least ambivalence, with respect to the authority of institutionalized churches. We differentiate between two groups of posttraditional believers. First, believers without belonging display beliefs of Christian inspiration but their faith develops outside of the institutionalized churches from which they are distanced. For this category, Christian beliefs and the absence of an institutional relationship constitute the key features. The second group consists of individuals who are also distanced from the official churches but who believe in another type of transcendence than God (spiritual type). We also include in this category people who express spiritual beliefs that are not Christian, but are ambivalent with respect to their relationship to the church as an institution. 6 Since we do not go further in the exploration of the types of beliefs held by these individuals, we refer to this group by the generic label post-christians. Non-religious people for their part are characterized by their ambivalence or distance from the church on the institutional dimension and their absence of beliefs in transcendence, or at least skepticism in this respect (atheist/agnostic type). Absences of spiritual/religious beliefs and of objective church involvement are the decisive features for fitting in this group so that individuals who are ambivalent on the institutional dimension also fall into this category. This two-dimensional typology allows for a more nuanced categorization of religiosity than a classic typology accounting only for the institutional dimension of religion. In fact, the lack of inclusion of religious beliefs leads to group in a single category individuals with very 6 This categorization is explained by the fact that, among the six types of religiosity that we differentiate, these individuals do not fit in any of the other types and are closest to the post-christian type. 10
different forms of religiosity. Based on a classic typology, a non-practicing Christian might be, as common wisdom would suggest, an individual who believes in the main tenets of the Christian faith but only goes to church on specific occasions such as weddings, funerals or important celebrations. However, a post-christian, a believer without belonging, or even a non-religious person would fall in the same category as long as they did not bother to get rid of their church affiliation. In other words, the mere focus on church attendance and church affiliation no longer accurately reflects the current richness and diversity of forms of religiosity. Forms of religiosity and political attitudes Having proposed a two-dimensional typology of religiosity, we now turn to the question of the influence of these various forms of religiosity on political attitudes. As shown by different authors (Kitschelt 1994; Kriesi et al. 2006), the political landscape in Western European countries is structured along two main conflict lines. The first dimension consists of the classic economic opposition between free market economy (capitalism) and state interventionism (socialism). The second dimension of conflict is cultural and opposes defenders of libertarian values emphasizing individual freedom to proponents of authoritarian values stressing social compliance (e.g., Kitschelt 1994). Differences in religiosity are assumed to have little influence on individuals attitudes on the economic axis. The process of modernization experienced in Western Europe has resulted in a growing differentiation and autonomization of the different domains of society, conducing to a loss of religion s overarching and dominant character (e.g., Bruce 2002; Luckmann 1967). In particular, the functioning of the state and the economy have been gradually freed from the influence of religious institutions (Bruce 2002, 3). Thus, we assume that there will be no 11
significant relationship between citizens religiosity and their preferences for an economic system ruled by the laws of the market or by state intervention. Our expectations are more nuanced with regard to attitudes on the cultural axis of conflict between libertarian and authoritarian values. We differentiate among two dimensions on the cultural divide, namely attitudes towards cultural liberalism, and attitudes towards cultural diversity. This second set of attitudes is expected to be relatively immune from the influence of religiosity, given that issues related to immigration and multi-culturalism lie largely outside of the current sphere of influence of the church. The cultural liberalism dimension for its part taps issues related to morality and ethics that have been traditionally addressed by the church; as a consequence, people s preferences on this dimension are more likely to vary depending on the different types of religiosity. More specifically, we expect differences in the degree of cultural liberalism to be primarily driven by individuals relationship to the church (institutional dimension), and secondarily by the types of beliefs they hold (spiritual dimension). With respect to the institutional dimension, we differentiate between traditional forms of religiosity that are characterized by their acceptance or at least the absence of rejection of the authority of established churches, and post-traditional forms of religiosity that have developed outside and are distanced from religious institutions. We believe this difference in attitudes towards religious institutions to be relevant for explaining individuals preferences on the cultural liberalism axis. Post-traditional believers (believers without belonging, post-christians) stress the importance of individual freedom, of independence from religious institutions, of the development of their own belief systems unconstrained by the authority of established churches (Luckmann 1967; Heelas and Woodhead 2005). This emphasis on liberty and autonomy is expected to be reflected in a preference for libertarian values that favor creative self-fulfillment and self-determination (Kitschelt 1994, 17). By contrast, traditional 12
believers (practicing Christians, uncommitted Christians, belongers without believing) are likely to be more influenced by the authority of the churches, a trait that is susceptible to foster compliance with established norms and practices (Kitschelt 1994, 29). As a consequence, they are expected to adopt more authoritarian values that favor social compliance and standards of social rectitude adopted upon the command of a higher authority. (Kitschelt 1994, 17). In addition, we also expect differences in attitudes according to the spiritual dimension of religious beliefs. Among traditional believers, this preference for more authoritarian values is likely to be especially marked for practicing Christians who have the closest connection with the institutionalized churches both with respect to their institutional relationship (that is greater than the ones of uncommitted Christians) and their belief system (that is coherent with their institutional attachment contrarily to the ones of people who belong without believing). Among post-traditional believers, we expect post-christians to be more culturally liberal than believers who don t belong. Although both are characterized by their remoteness from institutionalized churches, individuals who believe without belonging are still of Christian obedience and are, as such, likely to be more influenced by the messages from the church than post-christians who have taken their distance both from the church as an institution and from the Christian doctrine. Finally, the greatest degree of cultural liberalism is expected from nonreligious individuals whose convictions are independent from the authority of the church and immune to the influence of religious messages. Data and operationalization In order to study the shape of the contemporary religious landscape and the impact of different forms of religiosity on political attitudes in Western Europe, we rely on data from the 1995 wave of the World Value Survey (WVS) in seventeen countries with a Christian 13
heritage (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Portugal, and Sweden). 7 As emphasized before, our main variable of interest, religiosity, consists of an institutional and a spiritual dimension (see table 3). The institutional dimension is fairly well captured by the questions asked in the WVS. Its first aspect, the "behaving" component of religiosity, refers to people's degree of involvement in the church and is measured by frequency of church attendance. Individuals who go to church at least once a month are coded 1, while the others are coded 0. The second aspect, the "belonging" component of religiosity, focuses on people s subjective assessment of the church and is measured by their degree of confidence in the churches, which allows us to differentiate between people who trust the church as an institution, and individuals who have taken their distance from it. Individuals who have a lot or quite a lot of confidence are coded 1, others are coded 0. The combination of these two indicators allows us to identify the three types of relationships to the church distinguished above (table 1): individuals who are regular churchgoers belong to the parishioner type (independently of their degree of confidence in the church), people who are no regular churchgoers but have a lot or quite a lot of confidence in the church are classified in the ambivalent type, and individuals who do not attend religious services on a regular basis and have no confidence in the church fall into the distanced type. The spiritual dimension of religious "believing" is much more difficult to measure. Despite a relatively large set of questions on religiosity, the WVS contains no questions that directly ask people about their belief in a Christian God or in various forms of post-christian spiritualities. 7 WVS1995 corresponds to the wave 1994-1999 (World Values Survey 1995 Official Data File, World Values Survey Association, www.worldvaluessurvey.org). In the countries included in this paper, the survey was held in 1999. Unfortunately, we are not able to include all Western European countries because some critical indicators are missing for Norway, Spain and Switzerland. We do not use the latest wave of the WVS (2005) because these data are only available for a much smaller number of Western European countries. All samples are representative cross-sections of the respective adult populations. After having excluded people of non-christian faith, the number of respondents ranges from 918 in Great Britain to 1988 in Italy. 14
Therefore, a theoretically sophisticated measurement of beliefs in different types of transcendence is not possible. However, there is one simple question that can serve as a satisfactory, albeit crude instrument to discriminate between traditional Christian beliefs and post-christian spirituality (for a similar approach using WVS, see also Houtman and Aupers 2007, 311). Respondents were asked which of the following statements comes closest to their own beliefs: "there is a personal God", "there is some sort of spirit or life force", "I don't really know what to think", and "I don't really think there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force". This question simultaneously allows us to assess whether respondents believe in transcendence or not and, if they do, in which type of transcendence they believe in (see table 2). Therefore, people who answer that they believe in a personal God are considered of Christian faith, those who believe in a spirit or life force can be conceived of as spiritual, and others fall into the atheist/agnostic type of belief systems. In order to study the political significance of different types of religiosity, we analyze how they relate to political attitudes along the two main axes of political competition in Western Europe. In order to measure the economic conflict line, we performed a factor analysis on several economic indicators available in the WVS. Except from Austria where we got a threefactor solution, the economic conflict line divided into two dimensions. For our purposes, we retain the first dimension, which we label "economic liberalism" and which pertains to the role of the market and the state. 8 This dimension is based on three questions asking respondents whether state should give more freedom to firms or control them more effectively, whether government or individuals should take more responsibility, and whether competition is good or harmful. These variables were recoded in order to attribute higher values to traditional preferences of the political right (free market) and lower values to classic positions of the political left (state interventionism). 8 The second dimension refers to the desired level of "social equality". 15
On the cultural axis of conflict between libertarian and authoritarian values, we differentiate between two dimensions that emerge from factor analysis: cultural liberalism and cultural diversity. The first is tapped by a battery of questions asking respondents whether homosexuality, abortion, divorce, euthanasia and suicide are justifiable social behaviors or not. The second is measured by three questions asking whether employers should give priority to people from one's own country if jobs are scarce, whether immigrants should take over the customs of their country of residence, and whether respondents prefer a more restrictive or a more permissive immigration policy. All variables were recoded in order to attribute higher values to libertarian preferences and lower values to authoritarian positions. To assess the influence of different forms of religiosity on political attitudes on the economic and cultural conflict lines, we use the results from separate factor analyses for each dimension. In addition, we control for the effect of a number of classic control variables (gender, age, education, and income). Furthermore, given that previous research shows significant differences in attitudes on moral issues among various church affiliations (e.g., Norris and Inglehart, ch. 7), we control for differences in attitudes between people who have no religious denomination and others. 9 The shape of the religious landscape in Western European countries Based on our new categorization of religiosity, we first examine the shape of the contemporary religious landscape in seventeen Western European countries. In particular, we are interested in the relative importance of traditional forms of religiosity as compared to post-traditional forms of religiosity and non-religiosity. 9 With the exception of Germany, the Netherlands, and Northern Ireland, the countries included in this paper are religiously quite homogeneous, but several countries have a significant percentage of people without religious affiliation. Differentiating between people with or without religious denomination therefore means in most countries testing the difference between people belonging to the dominant religious denomination in the country (Roman Catholic in Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, and Portugal; Protestant in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden; Orthodox in Greece; Anglican in Great Britain) and people without any religious affiliation. 16
Table 4 about here Table 4 shows interesting cross-country variations in the importance of different forms of religiosity. To get a better understanding of cross-national differences and similarities, we performed a hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward method (Appendix). On this basis, we can differentiate between at least four types of religious landscapes in Western Europe. First, there is a group of mostly highly Catholic countries including Ireland, Malta, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Greece, where traditional forms of religiosity clearly prevail. In all these countries except from Greece, practicing Christians are still the single-most important category of religiosity and amount to at least half of the population. In addition, belongers who do not believe, but go to church mostly by tradition or social compliance, are relatively numerous in the most traditional countries, that is Ireland, Malta and Northern Ireland. In Portugal, Italy and Greece, another category of traditional believers, so-called uncommitted Christians, is quite important. These individuals do not regularly attend religious services, but they assess the church positively and believe in the main tenets of the Christian faith. Altogether, these three religious groups adhering to traditional forms of religiosity represent between 58% of the population in Greece and up to 91% in Malta. Next, the two Nordic, protestant countries Finland and Iceland form a second group. There, uncommitted Christians constitute quite a large religious group (more than a third in Iceland, more than a quarter in Finland), but post-christians are of about the same size. Whereas the proportion between traditional and post-traditional believers is thus quite balanced in these two countries, followers of post-traditional forms of religiosity are more numerous in the third group of countries. Especially in Sweden and the Netherlands, but also in Great Britain and Austria, there is a large group of post-christians who have taken their distance from the church as an institution and who express spiritual beliefs in transcendence that is not the God of Jesus-Christ. Believing without belonging, another form of post- 17
traditional religiosity that develops within the Christian faith but outside the established churches, is however a clearly limited phenomenon. In other words, most people who take their distance from the church in terms of involvement and attachment generally also turn away from its precepts on the spiritual dimension. Post-Christian spiritualities are also widespread in the fourth group of countries (France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Luxembourg), but non-religiosity is even more prevalent there. This last group of countries appears to be the most secularized and stands in stark contrast to the first, although both are primarily composed of Catholic countries. Traditional and post-traditional forms of religiosity, we can conclude, therefore seem to develop quite independently from a country s dominant religious denomination. The impact of different forms of religiosity on political attitudes Having examined the shape of the religious landscape, we now turn to the consequences of various forms of religiosity for political attitudes on the two main axes of political competition in Western Europe (see tables 5a-5c). Tables 5a-5c about here First, table 5a displays the influence of religiosity on individuals attitudes on economic liberalism, that is the divide between free market economy and state interventionism. In line with our expectations, attitudes on the economic dimension of political competition are largely independent from the types of religiosity in most countries under study. In about half of the countries, at least one religious group significantly differs from uncommitted Christians (reference category), but there emerges no consistent picture across countries. With regard to church affiliation, however, there are more cross-national similarities: in those countries where this variable has a statistically significant effect, people without a religious affiliation are generally less favorable towards economic liberalism than people who belong to one of 18
the major Christian denominations. This result might be explained by the fact that traditionally, there are proportionally more undenominational people among sympathizers of left-wing parties. Second, we see from table 5b that different forms of religiosity are, as hypothesized, only weakly related to attitudes on cultural diversity. In eight countries, there is no relationship whatsoever between forms of religiosity and preferences for cultural diversity. Interestingly enough, this equally applies to strongly Catholic countries such as Ireland or Malta with a majority of traditional believers as well as to more secularized countries such as Denmark or Germany with a large share of non-religious people. Where religiosity has a significant impact on attitudes towards cultural diversity, the most traditional believers practicing Christians are the most open towards immigrants and cultural pluralism. Only in Greece and Iceland, we see a different pattern; there, post-traditional believers and non-religious individuals are more libertarian than uncommitted Christians (reference category). Third, and in line with our expectations, different forms of religiosity have a strong impact on individuals attitudes towards cultural liberalism, that is questions of moral permissiveness on which the established churches traditionally have a strong influence (table 5c). In a majority of countries (Italy, Greece, Finland, Iceland, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and, to a lesser extent, Malta, Portugal, and the Netherlands), our hypotheses are confirmed: there, followers of traditional forms of religiosity, especially practicing Christians, are less permissive on morality issues than post-traditional believers and non-religious persons. This finding underlines that the traditional distinction in studies of political behavior between practicing and non-practicing individuals does not tell the whole story and misses an important element of religiosity. In these countries, in fact, we not only observe differences between practicing Christians and non-religious individuals, but also between uncommitted Christians (reference category) and post-christians. In other words, a simple dichotomy 19
between practicing and non-practicing persons, which groups uncommitted Christians, post- Christians and non-religious individuals in a single category of non-practicing Christians, would have passed over the differences in their moral attitudes. As expected, variations in the degree of cultural liberalism are driven by both an individual s relationship to the church and by the types of beliefs he/she holds. Indeed, what distinguishes uncommitted Christians from practicing Christians is their lower level of church involvement (institutional dimension); what separates uncommitted Christians from post-christians and non-religious persons is their belief in the doctrine of the established churches (spiritual dimension). Therefore, as individuals take their distance from the official churches only with respect to their institutional relationship as in the case of uncommitted Christians, or also with respect to their belief systems as in the case of post-christians and non-religious people they increasingly free themselves from the established norms of the churches and develop more libertarian values that stress self-fulfillment and self-determination (Kitschelt 1994, 17). It is worth noting that in many of these countries, this also applies to nondenominational people who are more permissive on moral issues than individuals with a religious affiliation. In some countries under study, these conclusions have to be nuanced, however. In Ireland and Austria, practicing Christians do not significantly diverge from uncommitted Christians, but post-traditional believers and, in Ireland, non-religious people have significantly more permissive moral attitudes. Again, this attitudinal difference between various religious groups who are traditionally classified in a single category of non-practicing Christians could only be captured thanks to our two-dimensional typology. In a last group of countries composed of Sweden, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Luxembourg, however, our new categorization of religiosity appears not to be relevant. There, practicing Christians are the least permissive on moral issues, but there are no significant differences between the three religious groups (non-religious people, followers of post-traditional forms of religiosity, and uncommitted 20
Christians) that are usually lumped together in a single category of non-practicing Christians. In these countries, our refined categorization does not offer a better understanding of the relationship between religiosity and moral attitudes than traditional typologies relying on church attendance would have done. In most countries, however, we found differences in the moral attitudes of various groups of non-practicing Christians that would have been lost in traditional conceptions of religion. This result underlines the usefulness of our two-dimensional typology of religiosity, which goes beyond church attendance and also accounts for the belonging and believing components of religion. Concluding summary In this study, we have proposed a more encompassing typology of religiosity that accounts for the institutional dimension of religiosity, that is individuals relationship to the church, and for its spiritual dimension, that is people s personal religious or spiritual beliefs. On this basis, we can highlight the following findings. First, our analysis of the religious landscape in seventeen Western European countries with a Christian heritage shows important cross-national variations. Whereas traditional Christian believers are still dominant in a first group of mostly strongly Catholic countries, there are clear signs of religious change and decline in other countries. In fact, followers of posttraditional forms of religiosity, especially post-christians, are the single-most important religious group in countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Austria. Although a significant proportion of the population has taken their distance from the established churches, these countries cannot be considered secularized. There, traditional Christian religiosity might be limited, but beliefs in other forms of transcendence are widespread. A last group of countries, particularly France and Germany, appears to be more 21
secularized, however. There, post-traditional spiritualities are a significant phenomenon, too, but non-religiosity is at least equally important. Second, independently from the relative size of the various religious groups in the seventeen countries, forms of religiosity have similar effects on citizens preferences on cultural liberalism, one of the dimensions of the libertarian-authoritarian axis of political conflict in Western Europe. In a majority of countries, our findings support our research hypothesis: post-christians and non-religious people are significantly more permissive on moral issues than followers of institutionalized forms of religiosity, especially practicing Christians. This finding underscores the continuing relevance of religious preferences for the formation of selected political attitudes. More importantly, though, it points to the importance of a more refined categorization of religiosity. In most countries, our typology reveals significant differences among uncommitted Christians, post-christians and non-religious individuals. These nuances are lost in a classic typology that categorizes most of these individuals in the single category of non-practicing Christians. In conclusion, this study constitutes a first attempt at developing a systematic and comprehensive typology combining different components of religiosity, and examining its consequences for the study of political attitudes across a wide range of Western European countries. However, it remains largely exploratory and descriptive. In a next step, we would like to move in a more analytical direction and try to explain cross-country differences by accounting for important national characteristics (see, e.g., Scheepers et al. 2002). 22
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