REM – Religion, Euroskepticism and the Media

Professor Claes De Vrees
University of Amsterdam

Religious issues take a prominent place in contemporary European politics. This is noticeable both in current discussions in different countries and at the level of EU politics. The Italian Commissioner candidate Buttiglione’s views of gay marriage and single mothers created an outrage in the European Parliament. The row over the explicit mentioning of Christianity in the pre-amble of the EU Constitutional Treaty and the dispute over EU funding for scientific research driven by Catholic concerns about stem cell research also bear witness to the central role that religion plays. In terms of party politics, one of the most important and lasting political cleavages in many European countries is the religious-secular divide. In some European countries Christian democratic parties exist for more than a century, and despite secularizing trends, these parties are still among the most powerful party families in Europe, and they form the largest group in the European Parliament.

There is little new in the importance of religion in Europe: “European integration was an act of the political imagination of Christian Democracy” (Thomas, 2005: 167). Today, European integration is even seen as a process that revitalizes religion as a political force (Greeley, 2000). More recently, partially as a consequence of the migration of hundreds of thousands of Muslims to Western Europe, new religious cleavages develop, such as ‘Islamic versus non-Islamic’ and ‘moderate religious expressions versus orthodoxy and fundamentalism’. These cleavages feed into politicization of religion. The increasing politicization of anti-Islam feelings coincides with increasing skepticism towards further European integration and enlargement. Anti-Islam feelings play an important role in the opposition towards Turkey’s entry to the European Union.

The proposed project examines the role of religion in relation to emerging and increasing public reluctance towards European integration.

There are two ways in which religion can be related to Euroskepticism. First of all, religious people may be guided in their (political) choices by their religious convictions, and they may be influenced by institutional expectations, elites and representatives from their religions. This is an influence of religiosity itself. Secondly, secular people may have negative feelings towards religion, and religious people may have negative feelings towards secularism as well as other religions. This is an influence of attitudes towards religion. We will study the role of religion in both ways: as a socio-structural precondition for behavior, but also as an attitudinal variable.

The EU of 2006 looks fundamentally different from the 1950s six-country Coal and Steel Community. While the ‘old’ EU-15 is characterized by a distinct ‘north-south’ divide, with Northern Europe being largely secular and churchgoing being more persistent in Southern Europe (Norris & Inglehart, 2004: 84), many of the post-Communist EU member states have gone through a state restriction on religion to religious freedom, but have remained among the most religious countries in the world (Norris & Inglehart, 2004: 131). The project takes as its starting point the emergence of Euroskepticism across Europe. No theory of European integration foresaw the emergence of mass public skepticism towards the integration project. European politicians and scholars alike are searching for answers to better understand the emergence and possible consolidation of Euroskepticism. The role of religion, both as an antecedent socio-structural variable and as a mediated attitudinal influence is under-researched.

The relationship between Euroskepticism and religious attitudes and behavior is explored in a time in which all established democracies are characterized by the media playing a central role in the relationship between politics and citizens. Also for the investigation of religion and its relationship to Euroskepticism the media are center stage. The project posits that with many individuals (in particular in North Western Europe) having few direct and personal religious ties and most other individuals being exposed to a single religious context, perceptions of (other) religions and religious groups are largely mediated by representations in the media. At the same time, the European integration process to most citizens is also one that is mostly conveyed to them by media (see for example De Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006). This collaborative cross-nationally comparative research proposal is located in the intersection between religion, Euroskepticism, and the media. It draws on analyses of existing media content and survey data and sets out to collect new and more appropriate media and public opinion data in 2008 and 2009. For more information on members of the research group, meetings and publications, please see www.rem-norface.org.