Browsing by Author "Augustyn, Hein"

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    The political engagement of the major world religions. Religion: Not Quite “The Opium of the Masses.”
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03) Augustyn, Hein; De Jager, Nicola; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The world is becoming more religious, not less as was previously expected. However, the world’s religions differ and do not have the same teachings and values. At the same time it is important for democratic societies that their citizens engage actively with politics. It is thus important and useful to understand how the followers of the world’s major religions engage politically. The role of religion in politics has often been overlooked. With some - such as Karl Marx who called it "the opium of the masses” - being contemptuous of religion, it is to be expected that religious people would be less politically engaged. This study investigates this expectation. Using a cross-sectional research design this study analyses secondary survey data from the World Values Survey to examine how the world’s major religions engage politically. Two secondary questions it sets out to answer are whether belonging to a religious faith makes you more or less likely to engage in politics, and also whether some religious groups are more positively disposed to the use of violence. The study finds that there are considerable differences in the extent that the world’s major religions engage with politics. Buddhists seem to be the most interested in politics and to attach the most importance to it. All the religions seem to keep well informed, mainly by watching television. Jews seem to vote more than the other groups in both local and national elections. When it comes to positioning themselves on the political scale, the two Asian religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, tend towards the left, whereas the three Christian strands of Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Protestantism are clustered around the centre. Catholics tend the furthest towards the right among all the groups. Protestants seem to be significantly more engaged in civil society organisations than any of the other groups. They also seem to participate more in the signing of petitions and boycotts than any other group. Jews seem to take more part in peaceful and lawful demonstrations and other political action than other groups. With regards to unconventional political action, Protestants and Jews seem to participate more in unofficial strikes than other groups. All the groups recorded a very negative attitude towards violence against other people. However, Jews seem to be the most positively disposed towards it, followed by Hindus. Orthodox Christians seem to be the most negative towards violence. Some groups thus seem to be slightly more positively disposed towards violence against other people than others. The religiously unaffiliated seem to engage actively in conventional protest action, only moderately in unconventional political action and poorly in civil society organisations. Although they seem to be politically more engaged than groups like the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Orthodox Christians, they do not appear to be more engaged than Jews or Protestants. It thus seems that religion, as a whole, cannot be considered to be “the opium of the masses” since various religious groups have frequently been shown to be more engaged in politics than those who are religiously unaffiliated.