Why No Religious Politics? The Secularization of Poor Relief and Primary Education in Denmark and Sweden

Bibliographic Data

ID4180597
AuthorsLars Bo Kaspersen (0000-0002-3144-3088, Copenhagen Business School), Johannes Lindvall (0000-0002-1765-9288, University of Oxford)
Year2008
Volume49
Issue1
Pages119-143
Publication date2008-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-9756 • E-ISSN: 1474-0583
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0003975608000039
OpenAlexW2135858301
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited13

In many European democracies, religion was an important political cleavage throughout the twentieth century. But in Denmark and Sweden, religious differences have not been translated into political competition. Instead, class conflict has dominated. This article attempts to explain why. Our argument is that in the first decades of the twentieth century, the issue that mattered most for the politicization of religion elsewhere in Europe - the role of churches in the provision of poor relief and education - was already settled. The main reason was that in the nineteenth century, the secular state had captured the organizational infrastructure that churches used to provide these services

Argument (complex analysis) · Cleavage (geology) · Competition (biology) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Poor relief · Religious education · Secular education · Secular state · Secularization · Sociology · State (computer science) · Law · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious Education and Schools

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