Transitions Related to Religion, Minorities and Gender
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Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis Studies in religion and society 6 Welfare and Values in Europe Transitions related to Religion, Minorities and Gender National Overviews and Case Study Reports Volume 3 Eastern Europe: Latvia, Poland, Croatia, Romania Anders Bäckström Coordinator This research project was funded by the European Commission 6th Framework Programme. The project was also supported by the Foundation Samariterhemmet, the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Information regarding the project is available at http://www.crs.uu.se/ or http://cordis.europa.eu/fp6/projects.htm Project office: Uppsala Religion and Society Research Centre Thunbergsvägen 3D SE-751 20 Uppsala Phone +46 18 471 2171 E-mail: [email protected] © Authors and CRS 2012 ISSN 1654-630X ISBN 978-91-554-8545-0 Typesetting: Anna Row Printed in Sweden by Edita Västra Aros, Västerås 2012. Distributor: CRS Contents Contributors ................................................................................................. vii 1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 9 Anders Bäckström 2 Latvia 2:1 Overview of the National Situation ........................................................ 25 Raimonds Graudiņš 2:2 Ogre Case Study Report ......................................................................... 58 Raimonds Graudiņš, Andrejs Berdņikovs, Antra Mazūra 3 Poland 3:1 Overview of the National Situation ........................................................ 91 Irena Borowik, Agnieszka Dyczewska, Eliza Litak 3:2 Przemyśl Case Study Report ................................................................. 118 Irena Borowik, Agnieszka Dyczewska, Eliza Litak 4 Croatia 4:1 Overview of the National Situation ...................................................... 157 Marija Geiger, Siniša Zrinščak 4:2 Sisak Case Study Report ....................................................................... 184 Marija Geiger, Siniša Zrinščak, Tamara Puhovski 5 Romania 5:1 Overview of the National Situation ...................................................... 223 Nicoleta Zagura 5:2 Medgidia Case Study Report ................................................................ 249 Nicoleta Zagura 6 Welfare and Values in Europe: a comparative cross-country analysis .... 277 Effie Fokas 7 Policy Recommendations on three levels ................................................ 313 Marjukka Laiho, Anne Birgitta Pessi, Eila Helander Appendix 1:1 The WaVE team .................................................................................... 336 1:2 The Consortium of the WaVE project .................................................. 338 Contributors Introduction Anders Bäckström, Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University, Project Coordinator Latvia Zaneta Ozolina, Department of Political Science, University of Latvia Raimonds Graudins, Researcher for the Latvian case study Andrejs Berdņikovs, Researcher for the Latvian case study Antra Mazūra, Researcher for the Latvian case study Poland Irena Borowik, Institute for the Scientific Study of Religion, Jagiellonian University Agnieszka Dyczewska, Researcher for the Polish case study Eliza Litak, Researcher for the Polish case study Croatia Siniša Zrinščak, Faculty of Law, Department of Social Work, University of Zagreb Marija Geiger, Researcher for the Croatian case study Tamara Puhovski, Researcher for the Croatian case study Romania Martin Hauser, UNESCO Chair on the Study of Intercultural and Inter- religious Exchanges, Fribourg University/University of Bucharest Nicoleta Zagura, Researcher for the Romanian case study Cross country report Effie Fokas, London School of Economics, Programme Manager Policy Recommendations Eila Helander, Department of Practical Theology, University of Helsinki Marjukka Laiho, University of Helsinki Anne Birgitta Pessi, University of Helsinki vii Chapter 1 Introduction Anders Bäckström Welfare and Values in Europe This book is the third in the series of three from the research project Welfare and Values in Europe: Transitions Related to Religion, Minorities and Gender, WaVE for short. The WaVE-project responded to a call by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme for research on ‘values and religions in Europe’. The call invited studies aiming ‘to better understand the significance and impact of values and religions in societies across Europe and their roles in relation to changes in society and to the emergence of European identities’. The Commission sought an exploration of how religion is used as a factor in solidarity or discrimination, tolerance or intolerance and inclusiveness or xenophobia. It was looking for insight on ways to ensure the peaceful coexistence of different value systems through a comparison of various policies and practices employed in European countries, and through a consideration of their relative degrees of success. It was the positive response by the European Commission to our proposal in 2005 that enabled the European research group to carry out this project successfully. The project ended formally in March 2009 with an international conference at Uppsala University; the work on these volumes has been completed since then. The background to the study The WaVE-project should be seen as part of a wider development of research in religion and society at Uppsala University. It started in the 1990s with a project on church and state in which, amongst other areas, the social/diaconal function of the Church of Sweden was investigated.1 The separation of church and state in Sweden in the year 2000 was analysed as part of the increasing separation between religion and society, but the study 1 The project was part of a broader initiative by the Swedish Research Council under the title ‘The State and the Individual: Swedish Society in the Process of Change’. The title of the project is: From State Church to Free Folk Church. A Sociology of Religion, Service Theoretical and Theological Analysis in the face of Disestablishment between the Church of Sweden and the State in the year 2000. The results are summarized in the final report: Bäckström, Anders and Ninna Edgardh Beckman and Per Pettersson (2004). Religious Change in Northern Europe. The Case of Sweden. Stockholm: Verbum. 9 also included investigations into the deregulation of the welfare state and the increase of poverty resulting from the financial crises in Europe at the beginning of the 1990s. This development sparked a new interest in the organizations and associations of civil society, of which churches and religious organizations are part. After its separation from the state the Church of Sweden became the largest organization within the civil society in Sweden. The study formed the background for the inauguration of a Centre for the Study of Religion and Society at Uppsala University, an enterprise developed in conjunction with the Foundation Samariterhemmet.2 As part of the work on the church-state project an international reference group was formed. This group became the core of a new network with a clearer focus on the place of religion in the different welfare regimes of Europe. In 2003 the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation accepted a second project entitled Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective. A Comparative Study of the Role of the Churches as Agents of Welfare within the Social Economy (2003-2009) – it is known as WREP. The aim of the project was to analyse the function of majority churches as agents of welfare in a comparative European perspective. Its motivation lay in an awareness of common developments observed around Europe, such as an aging population, growing migration and an ever greater strain on the economy. The WREP-project included four different welfare models together with four different majority church traditions with theologies that are ‘incarnated’ in the respective locality. That is a) the social democratic model of the European north which has developed within the context of Lutheran state churches (Sweden, Finland and Norway), b) the liberal model typical of Anglo-Saxon countries (England with its established Anglican Church), c) the conservative or Christian Democratic model found mainly in continental Europe, where the Catholic Church is dominant (France, Italy and to some extent Germany with its special history and bi-confessional status) and finally d) the countries of southern Europe where the state plays a weaker role compared with that of the family (Orthodox Greece but also Italy, at least to some extent). In total eight countries were covered by the project. In order to make the project feasible and at the same time collect reliable and comparable data, the study focused on one middle-sized town, in which different kinds of data were collected including printed material of various kinds and interviews with representatives of the local government, the churches and the wider population. The project brought together different areas of society (a new idea at the time), namely the fields of religion, welfare, gender and social economy. The 2 An agreement between the Foundation Samariterhemmet and Uppsala University to develop research within the social/diaconal sphere of society was signed in 1999. The Centre has now changed its name to the Uppsala Religion and Society Research Centre and has moved to new premises at Uppsala University, see www.crs.uu.se for more information. 10 project revealed the interconnectedness between different