Suchergebnisse

Locating the beginning of the modern state-church debate at the end of the Protestant Reformation, the article (1) briefly traces the development of Pufendorf's theory of the church as a collegium under state law & the opposing doctrine of the Catholic Church as a societas perfecta independent of the state; (2) surveys the state-church relationship in Germany, Switzerland, & France; & (3) summarizes the development in Swedish law toward greater freedom of religion up to the most recent reforms, decoupling the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden from the state machinery (while retaining ultimate state control). Noting that, apart from the Church of Sweden, religious groups may only, now as previously, organize themselves in private-law associations, it concludes that the recent reform has preserved the traditional Swedish structure along majoritarian lines by endorsing Pufendorf's theory, thus in a sense further pursuing the Protestant Reformation in Sweden. 84 References. Adapted from the source document.

The article presents a study of religious effects on the environmental opinion among individuals in Sweden & the U.S. in 2000. It is a most different system design, since the comparison is between a highly secular (Sweden) & a highly religious population (the U.S.). The study uses data representing the adult population in Sweden & the U.S. In Sweden, religious people tend to be more positive than secular people to policies of environment protection. In the U.S., Republicans who belong to Evangelical Churches & people with a literal understanding of the Bible tend to be rather negative to suggestions on environmental care, while others who claim to be "born again" are rather positive towards suggestions on environmental caring procedures. Adapted from the source document.

Reanalyzing political biographies of Benito Mussolini & Osvald Mosley the author is testing the hypothesis that ideologies like fascism start with fairly innocent ideas and, given the right circumstances, develop in a quasi-logical way on a downward path towards their malignant maturity. With "quasi-logical" the author means something similar to Karl R. Popper's concept "logic of the situation," that is, the logic is neither formal nor strictly deterministic; it follows that actors are not exempt from moral responsibility, you can always choose to act against the logic of the situation. The author finds that an exalted "communitarianism" is an essential factor in the development of fascism. A part of the "logic" is that a demagogue elevating the value of the group, be it "nation," "church," "class," or anything, on the expense of the individual needs the picture of all ugly & evil enemy in order to get the members to obliterate themselves & merge into the group. Accordingly, in a classification of political ideologies the first question to be asked is: "individualism or anti-individualism." The author objects to Sheri Berman's suggestion that communitarianism explains the success of the Swedish Social Democracy during the twentieth century & will instead of that explanation propose "reformism," that is, a non-revolutionary strategy for political transformation. Adapted from the source document.