Religious Communities (RC) and Civil Society (CS) in Europe

Religious Communities in European Civil Society is a large-scale exploratory research project aimed at assessing the position of religious communities as potential or active civil society actors in Europe, and at looking into differences in their positioning on legal, historical, cultural, and behavioural grounds. The seemingly vitalizing impact of religion and religiosity on civil society is a research topic that has been extensively looked into, not only in the USA, but increasingly also in an European context. Faith based charities have also been objects of scholarly work in the context of civil society theory and empirical studies. What still seems to be missing is an evaluation of the role of institutionalized religious communities, and of circumstances that facilitate or impede their status as civil society organisations. One assumption is that in a European context, legal relations between the state and various religious communities (minorities and majorities alike) play a crucial role in shaping the religious communities’ scope for action within the arena of civil society.