Very happy to report that my recent research on Political Secularism has been published in the European Journal of Political Research (open access). Read the very short summary below, or just watch the video.
Political Secularism is a hot new topic. PS ≠ absence of religious belief/membership/practice, but the conviction that politics & religion should be kept separate. Where does it come from? Look no further than here.
Little is known about Political Secularism‘s roots (particularly outside the US). That’s unfortunate, because PS strongly affect citizens’ views on morality policies (abortion, assisted suicide, same-sex relationships, stem cells …), which are often highly controversial.
In the article, my focus is on the role of basic human values (Schwartz 1992ff). I derive 2 hypotheses: self-direction should be linked to higher levels, and tradition should be linked to lower levels of Political Secularism.
Over the last 3 decades, we have seen that basic human values are linked to almost everything, including religion. But PS is not just the absence of religion (although it is obviously linked to religion). What gives?
Multivariate analysis of data from Germany supports both hypotheses. Crucially, the relationships hold when controlling for three main facets of religion, for region (east vs west), and for socio-demographics
Net of their well-documented association with religion, basic human values contribute to our understanding of political secularism. More generally, the findings also show once more the impact of basic human values on all areas of political life.
But the main point is that we now know a little more about the roots of political secularism, which is already changing (European) politics. Find the full write-up & replication data/code here: https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1475-6765.12585
Thank you for coming to my TED talk
Originally tweeted by Kai Arzheimer 🇪🇺 (@kaiarzheimer@fediscience.org) (@kai_arzheimer) on March 10, 2023.
@kaiarzheimer This topic reminds me a bit of post-islamism in Turkey and other near east states after the excesses of islamism in the last 15yrs.I assume the coming of age of Gen Z will have a major impact on political secularism in many developed and developing states.