par Van Haute, Emilie 
;Pilet, Jean-Benoît ;Sandri, Giulia
Référence Politics of Religion in Western Europe: Modernities in conflict?, Taylor and Francis, page (144-169)
Publication Publié, 2013-01
;Pilet, Jean-Benoît ;Sandri, Giulia Référence Politics of Religion in Western Europe: Modernities in conflict?, Taylor and Francis, page (144-169)
Publication Publié, 2013-01
Partie d'ouvrage collectif
| Résumé : | Introduction In classical models of political science, religion has for long been central. When Lipset and Rokkan (1967) developed their model of partisan alignment one of the political structures they identified, one of their so-called cleavages, was based upon religion. Like the other cleavages identified, this was held to be frozen and to stabilize party politics in Western Europe long after the appearance of cleavages following the ʼnational revolution’ of the nineteenth century. During the same years in the US, and along similar lines, Campbell included the concept of partisan identification, which is rooted in structural divisions such as race and religion within American society, within his social-psychological model of voting behaviour (Campbell et al. 1964). Nonetheless, in recent decades (at least from the 1970s), the literature on voting behaviour began to mitigate the empirical scope of Lipset and Rokkan’s theory and suggested that traditional linkages between social cleavages and party support were progressively weakening. Critiques of the structural alignment theory have been generally concentrated on the ‘partisan de-alignment thesis’ (Nie et al. 1976; Crewe et al. 1977; Dalton et al. 1984; Lane and Ersson 1997; Clark and Lipset 2001), which translates the thesis of secularization into a voting behaviour perspective. Since World War II, the secularization process has progressively weakened the penetration of religious and class identities within advanced industrial societies in Western Europe (Norris and Inglehart 2004). This phenomenon is translated within electoral and party politics by the shrinking political effect of denominational divides in terms of vote allocation and political mobilization, and also by the emergence of relatively new parties advocating cross-cutting issues such as ethno-regional, Green or extreme right parties (Dalton et al. 1984; Dogan 1995; Broughton and Napel 2000). Whilst there is some evidence in the literature of the presence of religious dealignment in advanced industrial societies, empirical analysis still shows that religiosity continues to influence electoral behaviour and party support in many societies (Norris and Inglehart 2004; Elff 2007, 2009). For example, in many ‘pillarized’ West European democracies, such as the Netherlands or Belgium (Lijphart 1981), where the citizens have always been traditionally divided into segmented party and social networks, the relevance of the religious ‘pillar’ has weakened significantly during the last three decades (Billiet 1984; Dekker and Ester 1996; Delwit and De Waele 1999), but conclusions regarding the dealignment of previously ‘pillarized’ voters still diverge (Hooghe 1999). Moreover, more recently, after several decades during which the social sciences have been organized around the pre-modern versus modern cultural divide (Wright Mills 1959), the sociological thesis of the progressive death of religion has been increasingly criticized (Berger 1999; Stark 1999; Stark and Finke 2000; Norris and Inglehart 2004; Martin 2005; Taylor 2005; Katzenstein 2006). According to many authors criticizing the secularization thesis, we might consider that ‘secularization is a tendency, not an iron law’ (Norris and Inglehart 2004: 3). Eisenstadt, one of the main critics of the secularization thesis, also postulated a new intellectual prism for approaching the role of religion in contemporary societies and politics. The concept of ‘multiple modernities’ allows contemporary scholars to apprehend the role of religion within society in a dynamic perspective (Eisenstadt 2000 and 2003; Arnason et al. 2004; Wagner 2000; Byrnes and Katzenstein 2006). Eisenstadt postulates that modernization of contemporary societies permeates their secularization, but this process has to be apprehended as a transformation and not as a break or rupture with the past. Religion still occupies a fundamental position in contemporary political systems, even though it does not shape political behaviour, socialization and participation as clearly as it did in pre-modern and modern times. Moreover, the role of religion in contemporary advanced industrial societies can be defined as being multi-faceted and its impact on the political system is not linear but rather compound (Eisenstadt 2000). With regard to this point, some scholars have also suggested taking into account the relevance of the role of immigration in defining the place and function of religiosity and religious identity within contemporary West European politics (Yang and Ebaugh 2001). Others have argued that religion and ethnicity are often intertwined, especially in the case of immigrant communities, given that religion is one of the key elements in the formation of ethnic cultures (Gordon 1964; Schermerhorn 1978). Immigration may therefore impact on the political role of religion within ethnically compound societies. On one hand, in many Western European countries one of the larger immigrant communities is of North African (mainly Maghreb) or Turkish descent and mostly of Muslim religious affiliation (Savage 2004: 26). The presence within European societies of immigrant communities of Muslim religious affiliation may not have direct consequences in political terms, but the politicization of integrational dynamics and of specific debates (such as those concerning the presence and use of religious symbols in public spaces, i.e. the recent headscarf debate in France or the crucifix debate in Italy) may lead to the inclusion of a religious dimension within the political issues surrounding immigration. On the other hand, not only is the religious identity of immigrant communities in several European countries rather distinctive, given the size of the Muslim communities of immigration origin currently living within the EU’s territorial borders (almost 16 million in 2003: Savage 2004), but many members of these communities have now acquired the citizenship of the country of settlement. Thus, an increasing number of citizens of immigration descent and of Islamic denominational affiliation have gained the right to vote over the last decades. Whilst the scientific literature on the electoral behaviour of Muslim citizens is still rather modest (Chebel d’Appolonia 2002), some scholarly attention is being paid to the potential emergence of an Islamic vote amongst immigrant populations (Martiniello 1998, 2005). On closer inspection, the presence of a specific electoral behaviour of immigrant-origin Muslim citizens within West European countries may constitute a clear example of the heuristic potential of the ‘multiple modernities’ paradigm. This distinctive behavioural pattern is built upon the intertwining of social, ethnic and religious identities (Martiniello 2005). In this case, the religious identity of socially distinctive groups of citizens can affect their political behaviour in different ways and to different degrees depending on their denominational affiliations. This complex transposition of religious identities to the political arena represents one of the elements composing the analytical prism offered by the ‘multiple modernities’ approach (Eisenstadt 2008). It would be interesting, therefore, to adapt and empirically apply Eisenstadt’s model in terms of voting behaviour and political mobilization, as an alternative explanatory scheme to the de-alignment thesis for assessing the influence of religion on general political resources. This chapter, therefore, looks at the relevance of religious issues in terms of political attitudes and behaviours in order to attempt an assessment of the role of religion within ethnically compound European societies. It aims at exploring the micro-sociological foundations of the macro-sociological processes identified by Eisenstadt in terms of political culture and political behaviour. Belgium is chosen as a case study because of the peculiarity of its multiple political communities. Of all Western European societies, Belgian society is the most clearly constructed along multiple cleavages and Belgian political cultures are built upon multiple identities (Lijphart 1981; Billiet and Dobbelaere 1985; Delwit and De Waele 1999). A consciousness of belonging to one of the two linguistic communities (Flemish-speaking and French-speaking) is nowadays part and parcel of the social and religious identities of immigrant groups (Jacobs et al. 2002, 2004; Saroglou and Mathijsen 2007). Religious issues in identity formation are thus crossed with ethnic and linguistic dimensions. As a result, Belgian society with its significant degree of complexity constitutes an unusually specific case study in order to investigate the salience of religion in issues of identity formation, political culture construction and political behaviour orientation. Within this context the impact of religion on voting will be explored first. To what extent do Belgian citizens still vote along religious lines? Do Catholics still support Christian Democratic parties? And are non-religious voters opting for the traditional secular parties (Socialists and Liberals)? On the basis of the analytical tool provided by the ‘multiple modernities’ thesis (Eisenstadt 2000; Wagner 2000; Martin 2005) we argue that the religious cleavage is of continuing relevance in Belgian party politics. The second issue explored will be the impact of immigration on the link between religion and politics. The hypothesis tested here is that the political behaviour of immigrant-origin Muslim voters is heavily affected by the religious cleavage. This intertwining of the religious cleavage and the immigration dimension may in fact constitute an example of the progressive institutionalization of multiple modernities as described by Eisenstadt (2008). In order to address these two questions this chapter makes reference to two data sources. The first of these is an exit poll survey conducted for the 2007 Federal elections in Wallonia and Brussels (N = 2, 807). The second is based upon surveys among party members (CD&V, VLD, PS and Ecolo) for a total of 2, 910 respondents. Religion was expected to be more central to the decision to affiliate to a party than it is to actual voting choices. |
