Social construction of religious freedom: a comparative study among youth in Italy and Russia

ABSTRACT

Do social perceptions of religious freedom (SPRF) represent individual a priori experiences, or are they the results of a process of socialisation into a normative political and religious culture? The contribution responds to this inquiry with data from comparative research on the multidimensional construct of SPRF among youth in Italy and Russia (N = 1,810). The study conducted between 2018 and 2019 investigates the patterns of constructed meanings of religious freedom and their correlates in the contexts of Christian-majority cultures, a significant ratio of non-affiliated youth, and contrasting records on societal religious discrimination. The findings suggest, first, that Italian participants endorse the socio-legal and human rights aspects of religious freedom more strongly than their Russian peers, who favoured the issues of individual autonomy linked to this freedom more. Second, attitudes towards normative concepts of religious pluralism, passive secularism, and democracy are robust predictors of the SPRF dimensions in both samples. Third, we found that the main difference in perceptions of religious freedom between the samples is in regard to the predisposition of young people towards a model of the dominant church endorsed by the state. Its predictive power varies across four models of analysis of the SPRF and has the opposite effect in Italian and Russian samples.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious freedom
• social constructionism
• social norms
• religious pluralism
• passive secularism
• youth

Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading, detailed comments, and suggested improvements for this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Case of Lautsi and Others v. Italy, Merits, App no 30814/06, IHRL 3688 (ECHR 2011), 18 March 2011, European Court of Human Rights [ECHR]; Grand Chamber [ECHR]. Internet access: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-104040. This case is illustrative for understanding the judicialisation of religious freedom concerning the presence of religious symbols in state schools. The ECtHR ruled the case twice, first in 2009, with the decision declaring the violation of religious freedom of Ms. Lautsi to educate her children in accordance with her secular beliefs, and second, in 2011 declaring the absence of violation of Article 9 on freedom of religion or belief, arguing that the crucifix has – together with the religious – a humanistic and cultural meaning referring to civic and constitutional values.

2. A Message from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill in support of the position of the Italian Government on the decision of the European Court of Justice to ban Christian symbols in schools, 25 November 2009. See http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/950355.html for details.

3. In Fox’s study, the SRD is operationalised with 27 types of societal actions taken against religious minorities (Fox 2020, 57).

4. A comparison of government religious discrimination in western democracies with some Christian-majority states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America reveals that the former are less neutral in religious governance, having higher levels of religious discrimination (Fox 2020, 162).

5. According to the MDSD method, one can investigate cases which considerably differ in contextual variables thus potentially explaining why compared systems could differ in terms of dependent variables. This method suggests that revealing similar patterns/results in very different country contexts allows to believe that the findings will also be relevant for other cases/countries (Anckar 2008). In our study, we suppose that participants of empirical research in Italy and Russia differ by their views on religious diversity, political secularism, and democracy.

6. It is interesting to note in this regard that sociological analysis of anomie and the role of social groups in norm-making (Durkheim 1933), the typology of social forms and layers of positive and social law (Gurvitch 1946), and types of normativity (Turner 2010) reveals that ‘normative dimension is inherent in the structure of social reality, and it is also inseparable from the pursuit of social knowledge’ (Freitag 2001, 2).

7. See the latest data collected by VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Centre). https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/velikii-post-2021 for details.

8. The scores are measured on the scale from 0 to 4 (lower means indicate more freedom).

9. For these three indices, lower scores mean less regulation, less state discrimination, and less societal discrimination. See Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) for details https://www.thearda.com/internationalData/compare4.asp?c=115&c=186.

10. See: Lateran Pacts of 1929, https://www.uniset.ca/nold/lateran.htm.

11. Art. 19 of Italian Constitution states that: ‘All persons have the right to profess freely their own religious faith in any form, individually or in association, to disseminate it and to worship in private or public, provided that the religious rites are not contrary to public morality’ (Italian Constitution 1948, http://www.prefettura.it/FILES/AllegatiPag/1187/Costituzione_ENG.pdf).

12. See: Agreement between the Holy See and the Italian Republic. Modifications to the Lateran Concordat (1984), https://www.concordatwatch.eu/modifications-to-the-lateran-concordat-1984-text--t39221.

13. For details see the data collected by VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Centre): https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/-za-18-let-patriarshego-sluzheniya-aleksiya-ii-chislo-pravoslavnykh-v-strane-vyroslo-v-3-raza.

14. The VCIOM study of 2021 presented the data about religious identification considering demographic characteristics. The study showed that among religious minorities in Russia, Muslims (6%), Buddhists (1%), and Protestants (1%) are represented in the general sample of the national survey. Catholics and Jews were represented only in a specific age cohort (1% of Catholics was among 25–34 years old, and 1% of Jews among 25–34 years old). Meanwhile, 4% of the studied population did not belong to any religious group, 6% were hesitant about belief/non-belief and 14% identified themselves as non-believers. For details see the latest data collected by VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Centre): https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/velikii-post-2021.

15. See the Constitution of the Russian Federation (passed by nationwide voting of 12 December 1993 with the Amendments of 30 December 2008, 5 February, 21 July 2014) http://constitution.garant.ru/english/ for details.

16. The 1997 Law recalls the special role of Orthodoxy in the history of Russia, in the formation and development of its spirituality and culture, and specifies that Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and other religions form an integral part of the historical heritage of the peoples of Russia, identifying them important in promoting mutual understanding, tolerance and respect in matters of freedom of conscience and religion.

17. Yarovaya Law is the name of two Russian federal bills, 374-FZ and 375-FZ that were adopted in 2016. This set of bills got the name after one of the authors who prepared them, Irina Yarovaya. The bills introduced amendments to the existing laws on countering terrorism and ensuring public safety expanding the powers of state control in the sphere of surveillance and regulation of missionary activities.

18. See the Levada Centre report on Jehovah’s Witnesses, 3 July 2017, https://www.levada.ru/2017/07/13/svideteli-iegovy/ for details.

19. For the results of testing of the SPRF Index with Confirmatory Factor Analysis see (Blasi, Breskaya, and Giordan 2020b).

20. In case of Italy this is the Roman Catholic Church, while in case of Russia, this is the Russian Orthodox Church.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olga Breskaya

Olga Breskaya, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology at University of Padova. Her research focuses on the sociology of human rights and comparative study of religious freedom. She recently co-edited a volume of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion Religious Freedom: Social-Scientific Approaches (2021) and co-authored articles ‘Human Rights and Religion: A Sociological Perspective’ (2018) and ‘Social Perception of Religious Freedom: Testing the Impact of Secularism and State-Religion Relations’ (2021) developing models of empirical research on religious freedom in sociopolitical analysis.

Giuseppe Giordan

Giuseppe Giordan is a professor of sociology at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology at University of Padova. His research interests include spirituality, religious pluralism, conversion, interfaith dialogue, Eastern Orthodoxy, and religious freedom. He has recently co-edited the volumes Religious Freedom: Social-Scientific Approaches (2021), Global Eastern Orthodoxy. Politics, Religion, and Human Rights (2020), Chinese Religions Going Global (2021), and Interreligious Dialogue: From Religion to Geopolitics (2019). He co-authored The Social Scientific Study of Exorcism in Christianity (2020) and Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity (2018).

Sergey Trophimov

Sergey Trophimov is an associate professor of sociology at the Department of Journalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University. His research interests include forms of religiosity and globalisation, religion and social capital, religious individualism, and sociology of religion of Danièle Hervieu-Léger. He recently published articles ‘Changes in the Typology of Religiosity and Globalisation’ (2018, in Russian) and ‘Specifics of Modern Religious Individualism in Works of D. Hervieu-Léger’ (2016, in Russian). He co-authored ‘Religious Socialisation and Perception of Religious Freedom in Italy and Russia: Findings from a Comparative Research on Youth’ (2020).