Political scientists have traditionally perceived cooperative
relationships between religious organizations and Christian democratic
parties locating both at the ‘religious side’ of the secular-religious
cleavage. However, this assessment has increasingly been contested against
the background of three main considerations. First, relations between
Christian parties and organizations have lost in relevance given the
declining significance of the religious-secular cleavage resulting from
ongoing secularization processes. Second, the perception of links between
the two actors reflects a limited focus on Western (European) countries
neglecting the situation, for instance, in Eastern Europe where both the
religious-secular cleavage and Christian democratic parties have rather
played a subordinate role. Finally, political positions held by
faith-based organizations do not always correspond with Christian
democratic stances particularly considering their disagreement in welfare
politics.
This paper analyses relations between faith-based organizations and
political parties in welfare politics in Germany, the United Kingdom, and
Poland. The question is to what extent these relations differ due to
diverging national context factors with regard to the role of cleavages
within the respective party systems. Against the background of results
deriving from a qualitative discourse analysis, the paper argues that in
Western Europe the religious-secular cleavage is still of some relevance
for relations between faith-based organizations and parties; however, the
cleavage is increasingly overlapped by the socio-economic cleavage. Due to
similar socio-political positions, faith-based organizations in Germany
and the UK more and more connect with (religiously oriented) Social
Democrats. In contrast, in Poland faith-based actors increasingly look for
contacts with the right-wing populist PiS party which tries to combine
conservative views in moral policy and traditionally social democratic
positions in welfare policy.
