Anti-discrimination as a challenge of social cohesion?

Anti-discrimination as a challenge of social cohesion? Religion as multi-level phenomenon and social integration in the European Union

Annette Schnabel Florian Grötsch

Working paper 7/2012 Department of Sociology 901 87 Umeå, Sweden Telephone: 090-786 50 00 www.umu.se

Anti-discrimination as a challenge of social cohesion? Religion as multi-level phenomenon and social integration in the European Union Annette Schnabel and Florian Grötsch

The paper's leading question is twofold: On the basis of a document analysis, we explore how religion is used to create integration through exclusion on the level of EU policies and debates. Additionally, we investigate on the basis of the European Value Survey, how religion and xenophobic attitudes relate to feelings of ‘Europeanness’. The article argues that while religion gained relevance on the level of the European Commission and in public debates as a marker for ‘us’ and ‘them’, individual religiousness in form of church attendance and intensity of belief support ‘Europeanness’ and xenophobic attitudes decreases it. The dominance of the Christian religious tradition in Europe brings about a sense of European identity and at the same time, works excluding against non-believers and Muslims as the ‘cultural others’. European policies, public debates and individual attitudes here, work in the same direction. Keywords: religion, European Union, EVS, cultural ‘others’

(1) Introduction

Since its foundation in 1957, integration of the peoples of member states has been a major goal of the European Union. During its first decades, the political agenda focused mainly on economic unification; in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty manifested a change towards a political and social union (Kohler-Koch, 1999). While anti-discrimination policies were intended primarily to facilitate the economic unification through ensuring free movement of labour, goods and services, the endeavour to create a political and social union, was accompanied by the inclusion of civil-society organisations such as trade unions and churches. The Amsterdam Treaty in 1997 confirmed anti-discrimination and equal opportunities as part of the primary legislation (Wobbe and Biermann, 2009) and, later, the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 aimed at increasing the democratic legitimacy of the EU as a political actor (Obwexer, 2009). These institutional, legal and governmental changes were accompanied by two major political debates that became publicly salient: the debate on the enlargement of the European Union during which the potential membership of Turkey grew into a crucial issue, and the debate on a European Constitution during which the phrasing of the Preamble was contested. In both, 1

the institutional and legal changes and the debates, ‘Religion’ was assigned an important role for integrating Europe. ‘Integration’ thereby developed into an ambiguous concept: while anti-discrimination policies facilitated free movement and labour marked integration of people independent of their religious affiliations, Christian values and identity were publicly and politically pushed as a frame of reference for the social and cultural unification of Europe, excluding those who are not committed to them. The paper's leading question is twofold. On the basis of a document analysis, we want to explore how religion is used to create integration through exclusion on the level of EU policies and debates. Additionally, we want to know how religion and xenophobic attitudes relate to feelings of ‘Europeanness’ (Offe, 2003: 438) on an individual level through the means of a quantitative multi-level analysis: whilst religion grew into a factor considered important for European integration, does religion play a similar role on the individual level? We do not imply that EU policies directly influence people’s attitudes; rather, it is the aim of this paper to investigate if and how integration through culture is possible on the level of EU policy and on the level of EU citizens. Our purpose is to contribute to a better understanding of the role of religion and (religious) heterogeneity for shaping ‘Europeanness’ in a multilevel Europe.

(2) EU as a history of attempts to integrate

2.1 The EU perspective on social cohesion The European Union (EU) has a long history in defining and politicising social cohesion since the Treaties of Rome (1957). Back then, economic integration was supposed to produce integrative spill-over effects into other fields of policymaking. This scheme changed as an increased interest in social cohesion in its own right developed. In the late 1960s, feelings of stagnation and crisis among the European Economic Community's (EEC) political elites and peoples of its member states were caused by conflicts over the European Council's decision-making processes, by the first EEC enlargement in 1973 when Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland became members, and by the first oil crisis (in the same year). During this crisis, the idea of economic integration lost its integrative dynamics. In 1976, the former Belgium Prime Minister, Leo Tindemans, suggested on behalf 2

of the European Commission (EC) the development of cultural policies in order to strengthen social cohesion through ‘Europeanness’, on the basis that creating common symbols such as a European currency, flag or anthem ought to revitalise the European integration project (Tindemans, 1976: D 53). In addition, Europe was to develop its own social and political dimension. This was the starting point for a new direction in EEC policies: the Commission became an essential institution of the newly-framed integration process and began to strengthen social cohesion amongst the peoples in (Western) Europe through policy programmes and the Single European Act in 1986. The most important change was the establishment of the European Union in 1992 by which the EU constituted a political union alongside the economic community. With cultural programmes and by emphasising civil rights, policies ‘close to the people’ were launched. The Maastricht Treaty in 1992 became the legal turning point of the social and political integration project (Eichenberg and Dalton, 2007: 132; Jansen, 2005). The Treaty turned the European project into an integrated economic, political and social enterprise (Kohler-Koch, 1999; Quenzel, 2005; Shore, 2000). In this process of change, the EU Commission established its own notion of social cohesion and defined it as the integration of the people of Europe beyond the nation-state by offering possibilities to identify as ‘Europe’ (Single European Act 1986 and EC (COM (89) 248 final)). The Commission emphasised the aspect of homogeneity of interests, beliefs and identification. During this process, the Commission discovered ‘religion’ as a field of politics and a resource for integration: while anti-discrimination legislation referring to religion as personal property that shall not be discriminated against, the Commission started a dialogue with churches and religious communities in order to involve them as organised partners into the integration project. These two developments are now discussed in detail.

2.2 Two developments regarding religion: anti-discrimination policy and the discovery of religion In the beginning, anti-discrimination legislation was established as a policy field in order to support the single market. In the 1980s, the EC, the member states and the European Parliament reinforced through different documents and treaties the conviction that discrimination and racism ought to be seen as a hindrance for the single market.i These documents address discrimination as a major obstruction to free movement of persons, goods 3

and services and as a threat to solidarity and social cohesion. However, they also address discrimination mainly with regard to race, nationality and gender. Only in the early 1990s did religion become equally important (Wobbe and Biermann, 2009). The Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 legally codified anti-discrimination policy with regard to religion: Article 13 guarantees the protection against discrimination on the basis of religion. This Article established anti-discrimination as part of the primary legislation of community law and, by that, made it a EU-wide operative. Without prejudice to the other provisions of this Treaty and within the limits of the powers conferred by it upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. The phrase ‘may take appropriate action to combat discrimination’ indicates the Commission's entitlement to develop its own policy against discrimination. It implies that the member states passed this policy area on to the European level. The Treaty enabled the Commission to formulate and to actively enforce actions against discrimination and to position the internal/single market over and against national customs. The Commission used this mandate to establish a set of regulations and programmes in order to substantiate anti-discrimination: With the regulations for ‘Non-discrimination in employment and profession’ (Council Decision 2000/43/EC) and 'Non-discrimination against race and ethnic origin' (Council Decision 2000/78/EC), the Commission addressed primarily the Common Market. Beyond that, however, these regulations set the ground for all people under the jurisdiction of the EU to be protected against discrimination – inter alia, against discrimination on the basis of their religious beliefs. In order to complete this agenda, the Commission established the ‘Community action programme to combat discrimination’ (20012006) (Council Decision 2000/750/EC). Articles 2 and 3 and the Protocols of the Treaty of Lisbon realised the anti-discrimination legislation in 2008 by connecting anti-discrimination to European citizenship. This Treaty covers a broad area of potential fields and dimensions of discriminatory behaviours enacted not only by individuals but also by organisations, corporations and administrations. Anti-discrimination became a key area that established a social and political space of decision-making beyond national restrictions. Subsequent to these processes, anti4

discrimination and equal opportunity policies became a focal policy area to create and give substance to a political, social and economic union. Besides anti-discrimination legislation, the dialogue with the churches became an important pillar of the EC's integration policies. The speech by the Commission's president Jacques Delors in 1992 emphasised the importance of religion as a resource of integration and addressed the representatives of the two major Latin Christian churches as partners of the integration process. With the notion of ‘A Soul for Europe’, he expressed confidence in the churches’ ability to bring people together and to pledge them to the European project. He stated: We are in effect at a crossroads in the history of European construction. 1992 is a turning point. (…) The Maastricht summit marked the end of the economic phase of European construction – what has been described as the `semi-automatic´ development of the EC, based on the drive towards the Common Market. (…) – a time when the debate on the meaning of European construction becomes a major political factor. Believe me, we won't succeed with Europe solely on the basis of legal expertise or economic know-how. It is impossible to put the potential of Maastricht into practice without a breath of air. If in the next ten years we haven't managed to give a Soul to Europe, to give spirituality and meaning, the game will be up. (…) This is why I want to revive the intellectual and spiritual debate on Europe. I invite the churches to participate actively in it. (…) We must find a way of involving the churches (according to: Luibl, 2005: 197). Churches provide religion as a resource for spirituality and emotionality. They are able to give not only significance to the integration project but also a ‘soul’ or affective dimension (Moïsi, 1999; Weiss, 2003). In order to incorporate the churches and, later, other religious groups, the Commission started the corresponding initiative of the same name in 1994: ‘A Soul for Europe’. This initiative provided an opportunity for dialogue between religious groups and the Commission and accordingly for affecting each other's policies (BEPA 2010). The initiative secured the legal status of churches and religious communities within the larger European context: beyond their ‘soul’, churches and religious groups were seen as mass organisations that are able to mobilise support for integration: Since these communities represent a large number of people in Europe, the actual number of members in A Soul for Europe is much bigger than six. In fact, every 5

citizen in Europe that belongs to any of these communities is, in a way, a member of the initiative (BEPA 2010). The 11th Declaration of the Treaty for the Foundation of the European Community in the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) became a major step in legally acknowledging churches and religion as a resource for integration (Jansen, 2000; Robbers, 1997) and ended the ‘church blindness’ of the Commission (Mückl, 2005). While the Declaration addressed churches and congregational groups as the bearers of rights, it explicitly confirmed and recognised the legal forms of regulating religion as they exist in the member states. It states: ‘The European Union respects and does not prejudice the status under national law of churches and religious associations or communities in the Member States. The European Union equally respects the status of philosophical and non-confessional organisations.’ The 11th Declaration thereby embodies the dictum ‘United in Plurality’ as the basis of European identity. This special arrangement between the EU and the religious communities forms a particular government– religion relationship and determines a new frame for state-religion relationships in Europe (Grötsch, 2009). In 2008, the Declaration became part of the Treaty of Lisbon. Consequently it was translated into community law and manifested a strong legal position that guides the relationship between the EU Commission and the religious communities and organisations. Churches and other religious organisations are now accepted as important partners in order to implement EU programmes. At the same time, it empowered them by granting access to decision-making processes on the European level. The European Commission's anti-discrimination policies and the legal inclusion of churches and religious organisations is an attempt to standardise national understandings and perspectives on religion and to overwrite differences in national legislation without interfering directly with national sovereignty. Politically, these attempts of cultural inclusion through standardisation became controversial and contradictory. Religion changed from being a nonproblematic non-issue into a controversial and exclusive topic. This shift is indicated by two major European public debates that accompanied the legal and policy developments on the EU level.

2.3 Two challenges: The debate of the accession of Turkey to the EU and the role of religion in European self-understanding 6

While the public debate on the full membership of Turkey turned into a debate about the compatibility of Islamic and Christian values and lifestyles, religion became a problematic issue during the dispute over the Preamble of the premeditated European Constitution. Both debates concerned the cultural-religious roots and self-definition of Europe. In 1963, Turkey gained EEC associate status, which was maintained until 1987 when Turkey submitted an application for formal membership. While Turkey received candidate status in 1999 together with ten East European countries, it remained the only candidate that did not become a full member in 2004. In 2006, the Commission suspended negotiations between Turkey and the EU (European Commission COM (2006) 773 final). After the French and German governments questioned the human rights situation in Turkey, the Turkish parliament refused to ratify the Ankara Protocols comprising the acceptance of Cyprus. This rejection broke off the negotiations thus far. During Turkey's submission and the negotiations ending, national public debates on the membership issue became increasingly controversial. The main focus was on whether Turkey really fitted into the EU: cultural and religious differences were highlighted when questioning the economic and political benefits of a full membership (Leggewie, 2004; Wimmel, 2006; Jung and Raudvere, 2008). Turkey became the cultural and religious ‘other’ (Kücük, 2008) against which European imaginations and identities could be constructed. Two lines of argument became salient: firstly, despite its secular tradition, Turkey was perceived as an Islamic country whose citizens did not share basic democratic values. Secondly, Turkey was portrayed as a ‘developing country’ dominated by peasants and simply benefiting from full membership status without being able to contribute (summary of the arguments: Wuermling, 2007). The principal outcome of the political negotiations was a populist debate on European identity, European values and European self-understanding. It revealed that between the peoples of Europe, the meaning of Europe and the shared values and ideas upon which the EU should be based are quite controversial (Wuermling, 2007).ii The second debate concomitant with the ‘discovery of religion’ on the EU level concerned the reference to God that was proposed for the Preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2000 and the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe in 2004. Both Treaties aimed at establishing a base for identification and a social and cultural dimension of the European project. The conflict concerned the relevance of such a reference for establishing shared European values and a community based on those values. Liberal and left-wing members of the Council as well as members for France and Belgium opposed the idea – in contrast to 7

conservative members and those from countries with a Roman Catholic majority. Although in 2000 a compromise was found by using different articulations in the various language versions, the conflict escalated because of the formulation in the Preamble that it was ‘drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe (...)’ (Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, 2004 [emphasis added]). The controversy around the Preamble indicates that there exist different ideas about what Europe ought to unify. The question and relevance of religion for Europe became hotly debated and discussed: Shall Europe be perceived as a Christian entity or shall it be secular? (Mandry, 2009: 54ff; Naumann, 2008). This debate must be seen as a struggle about the right and the power to define ‘Europeanness’ in which different religious and political groups claim legitimacy to set the agenda. It is a fight about cultural codes and symbols as well as about membership. In this regard, religion became a pronounced marker. The analysis of the European Commission's documents and Treaties indicated an altered relevance and connotation of religion on the European level. While religion became important in order to define and shape a European identity on the EU level which lies beyond mere economic goals, conflicts and different national and political positions became visibly prominent. These different positions within the public and political debates led to frictions and controversies concerning the integration and anti-exclusion policy of the European Commission.

(3) Exclusive inclusion – the dilemma of social cohesion The previous discussion indicates that, at least in public debates and on the Commission's level, religion is considered as important for the European integration project: it serves as an integrating denominator and suggests who is or is not considered ‘European’. Despite the increased significance of religion on the EU level, research on Eurosceptic attitudes has so far generally ignored religion as an influence on the individual level. Most studies focus either on macro-economic factors like inflation and trade concentration (Eichenberg and Dalton, 2007), individual economic benefit-oriented considerations (e.g. Eichenberg and Dalton, 1993; Gabel, 1998), national identities (Bruter, 2003) or multiculturalism as a threat (e.g. McLaren, 2002; Kriesi et al., 2008). Only recently has religion gained more attention as an influencing factor regarding attitudes towards the European Integration (e.g. Nelson, Guth and Fraser, 2001; Nelson, Guth and Highsmith, 2011; Hobolt et al., 2011). In these studies, religion is 8

understood chiefly as individual religiousness. The influence of religion, however, is not straightforward as religion is a multi-level phenomenon comprising a shared symbolic order of societies and organisations as churches and religious congregations as well. The above analysis suggests that religion gives rise to different dynamics: it contributes to European integration by supporting social cohesion through common understandings, symbols and codes, and through interrelated organisational decision-making structures. By the same token, religion constructs ‘otherness’ by emphasising particular value sets and cosmologies. Although we do not intend to link EU policy structures to individual attitudes, the second part of our analysis focuses on the question as to whether religiousness supports or hinders European integration on the individual level and whether prejudice against other religious groups (in particular, against Muslims) contradicts this integrative effect. The analysis pertains less to the question as to whether the EU programme is successful but rather to what extent it realistically reflects the impact of religion on the individual level of EU citizens.

3.1 Social cohesion – what binds people together? In the following, we empirically investigate the impact of religion on social cohesion. Although social cohesion is widely discussed within sociology, the debates often lack a clear concept of what it is (Moody and White, 2003: 104). In political science and welfare-state research, social cohesion is discussed as the willingness to contribute to the wider community in terms of active citizenship. In this line of argument, cultural heterogeneity is usually seen as a threat to the existence of democratic institutions by reducing general trust and the willingness to contribute to the common good (e.g. Wolfe and Klausen, 1997; Putnam, 2000; Sears and Citrin, 1985; Soss et al., 2003).iii Intensifying globalisation and growing immigration are important factors that increase encounters with different belief systems, which in turn may exacerbate conflicts (Spohn, 2009). Some researchers, however, claim that heterogeneity does not necessarily affect social cohesion negatively but can be seen as an economic and cultural resource (Helly, 2003; Banting and Kymlicka, 2006). In this article, we understand social cohesion as a property of societies – in this case, of the European Union – derived from individual feelings, attitudes and beliefs.iv We thereby interpret social cohesion to be aggregated individual feelings of integration into this community. These feelings go hand-in-hand with the degree of people's trust. Trust results 9

from experiences of social relations and influences how individuals relate themselves to others (Gambetta, 2001; Coleman 1990: 91, summarising: Newton, 2007). In modern largescale societies, social trust is influenced not only by interactions but also by institutional settings and frameworks. Institutional trust indicates that institutions are perceived as working in the way that they are supposed to and that they are legitimately in place (Putman, 2000; Rothstein, 2002; Delhey, 2004; Vobrubra, 2008). The articulation of institutional trust therefore can be understood as an indicator of feelings of integration into the institutional framework of society; expressed trust in the EU we thus understand as an indication of a person's feelings of integration into the socio-political and institutional sphere of Europe.

3.2 Inclusion through religion There is comprehensive theoretical and empirical evidence that religion and religiousness is important for feelings of social inclusion on the individual level: Durkheim was among the first sociologists who suggested that religion plays a fundamental role for integration (Durkheim, 1990 [1887] and 2010 [1912]).v For Durkheim, religion provides the necessary norms, meanings, rites and symbols and the opportunity structure that facilitate interpersonal attachment and, thereby, solidarity and social cohesion. Theories of secularisation suggesting that religion lost its functions during the course of modernity (Weber, 2006 [1922]; Berger, 1967; Luckmann, 1967; Davie, 1990) are empirically not entirely supported (Greeley, 2002; Pew Research Center, 2002; Halman and Draulans, 2006; Pollack, 2008) and research on social capital showed that religion still has the capacity to generate an inclusive ‘radius of trust’ (Fukuyama, 2001: 8). This radius of trust has the potential to lead to a decline in crime, delinquency and anomic behaviour (e.g. Stark, 1996; Iannacconne, Stark and Finke, 1998) and increases cooperation and reciprocity (Smidt, 2003; Jagodzinski, 2009; Putnam, 2000). These studies argue that religiousness on the individual level works in favour of social cohesion. In order to analyse which particular aspects of religiousness are relevant for ‘Europeanness’, we follow Glock (1969) and distinguish between three dimensions of individual religiosity: (a) institutional ties and relations to religious groups, churches, congregations; (b) religious attitudes, individual feelings, ideas and emotions that a person has in daily life; (c) practices of institutionalised worshipping and private religious practices. We explicitly do not refer to the content of different religions, or to the functional or substantial dimensions of religion.vi 10

However, religion is a multi-level phenomenon comprised not only of individual religiousness but also of communal belief. For the following analysis we assume that those can be traced on the country level, where they provide a context that matters for individual attitudes and moderates the influence of individual religiousness: religion here refers to religious homogeneity. Distinguishing between such country-specific characteristics allows us to take into account the diverse conditions of religiosity within Europe.

3.3 Exclusion through resentment While religion and religiousness may support social cohesion by providing shared norms, beliefs and an opportunity structure for meeting like-minded people, group formation in general encompasses exclusive tendencies. Although – as discussed above – the literature concerning the relationship between (cultural) heterogeneity and social cohesion is inconclusive at best, there is strong theoretical evidence for the assumption that perceived cultural – and thereby religious – differences may lead to stereotyping, prejudice, xenophobia and violence. In particular, group threat theory (Blumer, 1958; Quillian, 1995) has a longstanding tradition in explaining how group formation leads to social demarcation and exclusion from equal opportunities and social resources. According to Blumer's classic argument (Blumer, 1958), inter-group hostility results from perceived threats from minorities. Minorities are perceived as a threat because they are capable of successfully challenging the existing social order by contesting the economic, political and social position of the majority. In a zero-sum sense, all new claims pose a threat to the existing distribution. In-group identification, out-group stereotyping, devaluation and the perception of threat lead to prejudice and rejection. They reduce trust and the willingness to accept redistribution. The original theory suggests that, if the minority group grows, the perceived threat will grow as well, and studies have repeatedly shown that people are less willing to contribute to the common good if the community contains threatening minority groups (e.g. Olzak, 1992). However, threat theory is not uncontested: Hjerm (2007, 2009), for example, indicates that minorities become a threat only under particular conditions: they must be visible and distinct from the majority, they must be significant and they must be perceived as real competition. He addresses the necessity to take higher-level contexts such as political articulation into consideration (e.g. Hjerm, 2007; similarly King and Wheelock, 2007). Because societies often comprise several minorities, the main challenge of threat theory is to 11

explain which minority in a given society becomes salient as a threat (Hjerm, 2007: 47). Whilst in the U.S., group threat patterns are most often observed among racial groups (e.g. Hood and Morris, 1998), in Europe, religion has a great potential to serve as an important group marker. Within the European Union, the Islam-Christianity divide is often seen as the main provider of opposing cultural frames. Whereas Huntington (1996) predicted international conflicts because of different religious systems of beliefs and values, principally between Islam and Christianity, Wuermeling (2007) asked if the lack of sympathy for Western values among Turks is due to their religious beliefs. Perceived cultural differences on the basis of religion, however, pertain not only to differences between countries, but also within countries. Because religious differences are, most often, not immediately visible, immigrants, people of other ethnic origin and Muslims are often perceived as one undifferentiated group of ‘unspecified strangers’ threatening society; they thereby form a perceived ‘syndrome of otherness’. For the following analysis, we assume that heterogeneity becomes challenging for social cohesion if minority groups are perceived as distinct and if they are seen as competition by the majority. In line with Quillian (1995: 588), we measure the individual perception of threat by articulated negative attitudes towards a particular group: ‘The greater the sense of threat to prerogatives, the more likely are members of the dominant group to express prejudice against threatening outsiders.’vii

(4) Data and Method The following comparative analysis tests on an individual level how inclusive and exclusive attitudes work together in influencing social cohesion within the European Union. More precisely, we test if religious involvement and negative attitudes towards immigrants, Muslims and people of other ethnic origin influence the trust that people have in the EU. In so doing, our goal is to trace back the cohesive and adhesive forces within the European integration project on the individual level. Such an analysis requires data encompassing different dimensions of religion, of antiimmigrant and anti-Muslim attitudes and attitudes towards the European Union. The European Values Study (EVS) is a large-scale, cross-national, longitudinal survey research programme that provides insights into beliefs, preferences, attitudes and values of citizens in Europe. It is the only comparative European data set that comprises questions concerning 12

people’s religious beliefs, practices and memberships as well as tolerance towards minorities and attitudes towards the EU. For the following analysis, we employ the fourth wave of 2008, which covers 27 European member states and about 70,000 people. Although the EVS is the best data set for our purpose, it covers attitudes towards the European Union only by the one question: ‘How much confidence do you have in the European Union?’ For this article, we use that question as an expression of individual feelings of integration into the EU's political and cultural system. Because the answers to the question are coded bivariately, we perform a Logistic Regression.

4.1 Influencing factors Individual religiousness is differentiated into belonging to a denomination (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, other, and none, coded as dummy variables), the practice of service attendance (frequency of church attendance, coded on a 6-point scale), praying outside service (praying, four categories) and the salience of religious contents (religiousness).viii In order to explore the influence of xenophobic attitudes on social cohesion, we asked the question: ‘Whom do you not like as neighbours... [people of different race/Muslims/immigrants]?’ (Q6B/H/I). The answers were dummy-coded.ix We included the respondents’ sex, age, year of completed education, and the yearly household income as socio-demographic control variables. Additionally, we control for the individual self-assessment on a left-right scale (Q57) and the general trust in others (Q7). Former research has shown that these factors might influence assessment of the European Union (e.g. Nelson, Guth and Fraser, 2001; McLaren, 2002; Eichenberg and Dalton, 2007).x Although we are not interested in the effects of these variables, we control for them in order to ensure that variances in the dependent variables are not due to their influence and that the countryspecific differences in confidence do not depend on their country-specific distributions. Contexts matterxi – therefore we test for the national economic situation operationalised by GDP, social spending and unemployment rate (all Eurostat-Data). These data are indicators of the distributive situation within the country and its comparative wealth. We additionally assume that the cultural-discursive context of a country, characterised by its share of immigrants (UN population statistics), degree of religious homogeneity (Herfindahl index for religious heterogeneity calculated from aggregated EVS data) and the aggregated attitudes 13

towards Muslims (aggregated from EVS data) should also be substantial for individual feelings of inclusion. By that, we provide for the country-specific differences. Because we take country-level properties into consideration and because we assume that individual attitudes vary according to these properties, a Multilevel-Analysis (MLA) is performed. We use a Multilevel Logistic Regression (performed with STATA) which is effectively a multiple logistic regression that can handle nested sources of variability such as individuals in nation-states. Multilevel logistic regression performs better than logistic regression if macro-variables are included. Logistic regression tends to underestimate standard errors because of the lack of variability in the macro-level indicators.

4.3 Results In 2008, 52% of Europeans expressed trust in the EU. The country variances of people's confidence in the European Union is not exceptionally high (Eta2 =.086) but significant. A comparison of the country-specific odds (Graphic 1) shows differences between the countries: while the likelihood of trusting the EU is highest among respondents from Luxembourg and Slovenia, EU scepticism is especially likely for people from Great Britain and Austria. - Graphic 1 here Table 1 displays the MLA-models for 2008. It reports the exp b-coefficients (or odds ratios) for ten models, taking different sets of variables into account. - Table 1 here – Model 1 shows the ‘empty model’ in order to test if there are significant country differences, which in this case account for 7.2% of the total variance. A brief look at the control variables suggest that there are no significant gender differences, and the likelihood of trust in the EU decreases with age and left-wing attitudes and increases with education and income. People who are generally more trustful have a higher probability of showing trust in the EU as well. Models 2 to 5 indicate that religion and religiosity on the individual level in fact moderate the likelihood of trust: religiosity in general increases trust among denominations; only Orthodoxy displays a significant role in reducing trust. People of other denominations show no significant difference compared to those of no denomination.

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When it comes to different forms of religiosity, religious practices outside service do not affect trust in the EU significantly, whilst the intensity of religious beliefs and the frequency of church attendance both significantly increase feelings of integration. At the same time, we observe that negative attitudes towards immigrants, Muslims and people of other ethnic origin go hand-in-hand with increased EU scepticism. Whereas religiousness increases feelings of inclusion, negative attitudes towards the ‘unspecified stranger’ function as an adhesive force decreasing the social cohesion. De-aggregating the ‘syndrome of otherness’ indicates that negative attitudes towards Muslims are less strong in their impact on EU trust than attitudes towards immigrants and people of other ethnic origins. Although among the ‘unspecified strangers’, Muslims have the highest chance of being discriminated against, as Table 3 of the Appendix shows; these attitudes are less strong in their impact on Euroscepticism. Are those people who have negative attitudes against the ‘unspecified stranger’ especially religious? Without exploring the discriminative effects of religion in detail, Table 2 shows that people who are religiously active are slightly less tolerant towards religious and ethnic minority groups. This ties in with findings from a comparative literature study for the US by Hunsburger and Jackson (2005) indicating that other religious and ethnic groups can become the target of religiously motivated prejudice. However, for Europe as a whole, the correlations are not very strong. - Table 2 here We now want to test which country-level factors influence social cohesion. Models 6 to 9 indicate that, overall, the country-specific differences do not moderate the impact of individual religiosity and negative attitudes towards the ‘unspecified stranger’. However, as a country-level influence, economic performance shows some impact: social spending increases EU scepticism: people in countries with higher social spending seem to fear a negative impact of EU politics on their national redistributive systems. Unemployment rate and the economic performance of a country (measured by the GDP), however, do not have any significant influence.xii Whilst, at least on the country level, social policies moderate feelings of social cohesion, economic risks as indicated by unemployment rate and the level of economic performance do not. Religion has influence also as a country variable: religious homogeneity turns out be a factor for EU trust. A higher level of religious homogeneity increases trust in the EU tremendously, 15

by 360 percentage points. Religious homogeneity in Europe, however, means Christianity and thereby, again, displays exclusive tendencies. Nonetheless, the percentage of immigrants does not show any significant impact. Additionally, when it comes to the general culturaldiscursive climate, the degree of xenophobia overall within the countries does not trigger mistrust per se: the impact of aggregated anti-Muslim attitudes is not significant. This supports Hjerm's claim (2007, 2009) that it is not the mere number of a minority that counts but the salience and framing of the group as threatening.

(5) Discussion The European Union is the most important player in setting the agenda for European politics on a supranational level. Its policies have a major impact on nation-states as well as on individual actors. It has been the aim of this paper to explore the impact of religion and religiousness on ‘Europeanness’ on two levels: document analysis revealed the ‘discovery of religion’ as a resource for integration and a master-frame for exclusion on the level of EU policies. A for the individual level of EU citizens, the MLA suggested that practised religiousness promotes social cohesion, while ascribed religiousness leads to demarcation. These two dynamics are not necessarily linked, but both indicate the inclusive and exclusive powers of religion in Europe. By focusing on religion as an integration device, the Commission in fact touches upon an issue that is important for Europeans to feel European. The importance of religion for the European integration project is secured through antidiscrimination policies and by the enforcement of dialogue with religious organisations such as churches and congregations. These policies coincided with political challenges to the integration process turning an uncontested topic into a salient issue: while anti-Islamic attitudes were stimulated during the public debate on the full membership of Turkey, the terror attacks of 9/11 and thereafter drew public and political attention to the ‘syndrome of otherness’ that comprised not only Muslims but also immigrants and people of other race. Additionally, the debate on the Preamble of the European Constitution marked religion even more as a salient label of ‘us’ and ‘them’. On the individual level, analysis of the EVS data of 2008 in fact suggests that, whilst religiousness leads to an increased trust in the EU integration project, negative attitudes towards Muslims, immigrants and people of other ethnic origin decrease this trust and, thereby, social cohesion. On the individual level, however, ‘Europeanness’ is increased by 16

actively practising religion, though not of a particular denomination. At the same time, religious homogeneity – meaning Christianity – increases social cohesion, leaving open the question as to whether it is the Christian cosmology or the homogeneity per se that increases trust. Exclusion, on the other hand, can clearly be linked to the ascription of Islamic beliefs to other people. There are, however, some further issues open to question: The data on the individual level do not reveal whether religiousness supports feelings of integration through organisational inclusion or the provision of a cosmology of humanitarian values that support trust in others and in the institutional framework. Although the analysis does not allow for strong statements here, the results suggest that it is no longer the belief system of any particular denomination that supports feelings of ‘Europeanness’. Neither, on the individual level, is Europe a mainly Roman Catholic enterprise as hitherto stated by Nelson, Guth and Fraser (2001) for the late 1990s. Instead, it seems that integration into (religious) organisations and the intensity of belief is more important for creating ‘Europeanness’. In one way, it looks as if general trust created in smaller groups on the community level is transferred to the larger unit of the European Union. This would suggest that Durkheim's thesis is still valid: the sharing of rituals, symbols and emotions seems to instil trust and solidarity that spill over into other spheres of life and affect attitudes in general. Churches and congregations provide opportunity structures and the means for this mechanism to develop. In this regard, the European Commission would have selected the right partner in order to transmit the integration project to the people. It is, though, open to question (and one already posed by Durkheim) as to whether churches and congregations are the only organisations able to enforce social cohesion or whether other organisations, such as unions, can become ‘functional equivalents’. At the same time, the impact of religious homogeneity suggests that Christianity in Europe became a cultural resource that works mostly by its general potential to mark boundaries and less by a particular (Protestant or Roman Catholic) cosmology. This is clearly mirrored on the EU level by the Commission's policies to include the churches as a partner for dialogue and by the public debates on Turkey's membership and on the Preamble. The impact of religious homogeneity and negative attitudes towards the ‘unspecified stranger’ may be related to this rather cultural function of religion as a group marker. Although a higher amount of redistribution lowers trust in the EU and thereby indicates that 17

‘Europeanness’ comes to a halt where redistribution is concerned, it does not moderate the individual-level influence of religiousness and intolerance. Successful national social policies tend to create an environment of Euroscepticism that nevertheless is not strong enough to overwrite other factors such as identities, group memberships or preferred segregation. These observations tie in with former research suggesting that culture, and in particular religion, became more important in influencing people's attitudes towards the EU since the system transformation in 1992 (e.g. Nelson, Guth and Fraser, 2001; McLaren, 2002; Eichenberg and Dalton, 2007; Hobolt et al., 2011). As to whether threat theory holds for Europe, this is also still open to question. Our results support research suggesting that threat theory falls short as long as it focuses only on group size. Minorities need particular ascriptions before they turn into threats. It is, however, plausible that Euroscepticism, hand-in-hand with intolerance towards the ‘unspecified stranger’, might be due to the fear of some of losing their status because of a higher degree of competition over resources. These resources need not necessarily to be only economical. Cultural heterogeneity might bear the risk of devaluation of cultural capital – be it that different language skills are required, be it that different knowledge about food, fashion or technologies becomes socially evaluated. All in all, the data revealed a tension between cohesive and adhesive forces on the individual level that seems challenging for the European integration process. EU politics, obviously, are not able to reach all groups to resolve this tension. EU policies of anti-discrimination may add to the fears of those who worry about their own economic and social positions and who are afraid of cultural differences. Inclusive policies based on the salience of cultural and religious similarities mark outsiders – in particular, Muslims – as such and thereby contribute to the mechanisms of prejudice and exclusion. One of the reasons why EU integration policies have not hereto been able to bridge the cohesive and adhesive tendencies among its citizens may lie in the fact that EU policies reach their limits when nation-state sovereignty is affected. EU integration does not mean to amalgamate only different groups of people but also different governments, lobbies and political interests that are not necessarily similar to those of the citizens of Europe. The different power structures within and between the member states make it even harder to overcome the tensions on the individual level by providing an integrative cultural, social and political supranational framework. As Lietzmann (2004: 23/24) argued, the European Union was built to standardise national policies on the supranational level and at the same time to 18

make them independent of the member states. This seems to hold true for the social and cultural framing as well: EU policies of anti-discrimination and integration are caught between supranational ideals and the attempt to standardise cultural understandings within the member states on the one hand and the missing legitimacy to do so on the other. The EU policies of integration can be read as a struggle to define nothing less than ‘Europeanness’, which obviously is not granted by the public and the citizens of Europe and, to the contrary, may even promote the ‘syndrome of otherness’ which leads to segregation and exclusion.

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23

Graphs and Tables

Graphic 1: Confidence in the EU – Country-specific odds for 2008xiii

3

2,5

2

1,5

1

Total Sweden Spain Slovenia Slovak Republic Romania Portugal Poland

24

Netherlands Malta Luxembourg

0

Lithuania Latvia Italy Ireland Hungary Greece Great Britain Germany France Finland Estonia Denmark Czech Republic Cyprus Bulgaria Belgium Austria 0,5

Table 1: MLA for all EU member states (EVS 2008) Model 1 Gender Age Education Left-right self-positioning Income year Trust Religiosity No denomination Roman Catholic Protestant Orthodox Other religion Att. tw. race Att. tw. Muslims Att. tw. immigrants Prayer outside service Intensity of belief Church attendance

Model 2 1,013 0,995** 1,012** 1,050** 1,019** 1,452** 1,135**

Model 3 0,987 0,994** 1,012** 1,052** 1,020** 1,064**

Model 4 1,000 0,994** 1,013** 1,049** 1,020** 1,456**

Model 5 0,986 0,994** 1,012** 1,051** 1,020** 1,436**

Model 6 0,987 0,994** 1,012** 1,051** 1,020** 1,436**

Model 7 0,986 0,994** 1,012** 1,051** 1,020** 1,437**

Model 8 0,986 0,994** 1,012** 1,051** 1,020** 1,436**

Model 9 0,986 0,994** 1,012** 1,051** 1,020** 1,436**

Model 10

1,016

1,017

1,015

1,016

1,016

1,016

0,867* 0,914* 0,908* 0,994 1,142* 1,064**

0,867* 0,914* 0,908* 0,994 1,142* 1,064**

0,867* 0,914* 0,907* 0,994 1,140* 1,064**

0,867* 0,914* 0,908* 0,994 1,142* 1,064**

0,867* 0,914* 0,908* 0,994 1,142* 1,064**

0,867* 0,914* 0,908* 0,994 1,142* 1,064**

1,025 0,987 0,820* 1,010 0,865* 0,915* 0,908* 0,993 1,432* 1,136**

0,999 1,137* 1,059**

Herfindahl index religion Social spending Unemployment rate Share of immigrants Agg. attitudes tw. Muslims _cons var (_cons) Expl. country var % Chi2 Number of obs Number of countries

3,622* 0,947* 1,052 0,972 8,667 1,118**

0,721**

0,706**

0,674**

0,694*

0,261*

2,148

0,495

0,903

0,421*

0,275

0,605

0,599

0,596

0,359

0,054

0,234

1,222

0,387

0,443

7,704

15,54

15,4

15,3

9,8

1,6

6,6

27,1

10,533

11,9

2229,58

2270,580

2053,320

17420,410

1530,72

1701,990

1719,260

2022,700

1987,17

1978,57

36665

33876

32327

33900

32196

32196

32196

32196

32196

32196

27

27

27

27

27

27

27

27

27

27

626,730

754,140

716,130

751,30

757,300

757,510

751,550

752,130

753,46

Wald chi2

Table 2: Correlation between religious practices and negative attitudes towards people of a different race, Muslims, and immigrants (EVS-data – 27 countries)

Religious practices Prayer outside service Pearson cor N Believing Pearson cor Church attendance

0,986 0,994** 1,012** 1,051** 1,020** 1,000**

Negative attitudes towards People of a different race Muslims Immigrants ,036** ,010* ,016* 37005 36895 36920 ,018** ,007 ,011*

N Pearson cor

38279 ,050**

38170 ,036**

38183 ,032**

N

37948

37848

37863

25

Appendix: Table 1: Country-specific contextual variables:

GDP in PPS 2007 (Eurostat)1 Austria 32800 Belgium 31500 Bulgaria 4000 Cyprus 20300 Czech Republic 12300 Denmark 41700 Estonia 11800 Finland 34000 France 29600 Germany 29600 Great Britain 33700 Greece 20300 Hungary 10000 Ireland 43400 Italy 26000 Latvia 9300 Lithuania 8500 Luxembourg 78100 Malta 13400 Netherlands 34900 Poland 8200 Portugal 16000 Romania 5800 Slovakia 10200 Slovenia 17100 Spain 23500 Sweden 36900

Social spending 2007 (Eurostat)1 27,01 25,46 13,68 17,80 18,01 28,06 12,15 24,60 29,00 26,62 22,32 23,89 21,97 17,62 25,50 10,94 14,08 18,96 17,78 26,69 17,79 22,65 13,19 15,41 20,76 20,49 28,48

Share of Immigrants 2009 Unemployment rate (UN Population 2007 (Eurostat)1 Statistics)2 15,06 4,4 8,86 7,5 6,9 1,38 4,0 16,06 5,3 4,4 8,4 3,8 14,16 4,7 3,84 6,9 10,66 8,4 13,02 8,7 10,12 5,3 8,3 9,58 7,4 3,54 17,68 4,6 6,52 6,1 15,64 6,0 4,32 4,3 4,2 35,2 6,4 3,44 10,54 3,6 2,2 9,6 8,04 8,1 6,4 0,6 11,1 2,38 4,9 8,22 12,74 8,3 13,38 6,1

1

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database [2011-05-25]

2

http://esa.un.org/migration/index.asp?panel=2 [2011-05-25]

26

Table 2: Country-specific means for individual-level religious characteristics (EVS-data 2008) in %

Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden

Roman Degree of religious Protestant Orthodox Catholic homogeneity 72,66 5,64 1,19 72,60

n

Non-

1510

16,99

1509 1500 1000 1821 1507 1518 1134 1501 2075 1561 1500 1513 1013 1519 1506 1500

43,30 25,44 0,40 69,40 12,03 66,07 23,58 48,80 46,08 41,88 3,13 46,52 11,36 19,37 33,69 13,88

50,46 0,20 1,50 26,02 0,53 1,33 0,09 44,72 22,80 10,82 0,67 39,83 83,12 79,56 19,88 80,48

1,26 0,20 0,10 1,98 85,91 12,79 73,67 1,27 28,61 38,92 0,00 12,39 3,62 0,07 21,95 0,48

0,46 60,54 96,80 0,28 0,00 17,63 1,16 0,33 0,53 0,00 94,13 0,07 0,20 0,13 23,28 4,29

50,46 60,10 96,80 70,30 85,91 17,63 73,67 44,72 28,61 38,92 94,13 53,30 83,12 79,56 23,28 80,48

1610 1500 1554 1510 1553 1489 1509 1366 1500 1187

29,63 2,13 47,36 4,50 12,96 2,02 19,73 28,47 24,15 31,97

62,06 96,13 26,55 92,75 82,79 5,06 70,60 66,45 57,39 1,74

3,19 1,20 22,04 0,34 1,35 2,43 8,33 0,44 0,27 62,20

0,69 0,07 0,00 0,67 0,00 86,37 0,53 1,84 1,27 1,05

17,55 96,13 26,55 92,75 82,79 86,00 70,60 66,45 57,39 62,20

27

Table 3: Country-specific means for individual-level attitudes towards minority groups and religious practices (EVS-data 2008)

Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Great Britain Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden

Negative attitudes towards People of different race Muslims Immigrants 0,176 0,310 0,232 0,054 0,145 0,062 0,212 0,195 0,181 0,168 0,360 0,244

Prayer Church outside Believing attendance service 0-1 1-7 0-4 1,738 0,434 2,709 1,249 0,349 2,166 1,502 0,358 2,660 2,877 0,575 3,811

0,224

0,307

0,302

0,900

0,240

1,975

0,047 0,246 0,091 0,091 0,046

0,131 0,339 0,234 0,234 0,262

0,068 0,322 0,160 0,160 0,116

1,011 1,131 1,560 0,991 1,059

0,259 0,305 0,341 0,334 0,256

2,369 2,187 2,209 1,962 2,149

0,058

0,129

0,149

1,332

0,445

2,198

0,101 0,090 0,109 0,156 0,140 0,146 0,123 0,256 0,111 0,122 0,123 0,208 0,154 0,289 0,040 0,056

0,169 0,110 0,227 0,227 0,286 0,470 0,168 0,316 0,189 0,251 0,148 0,229 0,231 0,293 0,129 0,158

0,154 0,152 0,141 0,161 0,209 0,256 0,133 0,341 0,154 0,175 0,079 0,208 0,166 0,285 0,042 0,064

2,700 1,501 2,754 2,449 1,724 1,599 1,288 3,412 1,606 2,837 2,456 3,176 2,475 1,265 1,834 0,9492

0,555 0,380 0,597 0,486 0,448 0,462 0,340 0,765 0,353 0,648 0,505 0,660 0,498 0,334 0,421 0,2091

3,520 2,208 3,730 3,529 2,531 3,020 2,411 4,792 2,512 4,167 3,339 3,746 3,449 2,685 2,421 1,9350

i

This joint initiative is codified in the following documents: Single European Act in 1986; “Declaration against Racism and Xenophobia” (EC 1986, p. 1); the White Paper on the Completion of the Internal M, (EC 1985); the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights (EC 1989). ii The debate on Turkey's EU membership was accompanied by conflicts concerning Muslim immigrants and the space for Islamic representation – of which the headscarf debates and debates on forced marriage were just a few

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examples. The debates were fuelled by an atmosphere of insecurity after 9/11, by the ‘war on terror’ and the military involvement in Afghanistan and in Iraq, the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands and the Mohammad cartoons controversy driven by Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. Islam became a synonym for terrorism. iii Economic and social heterogeneity, e.g. in the form of class differences, are also seen as factors that may reduce solidarity, trust and commitment (e.g. King and Waldron, 1988; Svallfors, 1995; Alesina and La Ferrara, 2000). iv Therewith we follow an understanding of social cohesion that is common in social-psychology (e.g. Hogg, 1992; Carron and Brawley, 2000). v Durkheim defines religion as: ‘[...] a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, i.e. things set apart and forbidden; beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them.’ (Durkheim, 2010: 76 [transl.: FG]). vi This differentiation is suggested by Berger (2001) and refers to rather essentialist definitions of religion. vii We assume that the Christian majority sees differences between the three largest Christian churches (Roman Catholics, Protestants and Orthodoxy) as less salient than those between Christianity and Islam. viii This is captured by an index out of eight questions on transcendental issues that is standardised between 0 and 1; with 0 indicating no salience and 1 meaning ‘high salience’. For the ingoing items a Cronbach's Alpha =.844 is reported; the country-specific Alphas all exceed .7. The country-specific means are displayed in Table 2 of the Appendix. ix The mentioning of these three groups is significantly correlated. But all correlations are smaller than 0,5. x All items are measured on a 10-level scale and are thereby treated as approximately quantitatively measured variables. A multicollinearity check showed only small significant correlations. xi This claim is in line with welfare studies showing that, in particular, national policies matter for individual attitudes and actions (e.g. Pierson, 1993; Mettler and Soss, 2004; Svallfors, 2007). xii An LMM-model for GDP could not be calculated. xiii

Great Britain without Northern Ireland; Cyprus without Northern Cyprus

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