Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T07:41:41.760Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Deprivatization of Disbelief?: Non-Religiosity and Anti-Religiosity in 14 Western European Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2013

Egbert Ribberink ,
Peter Achterberg  and
Dick Houtman
Egbert Ribberink*
Affiliation:
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Peter Achterberg*
Affiliation:
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Dick Houtman*
Affiliation:
Erasmus University Rotterdam
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Egbert Ribberink, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: ribberink@fsw.eur.nl
Peter Achterberg, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: peterachterberg@gmail.com
Dick Houtman, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: houtman@fsw.eur.nl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article aims to move beyond media discourse about “new atheism” by mapping and explaining anti-religious zeal among the public at large in 14 Western European countries. We analyze data from the International Social Survey Program, Religion III, 2008, to test two theories about how country-level religiousness affects anti-religiosity and its social bases: a theory of rationalization and a theory of deprivatization of disbelief. Hypotheses derived from the former are contradicted, whereas those derived from the latter are largely confirmed. Anti-religiosity is strongest among disbelievers and among the higher educated in the most religious countries and among the older generations in today's most secularized countries.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 101 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Achterberg, Peter. 2006. Considering Cultural Conflict: Class Politics and Cultural Politics in Western Societies. Maastricht: Shaker Publishers.Google Scholar
Achterberg, Peter, Houtman, Dick, Aupers, Stef, de Koster, Willem, Mascini, Peter, and van der Waal, Jeroen. 2009. “A Christian Cancellation of the Secularist Truce? Waning Christian Religiosity and Waxing Religious Deprivatization in the West.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48:687–701.Google Scholar
Amarasingam, Amarnath. ed. 2010. Religion and the New Atheism. A Critical Appraisal. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Bainbridge, William. 2005. “Atheism.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 1:1–24.Google Scholar
Baker, Joseph, and Smith, Buster. 2009a. “The Nones: Social Characteristics of the Religiously Unaffiliated.” Social Forces 87:1251–1263.Google Scholar
Baker, Joseph, and Smith, Buster. 2009b. “None Too Simple: Examining Issues of Religious Nonbelief and Nonbelonging in the United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48:719–733.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert J., and McCleary, Rachel M.. 2005. “Which Countries Have State Religions?” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 120:1331–1370.Google Scholar
Becker, Jos, and Vink, René. 1994. Secularisatie in Nederland, 1966–1991: de verandering van opvattingen en enkele gedragingen (Secularization in The Netherlands, 1966–91: The Changes in Convictions and some Behaviors). Den Haag: Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau.Google Scholar
Berger, Peter. 1967. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Berger, Peter. ed. 1999. The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Bruce, Steve. 2002. God is dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bruce, Steve. 2011. Secularization. In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory. New York, NY: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Calhoun, Craig, Juergensmeyer, Mark, and VanAntwerpen, Jonathan. eds. 2011. Rethinking Secularism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Colin. 1971. Toward a Sociology of Irreligion. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Campbell, Colin. 2007. The Easternization of the West: A Thematic Account of Cultural Change in the Modern Era. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.Google Scholar
Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Cimino, Richard, and Smith, Christopher. 2007. “Secular Humanism and Atheism beyond Progressive Secularism.” Sociology of Religion 68:407–424.Google Scholar
Davie, Grace. 2007. The Sociology of Religion. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. 1969. The Division of Labor in Society. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Ecklund, Elaine Howard, and Scheitle, Christopher P.. 2007. “Religion among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics.” Social Problems 54:289–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgell, Penny, Gerteis, Joseph, and Hartmann, Douglas. 2006. “Atheists As ''Other'': Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society.” American Sociological Review 71:211–234.Google Scholar
Froese, Paul. 2008. The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Greeley, Andrew. 2003. Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Hout, Michael, and Fischer, Claude S.. 2002. “Why More Americans Have no Religious Preference: Politics and Generations.” American Sociological Review 67:165–190.Google Scholar
Houtman, Dick. 2003. Class and Politics in Contemporary Social Science: “Marxism Lite” and Its Blind Spot for Culture. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Houtman, Dick, and Mascini, Peter. 2002. “Why Do Churches Become Empty, While New Age Grows? Secularization and Religious Change in the Netherlands.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41:455–473.Google Scholar
Houtman, Dick, Aupers, Stef, and de Koster, Willem. 2011. Paradoxes of Individualization: Social Control and Social Conflict in Contemporary Modernity. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Hunter, John D. 1991. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald. 1997. Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kronjee, Gerrit, and Lampert, Martijn. 2006. “Leefstijlen en Zingeving (Lifestyles and Meaning).” In Geloven in het Publieke Domein: Verkenningen van een Dubbele Transformatie (English trnaslation here). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, David. 2005. On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory. Ashgate: Aldershot.Google Scholar
McLeod, Hugh. 1997. Religion and the People of Western Europe 1789–1989. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Alan S., and Hoffman, John P.. 1995. “Risk and Religion: An Explanation of Gender Differences in Religiosity.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34:63–75.Google Scholar
Miller, Alan S., and Stark, Rodney. 2002. “Gender and Religiousness: Can Socialization Explanations Be Saved?” American Journal of Sociology 107:1399–1423.Google Scholar
Need, Ariana, and De Graaf, Nan Dirk. 1996. “‘Losing My Religion': A Dynamic Analysis of Leaving the Church in the Netherlands.” European Sociological Review 12:87–99.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa, and Inglehart, Ronald. 2004. Sacred and Secular: Reexamining the Secularization Thesis. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ribberink, Egbert, and Houtman, Dick. 2010. “‘Te ongelovig om atheïst te zijn’: Over de Deprivatisering van Ongeloof (‘Too Much of a Disbeliever to be an Atheist’: On the Deprivatization of Disbelief).” Religie & Samenleving 5:209–226.Google Scholar
Roeland, Johan, Aupers, Stef, Houtman, Dick, de Koning, Martijn, and Noomen, Ineke. 2010. “The Quest for Religious Purity in New Age, Evangelicalism and Islam: Religious Renditions of Dutch Youth and the Luckmann Legacy.” Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion 1:289–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruiter, Stijn, and van Tubergen, Frank. 2009. “Religious Attendance in Cross–National Perspective: A Multilevel Analysis of 60 Countries.” The American Journal of Sociology 115:863–895.Google Scholar
Sherkat, Darren E. 2008. “Beyond belief: Atheism, Agnosticism, and Theistic Certainty in the United States.” Sociological Spectrum 28:438–459.Google Scholar
Smith, Jesse M. 2011. “Becoming an Atheist in America: Constructing Identity and Meaning from the Rejection of Theism.” Sociology of Religion 72:215–237.Google Scholar
Stahl, William. 2010. “One-Dimensional Rage: The Social Epistemology of the New Atheism and Fundamentalism.” In Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Stark, Rodney, Iannaccone, Laurence R., and Finke, Roger. 1996. “Religion, Science, and Rationality.” American Economic Review 86:433–437.Google Scholar
Stark, Rodney, and Finke, Roger. 1999. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Streib, Heinz, and Klein, Constatin. 2012. “Atheists, Agnostics, and Apostates.” In APA Handbooks in Psychology: APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion and Spirituality. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age. Harvard, CA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Te Grotenhuis, Manfred, and Scheepers, Peer. 2001. “Churches in Dutch: Causes of Religious Disaffiliation in the Netherlands, 1937–1995.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40:591–606.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1991 [1920–1921]. From Max Weber: Essays on the Sociology of Religion. Trans. Gerth, H.H. and Mills, C.W.. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zijderveld, Anton C.. 2000. The Institutional Imperative: The Interface of Institutions and Networks. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar