Religion as Bridge or Barrier? The Role of Citizens’ Religion for the Societal Cohesion of States in a Global Comparative Perspective

Current worldwide challenges like polarizations, tensions and civil wars make the question of what holds society together relevant. While the religious factor is increasingly recognized in Social Sciences, further empirical research is needed to analyze religion’s role for societal cohesion in a global comparative perspective. Previous research focuses only on certain aspects of the concepts (e.g. social capital, Christianity), while neglecting their full complexity (e.g. multidimensional/multilevel character). They mainly concentrate on Western industrialized states, whereby both societal cohesion and religion are of great importance in countries of the Global South. To contribute to that, my research question is how the role of citizens’ religion for society’s cohesion can be empirically analyzed for states worldwide. To answer that, I first develop a theoretical framework from a cross-disciplinary perspective. I combine, for example, political sociology, political culture research and comparative politics (for example: Dragolov, G. et al. (2016): Social Cohesion in the Western World. What Holds Societies Together. Insights from the Social Cohesion Radar; Norris, P./Inglehart, R. (2011): Sacred and secular: religion and politics worldwide; Pickel, G./Gladkich, A. (2011): Säkularisierung, religiöses Sozialkapital und Politik – Religiöses Sozialkapital als Faktor der Zivilgesellschaft und als kommunale Basis subjektiver Religiosität? In: Liedhegener, A./Werkner, I. (Hrsg.): Religion zwischen Zivilgesellschaft und politischem System: Befunde, Positionen, Perspektiven, S. 81-109; Traunmüller, R. (2012): Religion und Sozialkapital: ein doppelter Kulturvergleich). I understand “societal cohesion” as multidimensional construct that manifests in social and political relationships between citizens among each other and between citizens and the state: to the extent that social/institutional trust, interpersonal/national sense of belonging, social/institutional responsibility and social/political engagement are present. “Religion” is on the one hand conceptualized on the micro level as individuals’ “religiosity”, involving three dimensions: belonging (religious identity), believing (intensity/contents of faith) and behaving (private/social religious practice). On the other hand, I understand “religion” as a social phenomenon and distinguish dimensions of a state’s religious context such as the “degree of secularization”, “religious diversity” and “state-religion-relations”. After deriving hypotheses about the variables’ relationships, I present a research design for their empirical testing. Statistical multilevel analysis proves as suitable method for the underlying hierarchical data structure of individuals, embedded in diverse country contexts. It allows to model various (incl. cross-level) effects in a differentiated way and global perspective. As data basis, I use the 6th wave of the “World Values Survey” (2010-2014) to measure the variables at the individual level (dimensions of societal cohesion and religiosity as well as control variables such as sex, age, education, income level, postmaterialist values). For the religion macro variables, I consult data from Fox’ “State and Religion Project”. For controls on the country level (e.g. population density, level of inequality/political stability/democracy, international migrant stock) I use official databases of the World Bank, the UN and the “Varieties of Democracy-Project”. Depending on my research progress until August I will present my first empirical results. Overall, I aim to stimulate further research in analyzing the role of religion for the cohesion of states worldwide, which is especially in current times of high relevance.