Religion at the European Parliament and in European multi-level governance

François Foret

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317451129
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book presents the findings of the first ever survey of the religious preferences of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). An international research team interviewed a large sample of MEPs, with the purpose of investigating their beliefs and how these beliefs have an impact on their role as MEPs.

The findings of this survey are offered in order to discuss, in a non-normative way, some key political and intellectual debates. Is Europe secularized? Is the European Union a Christian club? What is the influence of religious lobbying in Brussels? What are the dynamics of value politics? Contributions also compare MEPs with national MPs and citizens to measure whether the findings are specific to the supranational arena and European multi-level governance. External cases, such as the USA and Israel, are also presented to define whether there is a European exceptionalism regarding the role of religion in the political arena.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Religion, State & Society.

INTRODUCTION

‘Religion at the European Parliament’: purposes, scope and limits of a survey on the religious beliefs of MEPs

François Foret

Institute for European Studies - CEVIPOL, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium

The project ‘Religion at the European Parliament’ (RelEP) is an attempt to provide data on the religious profile of the European Parliament (EP). Looking at what members of the European Parliament (MEPs) believe and what they do as a result of these beliefs, the research analyses the place of religion in European politics and its influence on political elites, political socialisation, decision-making and coalition-framing. Three main incentives motivated the RelEP project.

First, it is a contribution to the understanding of the new visibility of religion on the agenda of the European Union (EU). Evidence of the secularisation of European societies coexists with the recognition of the greater political and public salience of religious issues. This apparent paradox has to be documented. After a long absence, religion has become a hot topic in international scholarship since the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, the focus has been more on international relations or public policy than on politics. RelEP is a first attempt to map the religious composition of the EP, in contrast with the abundant literature detailing religion in parliamentary politics in the USA over decades.

Second, religion speaks about something beyond religion. As a social universe rooted in tradition, in the depths of individual and collective identity and intertwined with the state and national culture, it is a very sensitive barometer of the extent and modalities of Europeanisation.

Third, the RelEP survey includes a comparison between member-states but also between the supranational and the national levels. By comparing the way MEPs and national members of Parliament (MPs) handle religion, something can be said on the autonomy and specificity of the EU as a proper political order. Asking whether or not what happens in Brussels reflects what happens in national societies invites us to search for any bias possibly inherent in channels of European policy-making and representation.

The structure of this publication is as follows. This present contribution briefly places the RelEP project in the ‘state of the art’ on religion in European politics. It describes the purposes and means of the survey, the constraints and opportunities met by the research process, the main conceptual questions underlying the questionnaire and the composition of the sample. The second contribution presents an overview of the main findings. Case studies follow on member-states which have been particularly the focus of the analysis. To complete the reflection, contributions on two non-European and radically different countries, the USA and Israel, offer a critical distance to assess the specificity of the EU.

RelEP in context: contribution to scholarship and internal dynamic of the project

The purpose of RelEP is to fill a blank in the knowledge of the cultural profile of European political elites on the one hand, and on the specificity of interactions between religion and politics at the supranational level on the other hand. The organisation of the research reflects this purpose and complies with the constraints of a normative object such as religion, calling for a flexible and adaptative approach.

An attempt to fill a gap in the existing scholarship

God is again in the focus of social sciences. Major theorists of the expected extinction of religion by modernity have reversed their diagnosis and speak now of desecularisation all over the world (Berger 1999). Europe remains the exception (Berger, Davie, and Fokas 2008), with a steady decline of beliefs and practices. Religion does not disappear but mutates into a memory, a ritual provider or ethos (Davie 2002). Faith is less and less regulated by institutions and absolute truth, and more and more an individual relativistic choice. Its political effects persist, but mainly as a diffuse influence or symbolic material (Capelle-Pogacean, Michel, and Pace 2008; Willaime 2004).

If spiritual evolutions are well documented by sociologists of religion, linking European integration and religion is not easy for political scientists. Europe is frequently considered more as a civilisational and geographical entity than as a political system (Huntington 1993; Jenkins 2007). As a discipline rooted originally mainly in international relations and political economy with a realist mainstream, European studies has for long been little receptive of such ideational factors as religion, apart from historical or normative approaches (Habermas 2010; Weiler 2003; Weigel 2005) offering inputs in the debate on the Christian heritage of Europe but saying little on its contemporary effects.

For a long time, religion was not among the ‘usual suspects’ in European studies, given the interest-driven and functionalist mainstream view in this field. This has changed in the last decade, with a wave of new research by established or new scholars acknowledging the salience of the religious question. The religious issue has become totally congruent with the ‘identity-turn’ recently taken by scholarship on European integration: religion is being rediscovered as a part of collective culture and memory likely to frame policy preferences. The ‘normalisation’ of the EU, which is more and more seen as a polity to be compared to other polities of the past and the present, takes us back to one of the oldest questions of political science: relationships between spiritual and secular powers. To fight the deficit of legitimacy of the EU, many voices call for a politicisation of the bloc in order to organise and solve conflicts in European arenas. If politicisation means searching for controversial issues able to polarise collective preferences and to mobilise coalitions in democratic debates, religion is a likely candidate.

For empirical reasons regarding the difficulty of accessing data and the reluctance of actors to express their beliefs, the focus is frequently on relatively ‘open sources’: on relationships between denominational lobbies and the European Commission (EC) (Massignon 2007; Leustean 2012; Mudrov 2011; De Vlieger 2012), on impacts of religion on the legitimisation of the EU (Foret 2009), on how European law may relate to religion (McCrea 2011), and on how national church–state arrangements evolve in the context of European integration (Madeley and Enyedi 2003; Robbers 1997; Foret and Itçaina 2011; Leustean and Madeley 2009). The resilience and perhaps even the resurgence of the divide between sacred and secular forces in attitudes towards Europe, voting and party structuring in European elections are suggested (Nelsen, Guth, and Highsmith 2011; Broughton and ten Napel 2000; Minkenberg 2009, 2010; Van der Brug, Hobolt, and de Vreese 2009; Hobolt et al. 2011; Chenaux 2007; Kaiser 2007; Fontaine 2009). The actual effects of religion in Brussels politics and policies are far less documented.

Much remains to be known on this potential role. Research tends to focus on philosophical and/or legal aspects, or on phenomena relatively accessible, such as lobbying. To collect and objectify data regarding religious impact on practices and decisions of politicians is more challenging. That is the purpose of RelEP.

The empirical study

Why the European Parliament?

The European Parliament is the largest sample of European political elites. Its election by universal suffrage in 27 (at the time of the survey) national spaces makes it a good reflection of the cultural and religious diversity of European societies. As an assembly expressing popular sovereignty, it is the most ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction – ‘Religion at the European Parliament’: purposes, scope and limits of a survey on the religious beliefs of MEPs
• 2. Religion at the European Parliament: an overview
• PART I Smooth Transition from National Conciliation to European Bargain?
• PART II Master at Home, Embattled in Brussels?
• PART III In Transit: From Religious Stronghold to Liberal Laboratory
• PART IV So Far, Not So Dissimilar: European ‘Exceptionalism’ Challenged by Other Western Cases
• Conclusion
• Index