Sammen med Henrik Oscarsson har jeg skrevet kapitlet «Norway, Sweden, and Denmark: Christian Democratic parties and religious voting» i boken Religious Voting in Western Democracies, Oxford University Press, 2023.
Religious Voting in Western Democracies, Edited by José Ramón Montero, Paolo Segatti, and Kerman Calvo
This book offers a systematic exploration of the role of religion and religiosity in electoral politics in Catholic, Protestant, and religiously mixed countries across Western Europe and in the United States. The chapters approach the relationship between religion, religiosity, and electoral behaviour from a variety of different angles. They include analyses of secularization trends; comparative studies of the links between vote choice and religiosity; longitudinal single country studies; and a novel discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of the politicization of religion that provides a radically new framework for the analysis of the role of religiosity in election studies.
The volume shows that despite the expectations of secularization theory, religiosity remains relevant when casting votes. It also argues that the traditional notion of religious cleavage should be replaced with the more accurate idea of religious voting. Chapters draw on National Election Studies data and comparative datasets such as European Values Studies (EVS), European Social Surveys (ESS), and European Election Studies (EES) to empirically test expectations regarding religious voting. The results show that variations in religious voting are conditional on both the agency of political and ecclesiastical leaders when politicizing religious issues and the legacies of previous societal and political religious conflicts, regardless of whether the original party system had a predominant religious cleavage.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction: Does religious voting really exist in secularized democracies?, Kerman Calvo, Paolo Segatti, and José Ramón Montero
Part I. Setting the scene
2. Conflicts on moral issues: Christian Churches and societal secularization in Western Europe, Karel Dobbelaere
3. Cleavages and divides in voting and political theory, Stefano Bartolini
4. Religious cleavages and religious voting, José Ramón Montero
5. Religious change and church attendance in Western Europe, Ferruccio Biolcati and Cristiano Vezzoni
6. Religiosity and ideology in Western Europe and the United States, Rosa M. Navarrete, Guillermo Cordero, and Jaime Balaguer
7. Comparative religious voting: Mechanisms of politicization in post-cleavage elections, Alberto Sanz,Stefano Camatarri, Paolo Segatti, and José Ramón Montero
Part II. Catholic countries
8. Austria: Developments and determinants of religious voting, Julian Aichholzer, David Johann, and Sylvia Kritzinger
9. Italy: From the religious cleavage to the politics of religious voting, Ferruccio Biolcati, Paolo Segatti, and Cristiano Vezzoni
10. Belgium: Changes in Church involvement, pillar organizations, and voting, Jaak Billiet and Koen Abts
11. Ireland: Religion and politics, Michael Marsh
12. France: The persisting relevance of religious voting, Bruno Cautrès
13. Spain: Religiosity, ideology, and voting, Kerman Calvo, Álvaro Martínez, and José Ramón Montero
14. Portugal: Religiosity, party strategies, and voting, Carlos Jalali
Part III. Mixedcountries
15. Germany: Church affiliation, church attendance, and support for Christian Democrats, Martin Elff and Sigrid Roßteutscher
16. The Netherlands: The role of cultural conservatism among voters and party elites, Nan Dirk De Graaf and Giedo Jansen
17. Switzerland: The decline of the religious cleavage, Romain Lachat
Part IV. Protestant countries
18. Britain: The resilience of religion as an electoral divide, James Tilley
19. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark: Christian Democratic parties and religious voting, Bernt Aardal and Henrik Oscarsson
Part V. The United States
20. The United States: Religion and political preferences, Magda Giurcanu and Kenneth D. Wald
21. The United States and Europe: The importance of regimes of religion and State, Kenneth D. Wald
Part VI. Conclusions
22. Conclusions: The many facets of religious voting, Paolo Segatti, Kerman Calvo, and José Ramón Montero
