Konfesionalnost i (dez)integracija višeetničkih područja
Confessionality and (Dis)Integration in Multiethnic Areas

Summary/Abstract: An attempt is made in the text to sketch out the theoretical framework for empirical research into the influence of confessionality on the processes of integration in the multiethnic areas of Croatian society. The currency of Durkheim's thesis on the integrational role of religion in society is considered in the introductory part of the paper. That is followed by analysis of the four modes of influence wrought by the religious on integration and disintegration in modern societies, drawing on Fox's research. The last part of the text examines the significance of religion and the religious in integrational and disintegrational processes in Croatian society. It is established in that context that confessionality – in those multiethnic milieux in which it coincides with ethnicity – has latent potential that can be instrumentalised in the process of homogenisation and mobilisation of ethnic groups. In such cases, confessionality acts in a twofold manner: integrationally on the ethnic group, as its common denominator that overarches the forces that set it apart, and disintegrationally on society, re-enforcing the ethnic distance. The text concludes with two hypotheses: 1) ethno-confessional instrumentalisation was more successful in regions in which the confessional scene was reduced to only two confessions (the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox); 2) milieux at a higher level of modernisation were more resistant to conflicts.

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