What Is Christian Democracy

A comprehensive global study of the political ideology of Christian Democracy, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day.

Although dominant in West European politics for more than a century, Christian Democratic parties remain largely unexplored and little understood. An investigation of how political identities and parties form, this book considers the origins of Christian Democratic "confessional" parties within the political context of Western Europe. Examining five countries where a successful confessional party emerged (Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and Italy) and one where it did not (France), Stathis N. Kalyvas addresses perplexing questions raised by the Christian Democratic phenomenon. How can we reconcile the religious roots of these parties with their tremendous success and resilience in secular and democratic Western Europe? Why have these parties discarded their initial principles and objectives to become secular forces governing secular societies? The author's answers reveal the way in which social and political actors make decisions based on self-interest under conditions that constrain their choices and the information they rely on—often with unintended but irrevocable consequences.Kalyvas also lays a foundation for a theory of the Christian Democratic phenomenon which would specify the conditions under which confessional parties succeed and would determine the impact of such parties, and the way they are formed, on politics and society. Drawing from political science, sociology, and history, his analysis goes beyond Christian Democracy to address issues related to the methodology of political science, the theory of party formation, the political development of Europe, the relationship between religion and politics, the construction of collective political identities, and the role of agency and contingency in politics.

In this engaging and innovative new book, French scholar Jacques Proust analyzes the image Europe presented to Japan, deliberately or otherwise, from the mid-sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century. Appearing for the first time in an American translation, Europe through the Prism of Japan relies on a large quantity of underexplored documents from which Proust has tried to reconstruct, like a puzzle, Japanese-European relations during the age of European exploration. This fascinating book describes in careful detail developments in Japanese culture and civilization during three hundred years of interaction between Japanese and Europeans, including Dutch merchants, Spanish Catholic missionaries, and German and Portuguese Jesuits. Proust examines not only Europeans' influence on Japan but also the unique Japanese interpretation of European culture. This fresh perspective offers a prism through which Europe may be viewed and frequently sheds light on facets of European civilization of which not even the Europeans, at the time, were aware. Proust's lively study is especially valuable because of its interdisciplinary nature. Covering topics as wide ranging as art history, theology, philosophy, political and social history, and even the history of medicine, Proust interweaves these fields to present a unified historical and intellectual fabric. This round-trip journey between Japan and the West, which in the sixteenth century took about four years and can be done today in twenty-four hours, has the advantage of imposing on comparative studies a unique geographical and historical framework. Proust broadens our understanding of two very different cultures by providing new insight into both European and Japanese history.

A pioneering exploration of the origins of German Christian Democracy in the context of 19th- and 20th-century politics and religion

Christian Democracy, which may briefly be defined as organised political action by Catholic democrats, has been a major political force in Western Europe since the Second World War, not least in France. The aim of this book, first published in 1973, is to trace the Development of Christian Democracy in France from its origins in the 1830s to the present day, discussing its theories and its importance in French history and politics, with particular (but by no means exclusive) reference to the Fourth Republic (1946-58) when the MRP was one of the key centre parties. Dr Irving provides a thorough analysis of MRP, its economic, foreign and colonial policies, and gives reasons for the relative decline of French Christian Democracy in the 1960s. This French movement has been little understood in Britain and a throrough history has been badly needed. This study will be valuable to all those who, in the context of a United Europe, wish to understand the political forces at work at its conception. It will be valuable especially to students of modern history and politics.

This text examines the history, organisation and continuing worldwide influence of the International Christian Democratic movement, which currently has nearly 70 parties on five continents. It demonstrates how a religious political movement has acquired such wide political influence.

Debates on the role of Christian Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe too often remain strongly tied to national historiographies. With the edited collection the contributing authors aim to reconstruct Christian Democracy’s role in the fall of Communism from a bird's-eye perspective by covering the entire region and by taking “third-way” options in the broader political imaginary of late-Cold War Europe into account. The book’s twelve chapters present the most recent insights on this topic and connect scholarship on the Iron Curtain’s collapse with scholarship on political Catholicism. Christian Democracy and the Fall of Communism offers the reader a two-fold perspective. The first approach examines the efforts undertaken by Western European actors who wanted to foster or support Christian Democratic initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe. The second approach is devoted to the (re-)emergence of homegrown Christian Democratic formations in the 1980s and 1990s. One of the volume’s seminal contributions lies in its documentation of the decisive role that Christian Democracy played in supporting the political and anti-political forces that engineered the collapse of Communism from within between 1989 and 1991.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.