The Moderating Effect of Religion on Causes of Euroscepticism on a Union-Wide Scale
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2024-07-11
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en
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Religion has had a massive influence on the history of the European continent. Since the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years War, Protestants and Catholics have seen a united Europe very differently. Even now, during an age of secularization, religion influences one’s opinion of the European Union. This thesis investigates how religion affects Euroscepticism, specifically through its moderating effect on other causes of Euroscepticism on an EU-wide scale. A quantitative multilevel logistic regression is carried out on a combined dataset of two worldwide surveys, using the concepts of religiosity and religious traditionalism, on the effect of religion on the relationships of income, education, hostility towards other cultures and minorities, and political extremism on Euroscepticism. Results show that religion indeed does have a moderating relationship that can reverse the positive effects of low income and right-wing political extremism, weaken the positive effect of hostility towards other cultures and minorities, but also weakening the negative effect of high education. This thesis provides the catalyst to open the floodgates and research the unexplored moderating role religion can have on the European citizen’s view of the EU.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen