Religious Elites and Social Organization in South-Eastern Europe

传统宗教与现代化进程之间的关系是当代公共讨论和社会科学辩论的中心问题。欧洲联盟的扩大，在精神方面也变得更加多样化，新的宗教运动和该地区几个社会中的反伊斯兰民粹主义，东南欧具有宗教背景的暴力冲突和阿拉伯世界的新事态发展为上述理由提供了经验基础，“东南欧的宗教精英和社会组织”项目要求在多宗教社会中发挥宗教的融合潜力和冲突影响潜力。基督教和伊斯兰教的几个主要分支传统上植根于这一地区。为什么有些社会受到宗教冲突的威胁，而另一些具有类似的宗教社区分化结构的社会却没有？原因是仅仅存在于宗教领域内，还是由外部因素如政治权力安排引起的？案例的选择是基于宗教领域结构的具体差异，包括阿尔巴尼亚、马其顿和斯洛文尼亚。今天对传统宗教的解释的主要来源是宗教要人。他们在外部环境中代表他们的宗教团体，并在内部为他们的精神团体成员解释宗教的内容。因此，他们被接受为群体内的规范倍增者，并通过公开声明和象征性行为影响社会更广泛的部分。因此，拟议项目的目的是从宗教的角度出发，查明宗教要人对东南欧多宗教社会中宗教、政治和人口三角关系的主要态度类型，并了解其融合和分离的潜力。将采用一种相对较新的定性方法，它明确提到答复者的内部参考框架（Q法）。它是为探索性方法而设计的;例如，在国外或在以前很少进行科学分析的社会领域收集数据。如果宗教要人对宗教、政治和社会的中心态度存在显著差异（宗教内部和宗教之间的比较），则在分析的第一步中给出社会中的宗教冲突潜力。其次，将这些结果与民众对这一主题的态度模式进行对比。其次，从宗教与政治关系的法律的和事实的角度，分析了相关干预变量对宗教冲突潜力的影响。

The relationship between traditional religion and processes of modernity is a central issue in contemporary public discussions as well as in debates in the social sciences. The enlargement of the European Union, which becomes more diverse also in spiritual terms, new religious movements and anti-Islamic populism within several societies of the region, violent conflicts with religious background in South-Eastern Europe and new developments in the Arabic world give an empirical basis to justify the above-mentioned attention and hence arguments on hand for the relevance of a scientific analysis of religion in society today.The project `Religious Elites and Social Organization in South-Eastern Europe` asks for the integrative as well as the conflict-afflicted potentials of religion in multi-religious societies. Several major branches of Christianity and Islam are traditionally rooted in this region. Why are some societies threatened by religious conflict, while others with a comparable differentiated structure of religious communities are not? Are reasons located exclusively within the religious sphere or rather caused by external factors as political power arrangements? The selection of cases is based on the specific differences in the structure of the religious field and comprises Albania, Macedonia, and Slovenia.Central source of the interpretation of traditional religion for today are religious dignitaries. They represent their religious community to the external environment and interpret the content of religion internally for the members of their spiritual community. Thus, they are accepted as normative multiplicators within their group and additionally influence wider parts of society by public statements and symbolic behaviour. Consequently, it is the intention of the proposed project to take the perspective of religion and detect central types of attitudes of religious dignitaries towards the triangle of religion, politics, and population in multi-religious societies of South-Eastern Europe and ask for their integrative and separative potential.In order to determine the attitudes adequately, a relatively new qualitative method will be applied which refers explicitly to the internal frame of reference of the respondents (Q-method). It is designed for explorative approaches; e.g. a data collection in foreign countries or in areas of society which were rarely subject of scientific analysis before. Religious conflict-potential within a society is given in the first step of the analysis, if central attitudes of religious dignitaries towards religion, politics, and society are significantly diverging (intra- and inter-religious comparison). Secondly, these results and the patterns of attitudes of the population towards the topic are contrasted. Next, the legal and factual situation of the relationship between religion and politics is considered to identify the impact of relevant intervening variables on the conflict potential of religion.