Politicization of religion and secularism in Western European parliaments

This paper deals with the revival of the religious-secular cleavage in Western European party politics during the 21st century. Recent research on party conflicts implies that the question of a role of (organized) religion in the public sphere seems to have become a contested issue between parties again after it was believed to disappear due to secularization processes in Western societies. The paper relates to the concept of issue attention in party competition analyzing the amount and framing of statements that refer to the public role of religion(s) in plenary debates in Western European national parliaments. The aim is to establish a comparative perspective by uncovering cross-national differences in the politicization and problematization of the public role of religion(s) that possibly derive from divergent national contextual factors such as the degree of secularization, party system or parliamentary system specifics. We use quantitative and qualitative content analysis to examine the amount of debates and party statements relating to religion or secularism as a domestic policy issue since the beginning of the 21st century and to uncover a possible development of party positions and issue ownership over time.