CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Petricusic, Antonija |
|---|---|
| Title | Religiopolitics through Law: Use of Legal Norms and Institutions by the Croatian Conservative Social Movement |
| Summary | A political approach to social movements, which I assumed in the present thesis, asserts that movements could be studied only in connection with politics and power, and that they differ in their strategies, repertoires of contention, organizational structure, and outcomes in relation to different kinds of the political processes and opportunity structures. The term ‘religiopolitical movement’ in the present thesis refers to a social movement that acts on behalf of socially conservative majority with the goal of reducing secular influence over the legislation and government's policies. This thesis explores a connection between religion and contemporary politics in Croatia by analysing a cycle of contention in which the conservative civic initiative “In the Name of the Family” (U ime obitelji) managed to collect more than 700,000 signatures in May 2013 what served as a ground for a nation-wide referendum in November 2013 which introduced the Constitutional definition of marriage as an exclusive union of a man and a woman. This civic initiative is a segment of a broader religiopolitical movement that emerged in the course of the last decade and that seems connected globally to other conservative organizations and initiatives that advocate for decrease of secular influence on the family, oppose sexual and reproductive rights and argue in favour of religious freedoms. The religious nature of the Croatian religiopolitical movement is confirmed by an array of issues that the movement has chosen as it cultural frame: protection of a traditional family; opposition to a same-sex marriage; protection of life from an inception to a natural death; advocating the rights of parents to decide on the value-related content of their children’s' education. The political nature of the movement is manifested through its attempts to scrap down the legislation and practices of both state and private institutions that are deemed contradicting the value system of the Catholic majority. The religious-political nexus of the movement is confirmed by its continuous involvement into law and policy making. The movement leaders often refer to the Constitutional and human rights norms, making this way the legal discourse a significant element of the movement's repertoire. By elaborating why the religopolitical movement has opted for referencing to legal norms and legal institutions as its main repertoire of contention, I explained the benefits of this mobilization technique. |
| Supervisor | Fabiani, Jean-Louis; Geva, Dorit |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/petricusic_antonija.pdf |
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