The Word of God Comes into the Voting Booth.
Church Attendance and Political Involvement in East Central Europe during the Early 1990s
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Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca,
Publication date: 2014-01-07
Polish Sociological Review 2013;184(4):451-466
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ABSTRACT
In this research I explore the effect of religious denomination and belonging on political participation
in former communist countries of East Central Europe after the fall of communism. In the
early 1990s, mostly as a response to forced secularization during communism, authors heralded a massive
religious revival in the countries formerly belonging to the Eastern Bloc. In this paper I show that the
re-discovery of God and church was not equally popular in all countries. Moreover, I explore the links
between religious participation and political participation and I find no uniform transnational effect of
denomination. Rather, the Eurobarometer survey data from the early 1990s suggests that the ways in which
religious believing and belonging influence political participation at the beginning of democratization is
context driven. Indeed, one of the strengths of this paper resides in my attempt to capture the religious
context in post-communist Europe shortly after its collapse. I thus contribute to a better understanding of
how religious and political involvement are intertwined during early transition in East Central Europe. In
the conclusion, I advocate the need for adequately taking context into consideration, especially given its
dynamic and multi-faceted nature.