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Master at Home, Embattled in Brussels?

Defenders of faith? Victims of secularisation? Polish politicians and religion in the European Parliament

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Pages 211-226
Received 13 Oct 2013
Accepted 07 May 2014
Published online: 20 Oct 2014
 

Recent years have shown a growing academic interest in the role and function of religion in the EU. This resulted from ongoing discussions on the symbolic deficit of the European project and politicised debate on the Christian roots of European identity, as well as from the enlargement of 2004, which brought into the EU new member-states with different traditions of church–state relations and distinctive forms of religious governance. Our study contributes to this scholarship by focusing on the role of religion in the context of the European Parliament (EP) as exercised by Polish members. The first part provides some background information on the relationship between religion and politics in the Polish domestic context. This is followed by presentation of the research findings from a survey conducted among Polish members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and from a qualitative content analysis of the arguments used by them in plenary sessions. In conclusion, we argue that religion is an important resource in the hands of right-wing politicians for justifying various claims in the EP. Furthermore, we also maintain that the national context and the national understanding of the functions of religion influence the way it is presented and used at the European level.

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Notes on contributors

Magdalena Góra

Magdalena Góra is assistant professor at the Institute of European Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. She holds a PhD in political science from the Jagiellonian University. Her doctoral thesis (2007) dealt with the issues of relations between Poland and Israel after the Second World War. Her academic interests include processes of collective identity formation in the context of the EU enlargement, the European Union as an actor in international relations, European Neighbourhood Policy and enlargement of the EU as well as contemporary Polish foreign policy.

Katarzyna Zielińska

Katarzyna Zielińska is assistant professor at the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University. Her academic interests focus on religion in contemporary societies, gender in Central Eastern European societies and transformations of collective identity in contemporary Europe. Currently she is the leader of the project ‘Religion in Polish politics in the context of the European integration’.
 

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