Religion and Politics as a Dangerous Mix: Effects of Religiosity on Intergroup Forgiveness and Reconciliation in a Post-Conflict Setting Peace and Conflict
Based on two studies with Bosniak and Croatian students in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this paper analyzes the effects of religiosity on intergroup forgiveness and reconciliation. Both Christianity and Islam advance forgiveness and reconciliation as one of the major moral imperatives. Previous studies also indicate that religiosity can increase readiness to grant forgiveness on the inter-personal level and facilitate rapprochement. When it comes to inter-group level, prescripts of religious piety often conflict with norms of group solidarity and care. Another set of research suggests that religion obstructs conflict transformation due to the dogmatic reasoning it promotes, including reframing of immanent disputes in transcendental (and thus non-negotiable) terms. This study initially tested whether adding religious symbols to conflict narratives impacts prosocial attitudes of respondents and came with negative results. In other words, adding religious codes to already known narratives about conflicts did not have a significant impact on participants' attitudes. In a subsequent SEM analysis, it was found that religiosity in both groups is strongly correlated with group-centricity, which negatively mediates its relationship with both forgiveness and reconciliation. We conclude that collectivistic forms of religiosity that privilege ingroup solidarity might have negative effects on intergroup forgiveness and reconciliation in post-conflict settings.
