The Catholic Church in Poland on Muslims and Islam

ABSTRACT

The politicization of the increased influx of migrants to Europe in recent years, as well as Islamist terrorist attacks carried out in European cities, have led to a situation in which anti-Muslim sentiments have reached unprecedented levels. It is not only those European countries directly affected by the growth of the Muslim population that register increased generalized negative feelings towards that population, but also those that are home to very small and partially autochthonous Muslim populations, like Poland, which has not served as a transit point or a destination for the increased number of people arriving from Syria and elsewhere to claim asylum in Europe. P?dziwiatr’s article explores the ambiguity of attitudes in the Polish Catholic Church towards Muslims and Islam in these new circumstances. It examines both the Church’s official statements and the opinions of students in Catholic seminaries, which diverge significantly. When the positions of some of these present and future priests are communicated to the public, they contribute to a strengthening of hegemonic representations of Muslims as Others, rather than a deconstruction of them.     

The Catholic Lobby: Structures,Policy Styles and Religious Networks

This article is about the place of lobbying by the Catholic Church in contemporary Australian federal politics. It builds on some previous attention by political scientists to Catholic political campaigning (eg, Hogan 1978, 1993 ; see also Byrnes 1993 ), but it is more comprehensive. Discussion of such lobbying uses various terminology and, like much lobbying, it can be viewed in a normative sense either favourably or unfavourably, as democratic or undemocratic. During the parliamentary debate in December 1996 on the anti‐euthanasia private members bill introduced by Kevin Andrews, for instance, Nick Dondas (Country Liberal, Northern Territory) alleged that ‘the debate has been driven by the Catholic community of this country’. To which his Catholic colleague Tony Abbott (Liberal, New South Wales), alleging that Dondas had blamed the bill on the ‘Catholic lobby’, responded that ‘those comments were beneath him’. ¹     

Crisis Management in the Catholic Church: Lessons for Public Administrators

The Catholic Church offers a timely, significant case study of institutional failure. Looking at an in‐depth examination of the sex abuse scandal conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the author discusses how the church crisis relates to classic public administration and crisis management theory. Given the similarities between the church and the government as public bureaucratic institutions, public administrations have much to learn from the case. Lessons include immediately sharing harsh truths with the public, accepting the stark realities of higher “public” expectations, establishing appropriate accountability systems, and fostering trust by building close community relationships. It is equally important to consider that church leaders neither fully considered nor absorbed key lessons from existing administrative theory. Concepts such as inappropriate organizational culture, bureaucracy, technicism, and goal displacement often blind leaders to adopting best practices based on well‐established theory.     

The “brand” of the Catholic Church in England and Wales: Challenges and opportunities for communications

This paper considers the concept of “brand” in relation to religious organisations and, in particular, the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It explores the application of marketing and branding concepts to the Church and reports on perceptions of the Church's brand and identity. The findings show that the Catholic Church in England and Wales has very strong brand equity and high levels of brand loyalty among its members, although conventional marketing language should be avoided due to the sensitivities involved. The findings suggest that the Church could usefully be regarded as a “brand community,” akin in many key respects to brand communities in the commercial sphere. It recommends that Church communications could be enhanced by leveraging the brand more effectively as within a true “brand community” for the purpose of encouraging brand loyalty and energising Church members.     

Brexit: The EU Policy‐Making State Hits the Populist Buffers

There seems to be an emerging conventional wisdom that the Brexit vote resulted from specific domestic factors in Britain, such as divisions within the ruling Conservative party, the rise of UKIP, strong reaction to increased immigration, all set against the backdrop of globalisation and its adverse effects. The end result was a populist revolt. The argument presented here is somewhat different. Whilst accepting that the above factors were certainly very important, it is argued that it is important to examine the key role of the EU itself in the creation of the current crisis within the EU. The construction of an EU policy‐making state has run far ahead of what voters at the national level want, leading to a central paradox within the EU, namely that the European elite which runs the EU has introduced some very beneficial public policies, yet that elite has become increasingly out of touch with its peoples.     

Explaining the Emergence of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Case of Denmark

This article aims to explain the emergence of the Danish People's Party, a radical right-wing populist party, by using a model combining political opportunity structures and the diffusion of new master frames. The article shows that because of dealignment and realignment processes – as well as the politicisation of the immigration issue – niches were created on the electoral arena. The Danish People's Party was able to mine these niches by adopting a master frame combining ethno-pluralist xenophobia and anti-political establishment populism, which had proved itself successful elsewhere in Western Europe (originally in France in the mid-1980s). In this process of adaptation, a far right circle of intellectuals, the Danish Association, played a key role as mediator.     

Witness to Rape: The Limits and Potential of International War Crimes Trials for Victims of Wartime Sexual Violence

¹Despite the proliferation of trauma and memory research inrecent years, we know very little about the contribution oftransitional justice mechanisms to psychological healing andsocietal reconciliation in the aftermath of genocide, armedconflict and politicized violence. Many scholars in this areahave argued that the disclosure of traumatic experiences isbeneficial to the psychological recovery process for survivorsof gross human rights violations. This article critically examinesthis therapeutic assumption within a transitional justice paradigm.The article explores the potentials and limitations of internationalwar crimes trials for victims of wartime sexual violence, focusingspecifically on the International Criminal Tribunal for theformer Yugoslavia (ICTY). The article provides a theoreticalframework for analyzing the significance of testimony at internationalwar crimes trials and raises some critical questions relatedto the psychological impact of trials. It is argued that dueto the sheer diversity and heterogeneity of wartime rape victims,the experience of giving testimony is likely to be mixed: whilesome victims may suffer under the constraints of legal process,under the right circumstances, war crimes trials may help othersto make sense of their suffering.     

Measuring the Extent of Party Institutionalisation: The Case of a Populist Entrepreneur Party

The consensus among Finnish commentators is that the True Finn Party (PS), which grew dramatically to become the second largest electoral party in 2011, is an institutionalised party – that is, it is ‘here to stay’. Although led for virtually the whole of its 19-year existence by Timo Soini, the PS, unlike say Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Popolo Della Libertà, is not viewed as a ‘personal party’ in which its expected lifespan is dependent on the political lifespan of its founder-leader. But how institutionalised really is it and when can a party be said to be institutionalised? Building on the syndrome of properties widely ascribed to the process in the literature, the theoretical contribution of this article is to provide a composite definition and the first systematic operationalisation of the notion of party institutionalisation. The empirical section measures the extent of party institutionalisation using the populist-entrepreneur True Finn Party as a test case whilst the concluding discussion considers the wider question of the conceptual utility of institutionalisation for the analysis of party change.     

Exposing the War on Women: The Limits of Law and Power of Care to Address Sexual Violence in Contemporary Crime Drama

A comparative reading of two recent crime dramas, The Fall (TF) and The Bletchley Circle (BC), demonstrates the limits of law and potential of care to address violence against women. TF, a Nordic noir, moves beyond a gender-blind account of crime yet relies on a liberal, state-centric response that blunts its political critique. BC, a hybrid cozy-period-detective genre piece set in post-World War II London, offers a new perspective on violence against women in crime dramas. First, juxtaposing men’s and women’s post-war experiences, BC frames violence against women as an ongoing war in which women remain comrades-in-arms. Second, it suggests that while the state has a necessary role to play as a coordinator of spaces, skills, and citizens, state action alone cannot end violence against women. Rather, citizen engagement through an ethic of care may offer a new way to address such harms.     

The Populist Surge in Post‐Democratic Times: Theoretical and Political Challenges

Populism has often been described as a great challenge and threat to Western democracies. Not surprisingly, at a time in which we are witnessing a significant rise in populist actors in Europe and the US, scientific analyses and commentary regarding populism have become particularly popular and, indeed, necessary. My aim in this article is to offer a brief yet comprehensive overview of the ongoing debates in a bid to problematise the supposed ‘imminent threat’ of populism in light of recent developments within the political systems and societies of established democracies, especially under conditions of crisis. I understand populism as a specific type of discourse, and thus as a way—among others—of doing politics and appealing to groups of people. Thus, I highlight the varying orientations that populist movements might take, depending on the ideological traditions with which they are closely articulated and the sociopolitical environment in which they manifest. Last, I relate the ‘populist surge’ to discussions regarding post‐democracy.     

Social Stigma and Support for the Populist Radical Right: An Experimental Study

The ‘taboo’ or ‘stigma’ associated with many populist radical right parties (PRRPs) has been argued to be an important constraint on their electoral success. In comparison to mainstream parties, there seems to be a higher barrier keeping voters from supporting PRRPs. However, this mechanism has not been tested directly. We conducted a randomized survey‐embedded experiment manipulating the social stigma of a fictitious radical right party in Sweden. We compare three conditions. Two of these contain subtle signals about how other respondents feel about this party. In one condition the fictitious party is supported by many voters (the neutralizing condition) and in the other it is evaluated negatively by the overwhelming majority (the stigma condition). Both experimental groups do not differ significant from the control group in support for this fictitious party. However, the difference between the two experimental groups is borderline significant. This suggests that there is a causal effect of social stigma on support for a RRP, even though the evidence is rather tentative.