The relationship between traditional religion and processes of modernity is a central issue in contemporary public discussions as well as in debates within the field of social sciences. The latter shall ask about short-term incidents such as Islamist terrorist attacks, anti-Islamic populism, and new developments in the Arabic world, which prevail in the daily news, give an empirical basis, and integrate them into long-term concepts. Overall, there is a strong relevance of a scientific analysis of religion in pluralist society today.

Why do religions cause conflict?

The research project Religious Elites and Social Organization in South-Eastern Europe asks for the integrative as well as the conflict-afflicted potentials of religion in multi-religious societies. Several major branches of Christianity and Islam are traditionally rooted in this region. Why are some societies threatened by religious conflict while others with a comparable differentiated structure of religious communities are not? Are reasons located exclusively within the religious sphere or rather caused by external factors as political power arrangements? The selection of cases is based on the specific differences in the structure of the religious field and comprises Albania, Macedonia and Slovenia.

Authorities of interpretation: religious dignitaries

Key players in the sphere of religion are religious dignitaries, since they are the central source of interpretation of traditional religion for today. They represent their religious community to the external environment and interpret the content of religion internally for the members of their spiritual community. Thus, they are accepted as normative multiplicators within their group and additionally influence wider parts of society by public statements and symbolic behaviour (provoke reaction). Consequently, it is the intention of the project to take the perspective of religion and detect central types of attitudes of religious dignitaries towards the triangle of religion, politics, and population in multi-religious societies of southeastern Europe.

Catching the mental framework

In order to determine these attitudes adequately, an innovative qualitative method¹ called ‘Q-method’ is applied which refers explicitly to the internal frame of reference of the respondents. It is designed for explorative approaches, e.g. data collection in areas of society which were rarely subject of scientific analysis before. Therefore, a scientific content analysis of speeches and public statements of religious elites in Albania, Macedonia and Slovenia was conducted in a first step. Extracting 36 central statements, the researcher in a second step presents these to the religious dignitaries in focus and asks for a grading and a comment of them.²

The interview is conducted anonymously and is offered in several languages. Q-method needs a relatively small number of respondents (20-40) in order to explore types of attitudes within a group in focus. Until today, 23 high-ranking representatives were interviewed in Slovenia. Although the field work is not completed, results of a first analysis show two central types of attitudes: rather modern and progressive views prevail in a first group of respondents, while conservative attitudes can be located just in a minority of cases.

Findings for a sustainable development of society

After a quantitative and qualitative analysis of all three societies and a comparison of attitudes, the results shall answer the questions: “Which discourses dominate within religious communities in southeastern Europe towards the society, the state and other religions?” and “How far do these perceptions correlate with current societal arrangements?”. Identifying discourses in the framework of the project does not mean to focus on short-term issues or scandals – rather, the long-term conceptions of society are of interest.

A worthwhile expansion of the project on other countries would be able to generate profound and comparable data on the self-positioning of religion in Europe – rarely done before but still a necessary step to be realised in order to understand a key player of society and classify its impact on today’s developments.

¹Contrary to its rare application in Social Sciences, there is extensive scientific literature on Q-method available. See also the International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity (ISSSS).

²The interview was already conducted with representatives of the Slovene Bishops Conference (SŠK), the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovenia, the Islam Community in Slovenia (ISRS), the Muslim community in Slovenia (MSRS), the Serbian Orthodox Church in Slovenia (SPC), several minor Christian churches, and the Buddhist Congregation Dharmaling.

Dr. rer. pol. Jochen Töpfer
Religious Elites and Societal Order in South-Eastern Europe
Freie Universität Berlin | Free University Berlin
+49 (0)30 838-50595
jochen.toepfer@fu-berlin.de
http://www.oei.fu-berlin.de/en/soziologie/Staff/mitarbeiter_lehrstuhl/Jochen-Toepfer.html

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