Religion in an Expanding Europe

This book argues that religious factors are stumbling blocks rather than stepping stones in European integration.

Timothy A. Byrnes (Edited by), Peter J. Katzenstein (Edited by)

9780521676519, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 March 2006

364 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

'… remarkably enlightening and thought provoking.' Stanley Hoffmann, Foreign Affairs

With political controversies raging over issues such as the wearing of headscarves in schools and the mention of Christianity in the European Constitution, religious issues are of growing importance in European politics. In this volume, Byrnes and Katzenstein analyze the effect that enlargement to countries with different and stronger religious traditions may have on the EU as a whole, and in particular on its homogeneity and assumed secular nature. Looking through the lens of the transnational religious communities of Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Islam, they argue that religious factors are stumbling blocks rather than stepping stones toward the further integration of Europe. All three religious traditions are advancing notions of European identity and European union that differ substantially from how the European integration process is generally understood by political leaders and scholars. This volume makes an important addition to the fields of European politics, political sociology, and the sociology of religion.

1. Multiple modernities as limits to secular Europeanization? Peter J. Katzenstein
Part I. European Settings: 2. Faith, freedom, and federation: the role of religious ideas and institutions in European political convergence Daniel Philpott and Timothy Samuel Shah
3. Religion, European secular identities, and European integration Jose Casanova
Part II. Catholicism: 4. The old church and the new Europe: charting the changes J. Bryan Hehir
5. Thy will be done: the Catholic church and politics in Poland since 1989 Sabrina P. Ramet
Part III. Orthodoxy: 6. The way we were - and should be again? European orthodox churches and the 'idyllic past' Sabrina P. Ramet
7. The politics of ambivalence: Europeanization and the Serbian orthodox church Vjekoslav Perica
Part IV. Islam: 8. Europeanizing Islam or the Islamization of Europe: political democracy vs. cultural difference Bassam Tibi
9. Islam and Europeanization in Turkish-Muslim socio-political movements M. Hakan Yavuz
Part V. Conclusion: 10. Religion, European identity, and political contention in historical perspective Daniel Nexon
11. Transnational religion and Europeanization Timothy A. Byrnes.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Comparative politics [JPB], Religion: general [HRA], Regional studies [GTB]