Religious Freedom: Thinking Sociologically

Religious freedom has become increasingly important across the global spectrum over the past decades but has remained a contested concept. This book fills the gap in the scholarship on religious freedom by focusing on sociological dimensions and research methods.

Chapters in this book present data and case studies from Italy, Russia, Iran, Israel, South Korea, and the United States, encompassing a broad geographical scope, and highlight three main issues. The first is the deep and persistent gap between normative and actual practices. The detailed analyses bring insights into how religious freedom is understood and implemented in various contexts and its meaning in everyday life. The second one is the complex interplay of various religious and secular actors in each society. Chapters focus on how it is essential to study how states define religious freedom and the impact of other actors, such as nongovernmental organisations, religious institutions, communities, leaders, and members of various religious/non-religious groups. The third is the role of rival ideologies and the impact of extraordinary social events, such as the COVID pandemic, which can considerably change how religious freedom is conceptualised and implemented.

The book will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Religion, Sociology, Comparative Studies, Research Methods and Social Sciences. The chapters included in this book were originally published as a special issue of Religion, State and Society.

Olga Breskaya, PhD, is Senior Researcher at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology at University of Padova. Her research focuses on the sociology of human rights and comparative study of religious freedom.

Giuseppe Giordan is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology at University of Padova. His research interests include spirituality, religious pluralism, conversion, interfaith dialogue, Eastern Orthodoxy, and religious freedom.

Siniša Zrinščak is Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. His main scientific interests include religious changes in post-communism, state-church relations, religion and human rights, and comparative social policy.