Richard Traunmüller

How State Support of Religion Shapes Attitudes Toward Muslim Immigrants

This article argues that governments play a considerable role in shaping citizens’ attitudes toward Muslim immigrants through the way they regulate religion. European democracies are far from secular, and matters of religious regulation cannot be reduced to abstract values or constitutional clauses. Under conditions of high state support of religion, accommodating new religious minorities involves not only the changing of existing rules but also giving up on long-standing traditions and everyday habits. As a result, citizens see religious newcomers as a threat to their way of life and react with animosity to their practices and demands. We support our argument by combining newly designed survey items with original data on religious regulation in 26 Swiss cantons. Our findings contradict the extant literature and have important implications for the democratic challenges in Europe, the quality of modern immigration societies, and the role of religion in democracy more generally.

Religion und Sozialkapital

Mit dem Sozialkapitalansatz steht ein nutzlicher konzeptioneller Rahmen bereit, mit dem sich die Rolle der Religion fur die Sozialintegration begriff lich auf differenzierte Weise fassen und empirischen Analysen zuganglich machen lasst. Dieser Beitrag stellt die wichtigsten in der Sozialkapitalliteratur existierenden Argumente, Hypothesen und Befunde zum Einfluss der Religion auf das Sozialkapital vor. Ziel ist es, die verschiedenen theoretischen Einflussmoglichkeiten der Religion offenzulegen und Grunde fur diesbezuglich mogliche Unterschiede im Religionsund Gesellschaftsvergleich zu liefern. Die theoretische Diskussion wird durch eine eigenstandige empirische Analyse erganzt, die auf der Basis neuen Datenmaterials einen Einblick in aktuelle Befunde zum Zusammenhang von Religion und Sozialkapital im Gesellschaftsvergleich gibt.

Moral Politics: The Religious Factor in Referenda Voting

This article combines the research strands of moral politics and political behavior by focusing on the effect of individual and contextual religiosity on individual vote decisions in popular initiatives and public referenda concerning morally charged issues. We rely on a total of 13 surveys with 1,000 respondents each conducted after every referendum on moral policies in Switzerland between 1992 and 2012. Results based on cross-classified multilevel models show that religious behaving instead of nominal religious belonging plays a crucial role in decision making on moral issues. This supports the idea that the traditional confessional cleavage is replaced by a new religious cleavage that divides the religious from the secular. This newer cleavage is characterized by party alignments that extend from electoral to direct democratic voting behavior. Overall, our study lends support to previous findings drawn from American research on moral politics, direct democracies, and the public role of religion.

Der religiöse Faktor in der Familienpolitik

In unserem Beitrag untersuchen wir die Rolle der Religion für die Ausgestaltung der Familienpolitik. Während die „klassische“ Staatstätigkeitsforschung den Einfluss von Religion vornehmlich auf die Stärke christdemokratischer Parteien oder auf generelle kulturelle Ländermuster zurückführt, betonen „neuere“ Ansätze der Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung die Bedeutung religiöser Werte in der Bevölkerung die Ausgestaltung des Staat-Kirche-Verhältnisses sowie die historische Rolle verschiedener Strömungen des Protestantismus für die Entwicklung und Ausgestaltung von Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit. Unser Beitrag kontrastiert die beiden Forschungsstränge im Rahmen eines systematischen quantitativen Vergleichs von 27 OECD-Staaten und evaluiert die relative Erklärungskraft der klassischen und neueren theoretischen Argumente, um auf diese Weise zu einem differenszierteren Verständnis des Zusammenhangs von Religion und öffentlicher Familienpolitik zu gelangen.

Jenseits von Schwerkraft und Höllenfeuer. Nicht-lineare Kontexteffekte auf den Zusammenhang von religiöser Gruppenzugehörigkeit und individuellem Wahlverhalten bei fünf Bundestagswahlen

This article investigates the moderating effect of social context on the relationship between religion and vote choice. Whereas theories of electoral research and the sociology of religion assume a linear contextual effect, we develop a new theoretical argument that predicts a non-linear effect. The results of logistic multilevel analyses confirm this theory for the Catholic milieu: The effect of catholic denomination on voting for the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) first increases with the share of Catholics in the context and decreases when they are in the clear majority. This finding – which contradicts former studies – holds for all federal elections under consideration (1994-2009), withstands several robustness tests and provides important evidence for the perpetuation of the traditional Catholic voting norm through group processes.

Segen oder Fluch? Zum Einfluss von Staat-Kirche- Beziehungen auf die Vitalität religiöser Zivilgesellschaften im europäischen Vergleich

In diesem Beitrag wird der Frage nachgegangen, welchen Einfluss Staat-Kirche- Beziehungen und insbesondere die staatliche Unterstutzung von Religion auf die Vitalitat religioser Zivilgesellschaften in Europa haben. Die Rolle, welche politische Institutionen in der Generierung und Aufrechterhaltung des Sozialkapitals einer Gesellschaft spielen, erfahrt in der Forschung in letzter Zeit erhohte Aufmerksamkeit (M. Freitag/M. Buhlmann 2009; M. Freitag 2006; M. Hooghe/D. Stolle 2003; S. Kumlin/B. Rothstein 2005; D. Stolle/B. Rothstein 2007). Vor allem die Wirkung des Wohlfahrtsstaates auf das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement der Burger ist dabei gegenwartig Gegenstand lebhafter Diskussion (J. Kaariainen/H. Lehtonen 2006; C. A. Larsen 2007; P. Scheepers et al. 2003; W. van Oorschot/W. Arts 2005; W. van Oorschot et al. 2005). In dieser als ‚ crowding out ‘-Debatte bekannten Auseinandersetzung stehen sich zwei konkurrierende Sichtweisen gegenuber. Wahrend die eine Seite argumentiert, dass die Fursorge des Staates das aktive Engagement der Burger verdrangt, sieht die andere Seite gerade in einer ausgepragten Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit die Grundlage fur zivilgesellschaftliche Strukturen und Praktiken.

Sind Frauen tatsächlich grundsätzlich religiöser als Männer? Internationale und interreligiöse Befunde auf Basis des Religionsmonitors 2008

Einer der einflussreichsten Religionssoziologen der vergangenen Dekaden, Rodney Stark, fasste die Forschungsbefunde zur Religiositat von Frauen und Mannern und zu Geschlechtsunterschieden in der Religiositat vor wenigen Jahren wie folgt zusammen: „The fact is that women were and are more religious than men in all known eras and religions and in all contemporary societies.“ (Stark 2008: 8). Die These, dass Frauen grundsatzlich (und immer schon) religioser als Manner seien, findet sich auch in zahlreichen religionssoziologischen und -psychologischen Lehrbuchern (z.B. Argyle/Beit-Hallahmi, 1975, Batson/Schoenrade/Ventis 1993, Furseth/Repstad 2006, Hood/Hill/Spilka 2009, Trzebiatowska/Bruce, 2012) und Uberblicksartikeln (z.B. Collett/Lizardo 2009, Francis 1997, Miller/Hoffmann 1995, Stark 2002), wiewohl die Begrundungen, die dafur von den jeweiligen AutorInnen gegeben werden, im einzelnen variieren. Mittlerweile existiert ein ganzes Bundel unterschiedlicher Theorien, die versuchen, den vermeintlich universellen Geschlechtsunterschied in der Religiositat zu erklaren (vgl. Francis 1997, Trzebiatowska/Bruce, 2012).

Nationale Pfadabhängigkeit oder internationale Konvergenz? Eine quantitativ-vergleichende Analyse religionspolitischer Entwicklungen in 31 europäischen Demokratien 1990-2011

European regimes of religious regulation are currently under considerable strain. As a result, there is much debate about whether European democracies hold on to their divergent institutional arrangements of religious regulation or converge to a common European model of governing religious diversity. Both perspectives not only differ in their descriptive predictions regarding the recent trends in religious policy but also stress different causal mechanisms for the explanation of policy change. This paper seeks to shed empirical light on the dynamics and changes in European religious regulation from a strictly quantitative-comparative perspective. The analysis draws on a newly coded data set for 31 European countries (27 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey) that extends the data collected by the second round of the Religion and State Project (RAS2), resulting in a total observation period of two decades (1990-2011). Results suggest that there are no signs of convergence in the modes of religious regulation across Europe. Quite to the contrary, the empirical evidence shows not only a persistence of specific national patterns but even an increasing divergence of European religious policies. This holds for the treatment of religious minority groups and the restrictive or supportive regulation of religion in general. Change in religious policy is mainly driven by national political processes and in particular by a strong presence of religious parties in parliament.

How State Support of Religion Shapes Attitudes Toward Muslims

Given the salience of political conflicts over Muslim immigration in many Western countries, it is surprising how little we know about the reasons why Muslims are resented and their religious practices opposed. This paper takes a look at political factors and argues that governments shape citizens’ attitudes toward the Muslim minority through the way they regulate religion. Under conditions of high state support of religion, accommodating religious minorities not only involves the changing of existing rules but giving up on long-standing traditions, the loss of privileges, and everyday habits. As a result, citizens will see religious newcomers as a threat to their way of life and react with animosity to their practices and demands. We support our argument, which differs from existing ones in the literature, by combining newly designed survey items with original data on religious regulation in a subnational comparison of the Swiss case. Results and robustness checks show that citizens living in political contexts with higher levels of state support of religion are more likely to think that there are too many Muslims in the country and that the building of minarets should be banned. Results for attitudes on Muslim women’s right to wear headscarves in public point in a similar direction. The paper contributes to the recent growth in scholarly interest in public attitudes toward immigrants in general and Muslim immigrants in particular.

Improving and validating survey estimates of religious demography using Bayesian multilevel models and poststratification

Religious group size, demographic composition, and the dynamics thereof are of interest in many areas of social science including migration, social cohesion, parties and voting, and violent conflict. Existing estimates however are of varying and perhaps poor quality because many countries do not collect official data on religious identity. We propose a method for accurately measuring religious group demographics using existing survey data: Bayesian multilevel regression models with poststratification. We illustrate this method by estimating the demography of Muslims, Hindus, and Jews in Great Britain over a 20-year period and validate it by comparing our estimates to UK census data on religious demography. Our estimates are very accurate, differing from true population proportions by as little as 0.29 (Muslim) to 0.04 (Jewish) percentage points. These findings have implications for the measurement of religious demography as well as small group attributes more generally.