Interreligious Dialogue and Local Governance in Europe: A Political Science Perspective

In the first quarter of the 21st Century, Western Europe witnessed a proliferation of various types of interreligious initiatives. In the meantime, a new paradigm of local management of religious diversity has become increasingly popular in many parts of the continent. This new approach focuses on the involvement of religious actors in policy making, in a bottom-up “governance” perspective, rather than on old-style directive and top-down “government”. As a consequence, interreligious bodies and initiatives have started playing not only a social but also a political role, in some cases even formally sanctioned at the institutional level. However, considering that most part of the existing literature on the local management of religious diversity adopts a sociology or religious studies perspective, a thorough assessment of the political meaning of this phenomenon is still lacking. The present article tries to contribute to fill this gap by assessing the main points of the existing literature, sketching a typology of interreligious initiatives and their political/institutional roles, and, finally, drafting a new research agenda in order to improve our comprehension of the role of interreligious bodies in local governance and how to enhance their democratic and participative nature.