0000000001130349
AUTHOR
David Herbert
showing 10 related works from this author
“When You Live Here, That’s What You Get”: Other-, Ex-, and Non-Religious Outsiders in the Norwegian Bible Belt
2019
This article presents data from our investigations in Kristiansand, the largest city in Southern Norway, an area sometimes called Norway&rsquo
Religion and Social Integration in France
2013
On some measures, France has the most integrated (and secularised) Muslim population in Europe. For example, attitude research shows that French Muslims share values closer to those of their non-Muslim neighbours than in other European countries (Connor 2010 391). While official sources of data are limited as the French government does not collect statistics organised by religion, ethnicity or any other form of collective identity, a number of private and international surveys have been carried out. Thus, the European Values Survey (2002–6 data) shows that rates of religious observance for Muslims in France are closer to those amongst the majority population than in either Britain or the Ne…
Theorizing religion and media in contemporary societies: An account of religious ‘publicization’
2011
This article argues that a combination of the rapid development and dissemination of media technologies, the liberalization of national media economies and the growth of transnational media spheres is transforming the relationship between religion, popular culture and politics in contemporary societies in ways not adequately accounted for in existing sociological theories of religion (secularization, neo-secularization and rational choice) and still largely neglected in sociological theories of media and culture. In particular, it points to a series of media enabled social processes (de-differentiation, diasporic intensification and re-enchantment) which mirror and counter processes identif…
Paradise Lost? The Collapse of Dutch Multiculturalism and the Birth of Islamophobic Post-Liberalism
2013
The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the integration debate in the Netherlands, and especially on the prominent role of Islam and cultural issues in this debate (Boomkens 2010: 307). Arguably more than in any other European country, anti-Islamic sentiment has produced political consequences, including the formation of three political parties on a principally anti-Islamic platform (Leefbar Nederland (Liveable Netherlands), List Pim Fortuyn and Partij voor de Vrijheid (Freedom Party)) since 2000 and the dismantling of key aspects of state-supported multiculturalism, including a cessation of ethnic monitoring of labour market participation, the withdrawal of national-level funding for m…
Northern Ireland: Sectarianism, Civil Society and Democratic Deepening
2013
The main aim of this chapter is to provide an overview and evaluation of evidence of efforts at peace-building at the level of civil society (rather than political processes, where most analyses have focused) in Northern Ireland, particularly since the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998. How successful have attempts, at the level of civil society, by the people of Northern Ireland, the Irish and British governments, the EU and US governments and other actors been in creating community cohesion in a society with a long history of social and political division? In particular, what has been the role of cross-community and religious groups in these efforts? A second aim is to begin to articula…
‘Community Cohesion’ and English Disruptions of the Multicultural Peace: The Northern Riots, White ‘Backlash’ and the ‘Evocation of a Faith Sector’
2013
This chapter takes as its starting point controversies surrounding the concept and policy ‘agenda’ associated with community cohesion, a concept first voiced in the official reports into the riots in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in May–July 2001. The most influential of these, the ‘Cantle Report’, deliberately framed itself in opposition to the analysis of reports into previous urban disturbances (e.g. Scarman 1981) with their emphasis on ‘systems, process and institutions’, and hence by implication their link to much academic discourse in the social policy field; choosing instead to focus on the interpersonal, on communication between individuals and groups, and on ‘values’, in line with t…
Religion and Social Integration ‘Crises’ in North Western Europe: Some Conclusions
2013
My investigation of religion-related social integration crises in four North West European societies in the period 2001–11 began with the English case and the riots in some Northern English cities of 2001. In concluding I shall start again with this case, bringing it together with the Dutch, French and Northern Irish evidence we have now considered, and with my findings across each of the dimensions examined (segregation, media, institutional forms of multiculturalism and secularism, far-right and post-liberal mobilisation and national cultural trauma). Since much attention has been given to factors which shape conflict and influence the construction of prejudice, and especially to the nega…
Troubled Multiculturalisms and Disrupted Secularities: Religion and Social Integration ‘Crises’ in North Western Europe in Comparative Perspective
2013
These quotations give a sense of the range of themes addressed in this book. Since the turn of the millennium, European societies have been shaken by the re-emergence of religion as a contested factor in public life, arguably part of a worldwide pattern, but taking distinctive form in this most secular part of the world (Norris and Inglehart 2011: 85–9). In this introduction, and again in the conclusion, the European cases which lie at the heart of this book will be situated in the context of broader global developments, in order to better understand the politics of religion in today’s religiously diverse but differently secular societies.
Religion and Civil Society: Theoretical Reflections
2013
Using World Values Survey data, this chapter begins with the global distinctiveness of European societies in terms of both religious vitality and support for the public role of religion. They exhibit a secularity that has been challenged in recent years by an unexpected return of religion as a contentious public issue. The chapter then asks, which theories in the social sciences can help to think constructively through the challenges of religion and civil society in such media-rich, religiously diverse, consumer-oriented secularised societies? It begins with sociology of religion, arguing that while secularisation and rational choice theories shed light on some developments, their conceptua…
Attitudes : Tendencies and Variations
2018
This chapter presents an overview of religiosity and attitudes to religious diversity in media and other public spaces based on a cross-Scandinavian survey conducted in 2015. Although Scandinavians in general have a weak personal connection to religion, Christianity still holds a privileged position as an expression of cultural identity. Scandinavians express support for equal rights to practice religion, but also doubtfulness towards public expressions of religion. More than one-fourth of respondents discuss news about religion and religious extremism regularly. There is a widespread sentiment that Islam is a threat to the national culture, even though most respondents state that they oppo…