W(h)ither religious-niche parties? The Nordic Christians’ search for the mainstream through an ‘unsecular politics’ strategy

With the pun intended, this article asks whether, in overwhelmingly secular societies, the four Nordic religious-niche parties created by revivalist Christians before and after the Second World War, and whose strength has been in their countries’ Bible Belt regions, have a future as broad-based, rel...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Arter, David 1944- (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Routledge 2024
Dans: Religion, state & society
Année: 2024, Volume: 52, Numéro: 1, Pages: 21-42
Sujets non-standardisés:B Religious-niche parties
B unsecular politics
B populist radical right
B Christian Democracy
B Scandinavia
Accès en ligne: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Résumé:With the pun intended, this article asks whether, in overwhelmingly secular societies, the four Nordic religious-niche parties created by revivalist Christians before and after the Second World War, and whose strength has been in their countries’ Bible Belt regions, have a future as broad-based, religious-mainstream parties or are destined to ‘wither on the vine’? If, as the parties’ literature suggests, niche-party ‘nicheness’ is variable, can the ‘pure type’ of religious-niche party modify its nicheness and, if so, how, and with what result? The argument made is that i) the Nordic Christian parties have sought to expand beyond their revivalist core by ‘importing’ continental Christian Democracy as an ‘unsecular politics’ strategy and ii) that whilst, outside Denmark, support for the Nordic Christians is no longer a proxy for religiosity, and charismatic leadership has enabled the Christian parties intermittently to attract a wider body of ‘unsecular voters’, they have struggled to retain them in face of competition from a populist radical right playing the ‘Christian heritage’ card.
ISSN:1465-3974
Contient:Enthalten in: Religion, state & society
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2293519