Confessional Divides and the Politics of Religious Difference:

Western European Democracy and Party Politics in Context

Paper for

IPSA conference

Panel “The Political Parties’ Appeal to Religious Voters in Europe”

Chair: Piero Ignazi

Madrid, July 8 – 12, 2012

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze the political significance of confessional divides in Europe in the

context of religious pluralization. This is done at an historical and comparative-empirical level;

the European path towards democracy is considered in light of a historical delineation of the link

between the genesis of church-state regimes and the emergence of modern democracy at the

onset of globalization. Then, the interrelationship between the pressures resulting from cultural

and religious pluralization and the party and policy responses, in particular the degree of

inclusion or multicultural policies, are considered. The argument is advanced that despite many

regime changes and growing pressures resulting from religious pluralization, and despite some

signs of decline of the confessional cleavage and the weakening of Christian Democracy,

established patterns of confessional differences, institutional arrangements of religion and

politics, and even politics of cultural inclusion are surprisingly stable and resisting to change.

+++++ WORK IN PROGRESS – PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION ++++

Prof. Dr. Michael Minkenberg

Chair of Comparative Politics

Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences

P.O. Box 1786

D-15207 Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

Tel. +49 (335) 5534-2694

Email: minkenberg@europa-uni.de

1

Introduction

Numerous political studies have underscored the significance of confessional differences for

contemporary European politics, be it the Catholic impact on public policy, in particular welfare

states, the relevance of the Church as an interest group, the paramount role of Christian

Democracy in the party systems, or the specific contribution of Catholicism to the project of

European integration (i.e. Castles 1993; Warner 2000; van Kersbergen 1995; van

Kersbergen/Manow 2009; Byrnes/Katzenstein 2006). This paper takes a larger perspective and

attempts to analyze the political significance of confessional divides in Europe in the context of

religious pluralization. This is done at an historical and comparative-empirical level; the

European path towards democracy is considered in light of a historical delineation of the link

between the genesis of church-state regimes and the emergence of modern democracy at the

onset of globalization. Finally, the interrelationship between the pressures resulting from cultural

and religious pluralization and the party and policy responses, in particular the degree of

inclusion or multicultural policies, are considered. The argument is advanced that despite many

regime changes and growing pressures resulting from religious pluralization, and despite some

signs of decline of the confessional cleavage and the weakening of Christian Democracy,

established patterns of confessional differences, institutional arrangements of religion and

politics, and even politics of cultural inclusion are surprisingly stable and resisting to change. In

order to show this, the paper applies a medium range comparison of sufficiently large Western

European democracies (EU-15, minus Luxembourg and Malta, plus Norway and Switzerland).

Historical church-state patterns, the Protestant-Catholic split, and democratization

Throughout the Middle Ages, church teachings underlined a strong domain delineation in the

Christian world, form the differentialist proclamation to “render unto Caesar the things that are

Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22, 21) to St. Augustine’s City of

God to the rivalry between Pope and Emperor. At the same time, a fusion of state and church

emerged which benefitted either side by adding legitimacy and power. Despite doctrinal

differences, this occurred already on both sides of the Great Schism of 1054 which separated the

Orthodox Church from Western Christianity. This mixture of fusion and separation continued

after the Protestant Reformation: with the divide between Protestants and Catholics and the

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establishment of the principle cuius regio, eius religio1 the modern state arrived as a confessional

state (see Madeley 2003a: 9).

Figure 1: Confessional Map of Europe, Early Modernity (after Stein Rokkan)

Source: Madeley (2003b: 29f.)

In an attempt to map Europe according to its various confessionsal dividing lines and link

them up to political consequences, John Madeley reformulates and complements Stein Rokkan’s

1 “those ruling the territory determine the religion”, first established in the Augsburg Peace of 1555, later confirmd in

the Westphalian Peace Treaty of 1648

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conceptual map of Europe from early modernity onwards (Rokkan 1970) and ties it to political

developments up to 2000: “From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, Europe knew three

monoconfessional culture areas of major size located severally across the eastern, southern and

northern margins of the Continent: the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran… In each the

confessional state pattern was institutionalized for most if not all of this period so as to make

membership of the political community coincident with submission to the locally dominant

creed” (Madeley 2003b: 27). Figure 1 depicts Madeley’s mapping of Europe according to the

confessional patterns and their geopolitical qualities, measured by the proximity to Rome.

The European periphery is constituted by the Northern (Lutheran) Protestant, the Eastern

Orthodox and the Southeastern Muslim countries. On the other hand, Catholic Europe is located

mainly in the heart of the continent, with seaward and landward empire-nations. A number of

smaller Catholic countries such as Ireland in the West and Hungary in the East take the role of

buffer or peripheral nations but they were part of larger empires or multinational states until the

early 20th

century.

The rise of nationalism and liberalism in the 19th

century challenged not only these

multinational empires. It also undermined the confessional state and paved the way for the

breakthrough of the postulate of the secular and neutral state (see Fischer 2009: 15-54). With

regard to the confessional divides, divergent paths of development and outcomes ensued:

First, in the Protestant countries of the European North and Northwest, in which the

church was also the national or state church – as in the Protestant countries outside Europe (USA,

Canada, Australia, New Zealand) where the Protestant churches underwent disestablishment in

the course of the 19th

century – a convergence between Protestantism and liberal ideas occurred

in the context of a progressing secularization triggered by the Protestant emphasis on

individualism, egalitarianism, and acceptance of diversity (see Bruce 2002: 4; 2003; also

Kallscheuer 2006). While this was a historically contingent process and by no means

predetermined, traces of this “marriage” can still be found in the fact that in general, Protestant

societies exhibit higher rates of approval of democratic ideals and performance, than Catholic or

Orthodox ones (see Figure 2; Norris/Inglehart 2004: 146).

Second, in Catholic societies during nation building, on the other hand, Protestantism and

liberalism were seen as an attack on the Church and its power, and a conflictual, if not

antagonistic relationship between Catholicism and liberalism prevailed. Nation building by

mostly liberal elites put Catholicism on the defensive, and often, the question of loyalty was

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invoked. For example, in the French Third Republic as well as in the much less republican

German Empire, these tensions culminated in the aggressive anti-clerical politics of French

republicans and the separation law of 1905 and the persecution of Catholics under Bismarck in

the so-called “Kulturkampf”. During the French-German war of 1870/71, the liberal Swiss

historian Jacob Burckhardt proclaimed that after centuries of alliances between church and state

and the resulting “holy ossification” of this institutional relationship, it was time for the strict

separation of church and state: “… the problem of our time is the separation of state and church.

It is the logical conclusion of tolerance.” (Burckhardt 1934: 118; my translation, MM) According

to Burckhardt, the reason for this radical demand was the Catholic Church’s deeply ambivalent

relationship to modernity. On the one hand, the church strove for an accommodation with the

modern state, as it did with the feudal state, but it was unable to accept the modern democratic

spirit (ibid. 117; see also Anderson 2003).

Third, this conflict seems even larger in countries with an established Orthodox Church,

namely in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Here the late nation-building process fostered a

particularly close and illiberal alliance between church and state (see Anderson 2009: chap. 5) – a

connection which was not lost to Huntington when he first discussed post-1989 democratization

in Eastern Europe. He identified “the boundary of Western Christiandom of 1500” as the border

separating the East European extension of Western culture where prospects for democracy were

good, and that part of Eastern Europe, with predominantly Orthodox societies, where democracy

was rather unlikely to take root (see Huntington 1991: 299f.). This is the region to the right of the

dotted line in Madeley’s completion of Rokkan’s confessional European map (see above Figure

1).

Traces of these different confessional trajectories and their relevance for democracy today

can be seen in the spread of demoractic attitudes and values in a large cross-country comparison

where most Protestant countries in Europe appear in the figurative region with high approvement

of both democratic values and performance, whereas Catholic countries are more evenly spread

across thes two dimensions (see figure 2).

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Figure 2: Democratic Values and Religious Differences

Source: Norris/Inglehart (2004: 146), based on World Values Surveys, European Values Survey

1995-2001, pooled sample

The uneven development of democracy along confessional lines is also illustrated by the

particular paths in interwar Europe of the 20th

centuray. When comparing Protestant and Catholic

countries in this period, Steve Bruce (2003, 2004) showed that with few exceptions like the

Weimar Republic, it was the Protestant countries in which democracy survived the crises of the

1920s and 1930s and the rise of fascism and communism. In contrast, fascist movements and

elites were particularly successful in Catholic countries, and Bruce attests the Catholic Church an

anti-democratic politics in countries with a Catholic monopoly. Either they cooperated openly

with right-wing authoritarian regimes and groups, as in Spain or in France (especially after the

establishment of the Vichy regime), or they took a more passive role, as in Italy and Germany.

His explanation points less at the doctrinal than the structural aspects of Catholicism:

“Catholicism, Orthodoxy and, to a lesser extent, Lutheranism, with their insistence on the

primacy of the institution of the church, are much more likely to see the state of the political

embodiment of ‘the people’ as a community, rather than as the expression of the preferences of

individuals” (Bruce 2003: 110). Based on Bruce and other sources, table 1 provides an overview

of democratic and right-wing authoritarian regimes in the interwar period, with only those non-

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democracies listed which were not installed by German or Italian occupiers but emerged

independently or before occupation, such as the Dollfuß regime in Austria or Marshall Pétain’s

regime in France. German puppet regimes like Tiso’s in Slovakia are not included. As can be

seen, there was not a single Catholic country which remained democratic in the period.

Moreover, in many Catholic countries which turned to the right, the church was either passive or

supportive of the new regime.

Table 1: The Protestant-Catholic Divide, Church-State Relationships, and Political Regimes in

Interwar Europe (in parentheses: beginning year of non-demoratic regime – attitude of major

church towards regime) Democracy Right-wing Authoritarian Regime

Catholic

Countries

Czechoslovakia Austria (1934 – supportive)

France (1940 – supportive)

Hungary (1920s – supportive)

Italy (1922 – supportive)

Poland (1938 – supportive)

Portugal (1933 – initially supportive)

Spain (1939 – supportive)

Protestant

or Mixed

Protestant

Countries

Denmark (occupied by Germany 1940)

Finland (occupied by Germany 1944)

The Netherlands (occupied by Germ. 1940)

Sweden

Switzerland

United Kingdom

Germany (1933 – passive)

(Baltic States – “benign despotism” in the

1930s)

Sources: Bruce (2003: 97-111); Anderson (2009: 49-54), amended by author.

It was more the horrors of the holocaust and the Second World War, i.e. secular politics

and outside pressures, rather than doctrinal reform from within which pushed the Vatican into

accepting human rights and democracy in the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s (see

Casanova 1994: 71; Anderson 2009: 38-40). This was accompanied and facilitated by the rise of

Christian Democracy in most Western European democracies in the decades following the war.

Democracy and Christian Democracy – the confessional cleavage in transition

As has been noted by many observers, Christian Democracy did not only play a key role in

politically rebuilding Western European countries after World War II, but also in establishing

democracy and launching the project of European integration (see Madeley 2010). The exit of

Christian Democracy from the “Catholic ghetto” and its conservative clericalism (von Beyme

1984: 125-133; idem, 2000; also van Kersbergen 1995) preceded the exit of the Catholic Church

7

from its hostility to democracy and was as instrumental in the latter as was the shock of the

holocaust and World War II itself (see also Warner 2000). This “dual conversion” raises the

question for European Christian Democracy to what extent it has become alienated from its

Catholic origins and hence, to what extent the confessional cleavage has lost salience in party

competition and voter mobilization, thus marginalizing the religious factor at the party and

electoral level.

The classification of parties in the mainstream literature on Christian Democracy (CD)

and Christian parties establishes them as a distinct party family (see e.g. Hanley, 1994, 2003;

Kalyvas, 1996; Kselman/Buttigieg, 2003; van Kersbergen, 1996 and others). Party research

distinguishes between traditional Christian Democracy with a strong Catholic imprint (such as

the Austrian, Dutch, German and Italian parties) and “newcomers” or “non-affiliated” parties

with a Christian lineage (such as the Scandinavian Protestant parties, or the Polish League for

Polish Families). Based on a rather inclusive definitions which stops short of embracing the

British Conservatives as a CD-party, table 2 provides an overview of voting strength for CD

parties in Western Europe (where applicable; following Hanley 2003).

Table 2: Christian Democratic and Other Religious Parties – Average Vote Share in Per Cent,

1945-2000s (Western Europe only) Country Party 1945-60 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Austria ÖVP 45 47 43 42 28 31

Belgium CVP + PSC 44 36 34 28 23 18

Denmark KrF - - 3 2 2 n.d.

(Conser

vative)

(17) (20) (10) (19) (13) n.d.

France MRP 19 11 - - - -

Germany CDU/CSU 42 39 39 46 40 36

Ireland FG 26 33 33 34 27 n.d.

Italy DC 42 39 39 34 - -

PPI, etc 18 (1) n.d.

(FI) (21) (26)

Netherlands CDA 40 47 33 32 25 (2) 28

Portugal (PSD) - - (33) (39) (39) n.d.

CDS/PP 8 9 7 n.d.

Spain CDS, etc. - - 35 6 5 n.d.

(PP) - - (7) (26) (36) n.d.

PNV + CiU - - 2 3 6 n.d.

Sweden (MS) (16) (14) (15 (21) (22) n.d.

KDS - 2 1 6 7 n.d.

Switzerland CVP/PDC 23 23 21 20 17 15

EPP/PPE 1 2 2 2 2 n.d.

Notes:

(1) Figure contains DC-results of 1992 before collapse of party, but not the CD Center

8

(Berlusconi allies) which scores an aveage of 4 per cent.

(2) Figure contains average for small protestant parties.

Parties in parenthesis are Center-Right parties rather than classical CD parties.

Sources: Hanley (2003: 237), based on T. Mackie and R. Rose, International Almanac of

Electoral History, 1991, 1997 (www.electionworld.com); Ray (1999); own update.

This overview shows that overall Christian Democrats and related parties enjoyed considerable

voting support despite wide fluctuations over time and between some countries. In terms of

electoral strength, a certain decline can be observed in Christian Democratic core countries

(Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Italy). This has led observers to postulate an end of the

Christian Democratic age (Conway 2003: 43). However, when considering Germany along with

CD-newcomer countries such as Spain (allowing for the inclusion of the PP) and Ireland, the

picture looks less bleak. Moreover, in Austria, the Austrian People’s Party’s fortunes reversed in

the late 1990s.In Scandinavia, the Protestant parties underwent an electoral rise over the last

decades, although their voting strength remains rather small.

The relevance of the religious side of these parties and their policy positions as well as

policy making largely depends on the relevance of the religious factor in voting behaviour in

general. Overall, research has shown a considerable degree of contintuity in confessional voting,

with Catholics voting for parties of the right and Protestants or non-affiliated voting for the left or

liberals (see e.g. Dalton 2006). But these continuities in confessional voting cannot reveal some

signs of significant change. As the overview in table 2 show, there is a considerable variation in

the salience of the confessional cleavage (see also Knutsen 2004). In Catholics as well as mixed

Protestant countries, in particular in the Netherlands, this cleavage is quite robust. In Great

Britain and in Denmark, on the other hand, it has been rather weak, until the turn of the century.

A virtual disappearance of the cleavage occurred in Italy where the party system was

reconstituted after the breakdown of the partitocrazia in the early 1990s.

Table 3 shows something more fundamental. The weak to moderate decline of

confessional voting in many countries may be an indicator for a general decline of religion as a

politically relevant factor. In contrast, this trend could also indicate a change in the quality of the

religious cleavage. Recent studies show the emergence of a new religious cleavage in the United

States which does not rest on denominational differences but on the degree of religiosity (see

Leege et al. 2002). A similar development has been shown for the Federal Republic. The

difference in voting behaviour between Catholics and Protestants disappears in the 1980s and

thereafter, when individual religiosity is held constant (Wolf 1996

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Table 3: The Religious Cleavage in Western Europe, 1990s

Religious Denomination and Voting Church Going and Voting

1990 1996 1999/2002 . 1990 1996 1999/2002

.50

.41

Austria (.46)

Netherl. (.44)

.40

.31

Netherlands (.37)

Belgium (.33)

Finland (.31)

Netherlands (.29)

Finland (.23)

Italy (.21)

Italy (.27)

Denmark (.27)

Finland (.24)

UK (.23)

Netherl. (.21)

.30

.21

Belgium (.30)

Denmark (.29)

Finland (.27)

Italy (.27)

Germany (E) (.26)

Austria (.26)

Spain (.25)

France (.22)

Germany (W) (.22)

Sweden (.26)

Italy (.23)

Denmark (.29)

Spain (.28)

Ireland (.27)

Italy (.26)

France (.22)

Germany (E)(.20)

Belgium (.18)

Austria (.15)

Sweden (.15)

France (.14)

Germany (W) (.14)

Ireland (.14)

Denmark (.13)

UK (.11)

France (.17)

Germany (.16)

Ireland (.15)

Sweden (.11)

Germany (.17)

Spain (.17)

Sweden (.17)

France (.16)

Belgium (.16)

Ireland (.16)

Austria (.15)

.20

.11

Sweden (.20)

Ireland (.16)

UK (.12)

Ireland (.18)

Germany

(.17)

France (.12)

Germany (.19)

UK (.19)

UK (.10) Italy (.08) .10

.00

UK (.08)

Note: Values in parantheses are Cramer’s V correlation coefficients, measured as the correlation between

membership in the Catholic church and voting support for a right-wing/conservative party (left half of

table) and frequent church going and voting support for a right-wing/conservative party (right half of

table). The survey data are taken from the World Values Survey 1990/91 and the International Survey

Program of 1996.

Sources: Dalton (1996: 180; 2002: 158, 2006: 161)

The overall level of religious voting in terms of the secular-religious divide is significantly

stronger than the one of confessional voting. Moreover, it has increased during the 1990s in

almost any country, except for Germany and France. Countries with historically strong Christian

Democratic parties (Austria, Netherlands, Belgium) top the list in religious voting at the turn of

the century, joined by countries with new Protestant parties or CD newcomers (Denmark,

Finland, Spain). In Italy, the trend is particularly striking: the decline of the confesional cleavage

is countered by a rist in the religious-secular cleavage.

Following these rather abridged considerations, an overall religious party effect in

Western Europe (which is more nuanced and far reaching than Castles’ “Catholic effect” based

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on Catholicism and CD parties in government, see Castles 1994) is measured to determine, at a

later stage, the role of the religious cleavage on particular policies of democratic inclusion. This

is presented in table 4, based on criteria such as the proximity to church positions or a religious

policy agenda, instensitiy of the religious cleavage and length of government participation in the

period under consideration (for details, see Minkenberg 2002; 2010). In most countries in

Western Europe, there is a considerable religious party effect, in particular in countries with a

strong Christian Democracy.

Table 4: Strength of Religious Partisan Impact (Western Europe, 1945-2000)

0

1

2

3 3.5*

4

5

France

Ireland

Spain

Sweden

UK

Austria

Belgium

Germany

Denmark

Finland

Netherlands

Italy

* mean

Notes: Countries that are underlined are those with strong traditional Christian Demoratic parties. The

measure of a “religious” (Christian) instead of a mere “Catholic” partisan impact, countries are classified

according to five criteria (time span 1945 until 1999): 1) are there explicitly religious parties? 2) are there

(other) parties with ties to religious groups or churches? 3) do the platforms of these parties contain

explicitly religious contents? 4) is the religious cleavage salient (i.e. a value of 0.25 or more, as measured

by Dalton 1996: 180)? 5) have any of these parties been part of the national government for at least 20

years? For details see Minkenberg (2002).

Source: Minkenberg (2002).

Pressures of Pluralization: Convergence or Divergence?

In the next step of analysis, the paper turns to the issue of religious pluralization, mostly due to

immigration and democgraphic chance, and the consequences for democratic politics in

institutional and behavioral regards. The question is whether and to what extent religious

pluralization pushes European democracies towards more uniform and, more specifically, more

separationist state-church arrangements along with policies of inclusion which would open up for

religious minorities and to what extent this process diminishes confessional differences in the age

of heightened religious pluralism. Or, seen from another angle: can we trace confessional

differences in these respects despite the pressures from religious pluralization and differentiation?

Clearly, over the last 20-30 years, the established patterns of church-state relations in most

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Western democracies are confronted with growing pressures which challenge the legitimacy of

the time-honored regulations described above. These pressures result from two basic sources: on

the one hand, the current regulations are the result of particular historical power constellations,

both between the respective Christian denominations/the Catholic Church and between these and

the state. This means they have been modeled – with the exception of the non-European

democracies – before the onset of democratization and parliamentarization. On the other hand, it

is precisely this historical heritage which is challenged by the current processes of globalization,

of the integration of European states into the EU, and of religious pluralization. The latter – and

this is true for the European as well as the non-European democracies – results from both

international migration at a large scale and internal differentiation of the religious landscape.

These processes of religious pluralization have shaped the non-European immigration

countries from the beginning – hence the early introduction of a separationist regime, albeit with

different heights and solidities of the “walls of separation”: lower in Canada, especially Québec,

higher in the US, somewhere in-between in Australia. In Europe, this is a more recent

phenomenon, beginning largely in the postwar era. Since most of the last wave of immigrants

(from the 1970s on) hail from Muslim countries in Africa, the Middle East and in Asia, the

European debate about immigration has increasingly become a debate about Islam and how to

deal with it (see Casanova 2006). The cultural pluralization and increasing heterogeneity of the

religious map in Western democracies led to a growing number and intensity of conflicts at the

intersection of politics and religion, state and church, with the most visible examples being the

immigration and growth of non-Christian minorities, in particular Muslims, and non-mainline

Christian denominations. One should also not forget the increasing number of atheists or

unaffiliated. For example, in Germany, with the accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic in

1990, the percentage of officially counted non-religious, or those not affiliated with any church

jumped from a few in the old Federal Republic to about almost 30% today. They prompt new

public debates on the regulation of the relationship between religion and politics, not always with

results in their favour.

As Table 6 illustrates, in 13 of 15 Western European democracies Islam is the third or

even second largest religious community. The countries where Islam is second are among those

which are traditionally very homogenous in denominational terms, two Lutheran cases in

Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway) and two Catholic cases (Belgium, France) located in the West

of Europe. In two other Catholic countries, Spain and Austria, Muslims are on the verge of

12

leaving Protestants behind. Moreover, the analyses have shown that from around 1980 until

around 2000, religious pluralism has increased in all of Western Europe, except for Sweden.

Table 6: Religious Pluralism in 15 Western European Democracies, ca. 2000 (or Year Nearest to

It), in Per Cent of Resident Population (Sources Indicated by Letter in Parenthesis)

(a) These values indicate the degree of religious fragmentation, measured by 1 – H (Value of the

Herfindahl Index): the smaller the value, the higher the degree of pluralism. H is defined as the probability

that two randomly drawn persons belong to the same religious denomination. Data for ca. 1980 from

Chaves /Cann (1992: 278), data for ca. 2000 from Alesina et al. (2003).

(b) Bowden (2005: 32, 94, 404). The Protestant group includes independent Christian groups which do not

belong to an organized denomination. In some countries such as Great Britain, but also Norway and the

Netherlands, the size of this group varies between 3 and 4 per cent.

(c) Census data and other government statistics around 2000 in Fischer Weltalmanach (2004). Estimates

by Maréchal/Dassetto (2003: Tables 1 and 2) for Muslims in various European countries diverge

somewhat from Census data, in some countries even significantly (Muslims in F: 7.0%, in N: 0.5%, in A:

2.6%, in CH: 3.0%).

(d) Estimate by Maréchal/Dassetto (2003: Tables 1, 2) for the late 1990es (Census data, corrected by

expert opinion).

Source: see also Minkenberg (2007: 898f.)

More specifically, the data in Table 7 show that in the Netherlands (similar to the non-

Euorpean democracies; see Minkenberg 2007) religious pluralism has increased from an already

high level. In other countries like Austria, France, Italy and Spain – all Catholic – the jump

started from a much lower level and has been particularly pronounced, thus challenging the

dominant religion and its actor, the Catholic Church, and the established mechanisms in the

relationship between the church and the state in a fundamental way. Moreover, in most these

cases the majority of which are Catholic countries, radical right-wing parties are strongly

Catholics Protestants Orthodox Jews Muslims Other/ None Pluralism

Index, ca.

1980 (a)

Pluralism

Index, ca.

2000 (a) Anglicans Other Protest.

Austria 73.6 (b) 0.0 (b) 4.7 (b) 1.9 (b) 0.1 (c) 4.2 (c) 15.5 0.15 0.41

Belgium 80.9 (b) 0.1 (b) 1.6 (b) 0.5 (b) 0.35 (c) 3.8 (d) 12.8 0.05 0.21

Denmark 0.6 (b) 0.1 (b) 88.4 (b) 0.0 (b) 0.06 (c) 2.8 (d) 8.0 0.07 0.23

Finland 0.1 (b) 0.0 (b) 91.0 (b) 1.1 (b) n.d 0.4 (d) 7.4 0.09 0.25

France 78.8 (c) 0.0 (c) 1.6 (c) 0.3 (c) 1.1 (c) 8.5 (c) 9.7 0.08 0.40

Germany 32.1 (c) 0.0 (c) 31.8 (c) 1.1 (c) 0.12 (c) 3.7 (c) 30.3 0.54 0.66

Great Britain 11.0 (c) 29.0 (c) 14.0 (c) 0.6 (c) 0.48 (c) 2.7 (d) 42.2 0.59 0.69

Ireland 77.0 (c) 9.1 (c) 7.4 (c) 0.0 (c) 0.8 (c) 0.2 (d) 5.5 0.09 0.15

Italy 97.2 (b) 0.0 (b) 1.5 (b) 0.2 (b) 0.05 (c) 1.0 (d) 0.1 0.03 0.30

Netherlands 34.5 (b) 0.1 (b) 30.0 (b) 0.0 (b) 0.19 (c) 5.7 (c) 29.9 0.62 0.72

Norway 1.0 (b) 0.0 (b) 97.1 (b) 0.0 (b) n.d 1.4 (c) 0.5 0.15 0.20

Portugal 90.8 (b) 0.0 (b) 4.2 (b) 0.0 (b) 0.02 (c) 0.3 (d) 1.3 n.d. 0.14

Spain 96.1 (b) 0.0 (b) 1.1 (b) 0.0 (b) 0.04 (c) 0.7 (d) 2.1 0.02 0.45

Sweden 2.0 (b) 0.0 (b) 95.2 (b) 1.3 (b) 0.2 (c) 1.1 (c) 0.2 0.29 0.23

Switzerland 41.8 (c) 0.2 (b) 35.3 (c) 1.8 (c) 0.2 (c) 4.3 (c) 16.4 0.55 0.61

13

embedded in the nation’s electorate, often pushing an anti-Islamic discourse and “rediscovering”

the Christian roots of the country or Europe as a whole (see Minkenberg 2008a). Some argue that

within Western democracies religious traditions, in particular Protestantism or Catholicism,

assume a particular role in shaping politics and policies, such as social policies or policies of

immigration and integration, that there are so-called “families of nations” shaped, in part, by

particular Christian legacies and a pronounced role of Christian Democratic parties in national

politics (e.g. Castles 1993, 1998; Martin 1978; van Kersbergen 1995).

Table 7: Religious Pluralism and Pluralization Trends in Western Europe (1980-2000) Weak Pluralization

(d< 0.10)

Moderate Pluralization

(0.10 - 0.20)

Strong Pluralization

(d>0.20)

Low level pluralism

(<0.30)

Ireland

Portugal

(Sweden: d=negative)

Belgium*

Demark*

Finland

Norway*

Moderate pluralism

(0.30-0.50) France*

Italy*

Austria*

Spain

High level pluralism

(d>0.50)

Switzerland*

Germany

Great Britain

Netherlands

Notes:

The base of categorization is the pluralism value of 2000 (0: completely

homogenous, 1.00: completely pluralistic);

d = difference of pluralism value between 1980 and 2000 (trend).

Countries in italic have church-state separation (see Minkenberg 2003)

In countries in bold, Islam is the second larges religious community (in Austria

and Spain: counted as equal to Protestantism)

* indicates a strong radical right-wing or xenophobic party in the country’s party

system (at least 5% in every national election in the past 20 years).

Source: see Table 6 above.

Taken together, this means that today, most Western European democracies are markedly

more fragmented in religious terms than they have been a generation ago. And these

developments all push in the same direction: the established institutional and political

arrangements to regulate the relationship between religion and politics in the framework of liberal

democracies, long seen to have been solved once and for all, are challenged fundamentally and

require new justifications. Even without 9/11, the multicultural facts of modern Western society

raise new (and very old) questions about the political regulation of religion. Accordingly, we see

some major shifts in the debate in two groups of Western democracies, the ones with a more or

14

less established church structure, and those with a more or less clear separation between church

and state (see Minkenberg 2003a).

The first group comprises countries like Great Britain or the Federal Republic of Germany

as well as the Scandinavian countries. Here, we witness increasingly conflictual processes of

realigning religion in the public sphere, for example with regard to the role of religious education

(an increasingly controversial topic in Germany), the presence of headscarves and Christian

symbols in the public space (see the Crucifix-sentence of the German Constitutional Court of

1996 or the current wave of legislation banning the headscarf from public offices), the fight for

religious freedom for non-Christian churches, for example the debate in Great Britain regarding

the recognition of Muslim communities and the torn position of the established Church of

England, or the steps towards disestablishment of the state church in Sweden in 2000 (see

Gustafsson 2003; Modood 1997). But also in the second group, i.e. the countries with a more

separationist regime such in France or the Netherlands, the established role of religion

experiences increasing pressures from actors who interpret the neutrality and indifference of the

state in religious matters particular political positions at the expense of religion. Secularism is

seen not as a guarantee for state neutrality and a balance between all religious forces, but as a

political program equivalent to a secularist state religion (see Kymlicka/Norman 2000; Watson

1997). Moreover, these developments in various parts of the world are accelerated by and

interwoven with economic and cultural globalization processes (see Haynes 1998; Robertson

1991, 2003). As a result of the processes, state institutions and national identities are weakened,

leaving an ideological vacuum. This provides an opportunity for religions traditions, or their “re-

inventions”, to gel into cores of cultural identities, projects of transnational unities and loyalties –

it is this scenario where Huntington’s argument of a “clash of civilization” unfolds its most

persuasive power (Huntington 1996; see also Barber 1996).

As the case of Sweden has demonstrated, the inherited state-church regimes are not

indefinitely tied to the type of democracy. Earlier analysis shows that in the majority of countries

with high levels of religious pluralism, state and church are separated but this concerns more the

non-European democracies (Minkenberg 2007). From this one may infer that in other countries

with no separationist regime but high levels of pluralism and/or strong pluralization, the pressures

to disentangle church and state will increase precisely because of the democratic mechanisms at

work (as Sweden has shown). This, then, points at growing convergence in light of these

processes, and it shows that the ongoing struggle for democracy, in this case the struggle for

15

democratically legitimated inclusion of religious minorities, has new effects on church-state

relations.

A final look at the policies of inclusion of non-Christian minorities underscores the

tension in European democracies. Following earlier analyses of integration policies in the

Western world (see Minkenberg 2008b), Table 8 depicts the patterns of inclusionary or

exclusionary policies and their relation to the dominant religious factors. Group rights refer to

policies which allow the practice of non-Christian religions, here mainly Islam, inside and outside

of public institutions (such as ritual slaughter, call to prayer, religious service in public

broadcasting and others; see Koopmans et al. 2005; appendix in Minkenberg 2008b).

Table 8: Religious Legacies and Multicultural Politcs: Confessional Divide, State-Church

Relations, and Christian Democracy

Recognition of Religio-Cultural Group Rights

Low

Moderate

High

Predominantly

Protestant

Great Britain

Denmark*

Finland*

Norway

Sweden

Mixed Protestant

Switzerland

Germany**

Netherlands**

Catholic

France

Ireland

Portugal

Austria**

Belgium**

Italy**

Spain

Notes:

countries in bold are those with high religiosity;

countries in italics with low religiosity.

countries that are underlined fall into the category of strict church-state separation.

*/** countries with two asterisks are those with a strong Christian Democratic party

effect, those with one have a strong religious (but not CD) party effect.

Sources: Minkenberg 2008b, table 4 above.

The overall picture suggests a denominational, or distinctly Catholic, effect on cultural

integration policies. Predominantly Protestant countries exhibit moderate-to-high levels of

16

cultural group rights recognitions whereas Catholic countries fall in the range of low-to-moderate

levels. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the shifts towards cultural pluralism occurred mostly in

Protestant countries – regardless of their “starting point” – whereas Catholic countries remained

more static in his period (see appendix in Minkenberg 2008b). Moreover, the Catholic camp is

split: Catholic countries with a strong role of Christian Democracy (according to table 4 above)

exhibit a middle path in these policies. Among mixed Protestant countries, strong Christian

Democracy seems to have had no effect on the politics of inclusion. On the one hand, in the

Netherlands with their tradition of pillarization and church-state separation, an early policis of

multiculturalism has enused while Switzerland remains at the polar opposite on this dimension,

with Germany somewhere in the middle but closer to Switzerland (ibid., table 3.7). On the other

hand, the firm presence right-wing radical parties in the party system (see table 5 above), seems

much less relevant. There are two cases where recognition of group rights is high and the radical

right has had only a short life (Sweden, the Netherlands) but if there is a causal link, is less than

certain.

Furthermore, the suggestion, found in some comparative public policy studies (see Castles

1998: 8f.; Baldwin-Edwards 1992) to identify a special Southern or Mediterranean group of

countries with regard to their policies is not supported by the distribution in table 8. In part, this

misconception results from mixing up immigration rates and immigration policies (e.g. Faist

1998: 152). While Mediterranean countries share the common fate of being latecomers as

receiving countries, their approach to integration is shared by other, non-Mediterranean countries

as well (Belgium, Austria). Our analysis suggests that what this group has in common is their

religiosity, not their geography. This is also true with regard to the growing proportion of

Muslims in these countries. All four countries where Islam is the second religion (see above

Table 6) employ a restrictive-to-moderate integration policy; moreover, they are Catholic

countries (with Denmark having closed ranks recently, after data collection). Secularization

measured in church-going rates underscores this trend. All countries with high church attendance

show low-to-moderate recognition of group rights. On the other hand, with the notable exception

of France, countries with low church-going rates are more ready for such an integration policy.

Finally, when looking for a common religious denominator for the group with open immigration

policies, one must go beyond confessions and church-going rates. As shown in other analyses, the

regime of church-state relations can also claim a certain explanatory power for variations in

particular public policies (see Minkenberg 2002, 2003b and Fetzer/Soper 2005).

17

The distributions in tables 8 show that in contrast to the relevance of church-state relations

for immigration policies (see Minkenberg 2008c) and also somewhat contrary to the argument by

Fetzer and Soper (2005) about the significance of church-state legacies for the accommodation of

Muslims, there is hardly any overall effect of this particular institutional arrangement on the

degree of cultural integration policies. Rather there seems to be a polarization. Per se, a

separationist regime does not lead to a low recognition of cultural group rights but on the basis of

the data in this table, one can detect such an effect in combination with Catholicism. Among

Protestant countries, there appears an effect in the opposite direction, with Sweden as a

prominent outlier.

The general argument to be made here, based on table 8, is that religious and cultural

minorities (in particular Muslims) get higher recognition in those Protestant countries where there

is a clear separation of church and state. Protestant countries with partial and full establishment

are less accepting of such cultural group differences. Moroever, Christian Democrats are not

particularly helpful for the integration of non-Christian minorities. Fetzer and Soper’s conclusion

about the non-accomodating effects of separationst church-state regimes hold only for France,

and possibly Ireland, but cannot be generalized. Also, as has been shown elsewhere (see

Kastoryano 2002; Laurence 2008), one has to distinguish the type of Muslim group organizations

when analyzing the effects of state-church relations: “European governments have evolved from

a laissez-faire policy of ‘outsourcing’ state-Islam relations to Muslim diplomats (1974-1989)

toward a proactive policy of ‘incorporation’ (1989-2004). The goal of incorporation is to co-opt

the competing representatives of both ‘official’ and ‘political’ Islam.” (Laurence 2008: 242).

Finally, as the case of Sweden illustrates, an active and long-lasting multicultural, i.e. inclusive,

policy approach can open the political space for a significant rearrangement of state-church

regimes. Even in countries which are stubbornly clinging to their time-honoured institutional

arrangements, such as France on the one hand, and Germany on the other, demographic change

will likely increase rather than decrease pressures for change. These can be considered highest in

traditionally homogenous Catholic countries where openness for multiculturalism is less

developed than in Protestant ones.

Conclusions

The paper has shown that comparative analysis of church-state patterns in Western Europe can

reveal important insights into classical questions of political science.

18

First of all, regardless the multi-vocality of religious traditions, not all voices are equal and a

historical mapping can show that democratization processes in Europe – and elsewhere – occur in

distinct patterns which are related to cultural legacies. Catholic countries are late-comers in the

world of democracies, as are Orthodox ones. Second, even with the universal acceptance of

democracy among the major European churches, there is no uniform model of church-state

relations in an institutional sense. The guarantee of basic religious and civil rights does not

translate into any particular regime. Rather, there is a pluriverse of church-state regimes which

are also respected by the European Union. Third, the religious cleavage is undergoing change,

and the role of Christian Democracy is somewhat diminishing. But the polity and policy patterns

that they had set in the postwar decades still hold in many respects, even in the transition to the

21st century. Fourth, religious pluralization processes in most European countries, especially the

visibility and growth of Islam puts pressures on the institutional arrangements. Catholic countries

seem more resisting to opening up to these pressures than are Protestant ones, reinforced by the

legacies of strong Christian Democracy. Fifth, in combination with the previous point,

multicultural policies today are shaped by a distinc mix of church-state patterns, confessional

legacies, and the role of Christian Democracy. Catholic countries resist the recogniction of

cultural and religious group rights more than Protestant ones, and Christian Democracy reinforces

this within the Catholic world – yet not when it operates in a mixed environment such as

Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland where the effects are ambiguouos.

The analysis and other data suggest that the inherited regulations of religion and politccs

are not immutable, even in a fixed democratic setting. In countries with no separationist regime

but high levels of pluralism and/or strong pluralization, the pressures to disentangle church and

state will increase because of the democratic mechanisms at work (as Sweden has shown). They

most likely will, in their own national paths, follow the immigration countries with high religious

pluralism and a separation of state and church. Here are signs of growing convergence in light of

these processes: ongoing struggles for democracy, in this case the struggle for democratically

legitimized inclusion of religious minorities, have new effects

19

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