Kiriku mõjust religiooni politiseerumisele
Church influence on the politicization of religion

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the influence of churches on the politicization of religion in four post-communist countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Estonia. The main objective is to find out whether or not, in the future perspective, religious social conflict will become part of politics anyway or is this process influenced also by the tactical choices made by churches. Although the dominant churches in respective countries belong to different denominations (Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist), these churches have similar institutional interests as well as challenges. Also, their everyday political choices are not directly dependent upon their theological doctrine. For the evaluation of the political influence of the churches, use is made of the religious market theory which assumes that the churches are motivated by their institutional interests. The article concludes that the tactical choices made by the churches have influenced the development of religious political cleavage. The backing of the radical Christian political parties in Poland or a close alliance with only one political party in the Czech Republic, have been tactical choices of the churches that have reduced the importance of religious political cleavage. The tactical choice of the dominant Hungarian churches, however, yielded the opposite result. Their choice to abandon the radical Christian parties for the moderate Christian Democratic parties increased the importance of the religious political cleavage.

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