Religion and Politics in Europe at the beginning of a new century. Old legacies and new challenges

Over the past years in some European countries there was a radical conflict between religious institutions and parties on several issues. In others the confrontation was less intense or even there was not any conflict at all. The first group of countries as well the second one are, however, secularized, in some cases highly secularized. Moreover, in some countries more than in other the conflict seems to have consequences on party choice. The lecture intends to map the nature of the relation between religious institutions and politics in some European countries and to focus on its effect on electoral behavior. The main goal is to ascertain to what extent the political division can be conceived as a “rokkanian” cleavage or a new form of association between individual religiosity and political behavior moderated by the nature of country’s political supply. Some speculative arguments will follow.