Religion in CEE: Between Identity and Geopolitics

Abstract

One of many terms suggesting that researchers have overlooked religion as a significant determinant of global politics has been the concept of religion as a "geopolitical orphan". It seems that awareness of the role of religion, but also more generally the role of axiological and normative dimension, as important and multidimensional drivers of domestic and international politics, are now more widespread. However, the "secularist habits" still dominant in Western scholarship leave a significant cognitive and interpretative gap regarding the interconnections between religion and political order. This observation also applies to Central and Eastern Europe, where, despite secularization processes, religion has been a significant factor of identity and an increasingly important element of the expanding concept of geopolitics, the one that considers the role of the intangible dimension in shaping the vision of domestic and international politics. Religion, with its geopolitical myths, narratives, and imaginations, is now not only an important aspect of political mobilization and legitimization, but also of long-term strategies, decisions, and projections. This panel examines the role of religion in CEE as an element that continues to, and increasingly, shapes the political reality of CEE in both functional and dysfunctional manner.

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