Call for paper: Partecipazione e Conflitto

Special issue:

Religion and Political Participation

Editors: Emanuele Polizzi (Università di Milano-Bicocca) emanuele.polizzi@unimib.it Alberta Giorgi (Centro de Estudos Sociais - Coimbra) albertagiorgi@ces.uc.pt

In the latest decades, European societies have been characterized by major changes, that affected also the practices of religious and political engagement. Such developments have been widely investigated by both sociology and political science, by focusing on topics such as electoral behavior and associative practices of religiously-oriented people, Church-State relations, role of religious soft power and transnational religious organizations in foreign policy and international relations. The relationship between religious identity and political participation, as well as between religious and political participation are also well-established fields of studies, in both sociology and political science. On the one hand, in the last decades of the 20th Century religiously-inspired movements flourished all over the world (the Christian Right in the US, Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah in the Middle-East, the nationalist religious movements in Israel and India, Communion and Liberation in Italy and abroad, etc.), as well as religious parties (the Christian democratic parties in Europe and Latin America, the Hindu parties in India, the Muslim parties in the Middle East, such as the Turkish AKP, etc.). On the other hand, the political role of religious organizations has been increasing, with a growing influence on peace-keeping processes, Arab Spring and European political movements against austerity, within-countries political participation, welfare systems, and the decision-making processes. More broadly, religion is an important element for political identity and organization. It appears to be the case in Italy, for instance, where a religiously inspired political area is gathering consensus after the end of Berlusconi hegemony, and local religious leaders and organizations have a high political weight and influence in local political arenas, such as in Lombardia and in Rome. It appears to be the case in several other countries too, such as for US religious lobbies, Church-related movements in Spain and Portugal, and the issue about the recognition of religions in nowadays Hungary. Religiously inspired movements appear to have an increasingly important role in political campaigns. This happened, for instance, in Arab Spring movements - which resulted in a wide consensus for Islamic political actors, but also in the Italian context, where religious associations have been involved in the ‘Public Water’, ‘Migration’, and ‘Anti-nuclear’ movements. This special issue aims at collecting contributions exploring and explaining the relations between religious and political participation. Comparative studies are welcome, as well as single-case studies and theoretical analyses. Suggested paper topics include (but are not limited to): - Religious parties - Forms of political activism and participation of religious movements and organizations. - Relations between local government and religious actors in the field of civic engagement - Relations between political and religious identity of local activists - Political and religious identities interplay in electoral behavior

Papers can be submitted either in Italian or in English, and should not exceed 55.000 characters. Please, refer to: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/NR/Paco-norme.pdf Deadline for submission: 30 April 2013 Date of expected publication: 2014