Religious Communities’ Governance Engagement in Belgium, France and Switzerland

Regulations in morality policy areas, such as abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, prostitution and religious education, often give rise to public discussions and conflicts about morality and values. Given that religious communities have a long history of monopoly over moral issues, they still attempt to impact state regulations in these policy areas. While losing influence in the formulation phase due to the gradual replacement of religious-based norms with secular morality promoted by the law, religious groups seek to regain it during the implementation phase of morality policies. Their successful engagement can vary from position-taking to actions that influence policy addressees, and largely depend on material and symbolic resources. This paper aims at looking into the governance engagement of religious congregations, for both majority and minority religions in Belgium, France and Switzerland. These countries are characterized by distinct configurations of church-state regimes and official recognition of ethnic minority religions. Based on press research in the past ten years, we make a typology of religious communities’ governance engagement and relate it to material and symbolic resources, such as budget, school and hospital infrastructure, staff and organizational structure.