The panel „Forty years of change: Religion and the Third Way of Democracy” addresses the issue of how religion affects democratisation. The proposed paper contributes to these discussions by providing empirical evidence on the relationships between religion and social engagement in post-communist societies.
As widely believed, social networks are vital fabric of democracy, and people engaged socially are regarded as “better” citizens. Therefore the issue of social engagement - as one of the key factors for consolidation of a new system - is especially relevant for new democracies. The broad body of research points to religion as one of the sources of social networks. In consolidated democracies people attending religious services are also more often engaged in religious and secular activities for their communities than non-religious citizens. In this context it is interesting to know, what is the role of religion for social engagement in post-communist Europe? Do different denominations have different impacts on social engagement, similar to the West?
The first section of the paper focuses on the theoretical debate concerning social networks and religion. The main goal of the second section is to assess empirically religious influences on social engagement in Eastern Europe as compared to Western societies (using European Values Survey data). First, the relationship between churchgoing and social engagement is examined at the macro and micro level. Second, analyses of specific effects of different denominations on social engagement in Eastern Europe are conducted.
The main conclusion is that churchgoing impacts the social engagement in post-communist societies in a similar way as in Western societies, but the effects of denominations are different. This finding contributes substantially to our understanding of patterns of social participation under different social and political conditions, and shed light on the religious influences on the consolidation of new democracies in Europe.
