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

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CONTENTS

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

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

François Foret

Religion at the European Parliament: an overview

François Foret

SMOOTH TRANSITION FROM NATIONAL CONCILIATION TO EUROPEAN BARGAIN?

A social role for churches and cultural demarcation: how German MEPs represent religion in the European Parliament

Anne Jenichen

Henrike Müller

‘A nation of vicars and merchants’: religiosity and Dutch MEPs

Didier Caluwaerts

Pieter-Jan De Vlieger

Silvia Erzeel

Consulting and compromising: the (non-) religious policy preferences of British MEPs

Martin Steven

MASTER AT HOME, EMBATTLED IN BRUSSELS?

French MEPs and religion: Europeanising ‘laïcité’?

François Foret

Defenders of faith? Victims of secularisation? Polish politicians and religion in the European Parliament

Magdalena Góra

Katarzyna Zielińska

Religion at the European Parliament: the Italian case

Stefano Braghiroli

Giulia Sandri

IN TRANSIT: FROM RELIGIOUS STRONGHOLD TO LIBERAL LABORATORY

Austrian MEPs: between privatisation and politicisation of religion

Julia Mourão Permoser

Politics and religion beyond state borders: the activity of Spanish MEPs on religious issues

Gloria Garcia-Romeral

Mar Griera

SO FAR, NOT SO DISSIMILAR: EUROPEAN ‘EXCEPTIONALISM’ CHALLENGED BY OTHER WESTERN CASES

Religion in the Israeli Parliament: a typology

Sharon Weinblum

Religion in the American Congress: the case of the US House of Representatives, 1953-2003

James L. Guth

CONCLUSION

Conclusion

François Foret

Notes

1. On the methodological advantages of the internet, see Farrell et al. (2006).

2. The present research was financed by a starting grant from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and material support from this institution under diverse forms; funding by the Belgian scientific agency FNRS for the final conference; support from the Jean Monnet Chair ‘Social and Cultural Dimensions of European Integration – SocEUR’; and considerable resources, time and energy from all the contributors to this project. RelEP would not have been possible without this human investment.

3. The list offered to MEPs in order to identity their most frequent interlocutors is taken from the database of organisations registered at the EP and confirmed by exploratory interviews.

4. Questions are taken from European Values Study Survey 2008. (http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/evs/surveys/survey-2008.html) and from Special Eurobarometer 225: Social values, Science & Technology (fieldwork January – February 2005, publication June 2005), 7 (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf).