Workshop on Religion & Civil Society in The Hague
24 October 2008 - 25 October 2008
Austria
The role of religion in civil society has attracted much attention in Europe in recent years, but research and discussions seem to be rather fragmented. One field is the relevance of religious values, beliefs, and practices, as a resource for individual involvement. Another is about religious organisations as NPO’s and NGO’s, functioning as service deliverers in competition with or complementary to public organisations, or more or less as subcontractors of the welfare state. Thirdly, there is a specific interest in the dangers of religion for civil society: the risks of religious isolation from secular society, religious polarization and conflict, and nowadays, of course, the risks of fundamentalism and religious legitimized terrorism.
There is hardly any discussion between these fields and also little cross-national comparative discussion about research in the separate fields. There is comparative empirical research with international data sets that include information about values, volunteering and NPO’s, but there is not much comparative qualitative, historical, and theoretical discussion in Europe. Analyses often seem to be more focused on testing hypotheses derived from US-research (or simply showing that US-findings do not apply in various European countries) than on explaining differences between European countries concerning the role of religion in civil society – from the perspectives of individual ators, voluntary associations, and their connections with states and markets.About CINEFOGO
CINEFOGO is an acronym for Network of Excellence “Civil Society and New Forms of Governance in Europe – the Making of European Citizenship”. CINEFOGO aims at enhancing the understanding of social and democratic processes, citizenship and democratic participation in Europe. It seeks to provide knowledge about civil society, citizenship and social protection, nourish a public debate on governance and strengthen intellectual co-operation. To learn more on CINEFOGO, visit http://www.cinefogo.org(opens in new window) or send an e-mail to cinefogo@ruc.dk. The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence is supported by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme, Priority 7: New Forms of Citizenship and Cultural Identities of the European Union.
There is hardly any discussion between these fields and also little cross-national comparative discussion about research in the separate fields. There is comparative empirical research with international data sets that include information about values, volunteering and NPO’s, but there is not much comparative qualitative, historical, and theoretical discussion in Europe. Analyses often seem to be more focused on testing hypotheses derived from US-research (or simply showing that US-findings do not apply in various European countries) than on explaining differences between European countries concerning the role of religion in civil society – from the perspectives of individual ators, voluntary associations, and their connections with states and markets.About CINEFOGO
CINEFOGO is an acronym for Network of Excellence “Civil Society and New Forms of Governance in Europe – the Making of European Citizenship”. CINEFOGO aims at enhancing the understanding of social and democratic processes, citizenship and democratic participation in Europe. It seeks to provide knowledge about civil society, citizenship and social protection, nourish a public debate on governance and strengthen intellectual co-operation. To learn more on CINEFOGO, visit http://www.cinefogo.org(opens in new window) or send an e-mail to cinefogo@ruc.dk. The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence is supported by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme, Priority 7: New Forms of Citizenship and Cultural Identities of the European Union.