Religion and the Increase of Socio-political Polarization in Croatian Society
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20413/rascee.2024.17.1.69-81Abstract
This article takes as its starting point an understanding of socio-political polarisation as a situation in which there are overlapping sources of division concerning specific social and political issues that are not randomly distributed, implying that such a polarisation can be related to higher levels of social conflicts and threats to democratic consensus. Based on data from the European Values Study, the study tests two research questions related to polarisation trends between 1999 and 2018, and the connections between religiosity, political orientation, and attitudes on some morally contentious issues (homosexuality and abortion) in Croatia.
The results show an increase in socio-political polarisation, i.e. a significant increase in the connection between religiosity and the above-mentioned attitudes in the last wave of the European Values Study. The article proposes a three-fold explanation of these findings: (1) civil society mobilisation („cultural wars“) as a response to the secularisation trends, (2) elite polarisation within the Croatian political context, and (3) changes within the media environment. In conclusion, some lessons that can be learned from this case study for the sociological study of religion are put forward.