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Perspective(s) of R. Inglehart’s Theory of Evolutionary Modernization: Analysis of Change in Religiosity in Ukraine during the War

stmm. 2024 (1): 93-109

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/sociology2024.01.093

Full text: https://stmm.in.ua/archive/ukr/2024-1/8.pdf

DANIIL KARAKAI, PhD Student at the Faculty of Sociology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Manager of Sociological Research at Kyiv School of Economics (3, Mykoly Shpaka St., Kyiv, 02000)

dkarakai08@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9121-5282

VALENTYN HATSKO, PhD Student at the Faculty of Sociology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Researcher at the Center for Center for Sociological Research, Study of Decentralization and Regional Development, Kyiv School of Economics (3, Mykoly Shpaka St., Kyiv, 02000)

valgat29@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6572-9584

The study analyzes two waves of panel data collected before and during Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. The first wave of the survey was conducted in February 2022 using the European Social Survey questionnaire F2F, and the second wave was conducted using a shortened 47-question questionnaire by telephone in the autumn of the same year. The main focus of the article is on Ronald Inglehart’s theory of evolutionary modernization, which links the changing importance of religion in society to changes in the level of security of the environment. This theory is applied to the study of changes in religiosity in Ukraine during the war. The data analysis showed that the experience of war contributed to a significant increase in self-assessment of religiosity among the panelists (N = 595). The data analysis did not confirm the existence of a linear relationship between the increase in religiosity and the degree of proximity of the respondents’ region of residence (ordinal variable) to the combat zone. When analysing the relationship between place of residence and changes in religiosity by macro-region, no significant differences were found among the panelists from the Eastern macro-region. At the same time, the study found a statistically significant relationship between the growth of religiosity and indicators of in-group solidarity. It was found that the change in the importance of the democratic system is positively correlated with the change in religiosity and is not related to the change in authoritarian values.

Keywords: religious transformation; war in Ukraine; panel data; Ronald Inglehart; theory of evolutionary modernization; existential insecurity theory

References

  1. Adair-Toteff, C. (2016). Max Weber's Sociology of Religion (pp. 154-430). Mohr Siebeck. https://doi.org/10.1628/978-3-16-154430-9

  2. Bentzen, J. (2019). Acts of God? Religiosity and natural disasters across subnational world districts. The Economic Journal, 129(622), 2295-2321. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uez008

  3. Bentzen, J.S. (2021). In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 192, 541-583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.10.014

  4. Echeverría Vicente, N.J., Hemmerechts, K., Kavadias, D. (2021). Armed conflict and religious adherence across countries: A time series analysis. Sociology of Religion, 83(3), 371-401. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srab055

  5. Henrich, J., Bauer, M., Cassar, A., Chytilová, J., Purzycki, B.G. (2019). War increases religiosity. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(2), 129-135. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0512-3

  6. Immerzeel, T., van Tubergen, F. (2013). Religion as reassurance? Testing the insecurity theory in 26 European countries. European Sociological Review, 29(2), 359-372. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcr072

  7. Inglehart, R. (2021). Religion's Sudden Decline: What's Causing it, and What Comes Next? Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197547045.001.0001

  8. Inglehart, R.F. (2018). Modernization, Existential Security, and Cultural Change. Issue 1. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190879228.003.0001

  9. Li, C.-H. (2016). Confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal data: Comparing robust maximum likelihood and diagonally weighted least squares. Behavior Research Methods, 48(3), 936-949. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0619-7

  10. Meuleman, B., Billiet, J. (2018). Religious involvement. In: Cross-Cultural Analysis (pp. 181-214). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315537078-7

  11. Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A.F., Gervais, W.M., Willard, A.K., McNamara, R.A., Slingerland, E., Henrich, J. (2016). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356

  12. Norris, P., Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791017

  13. Patil, I. (2021). Visualizations with statistical details: The 'ggstatsplot' approach. Journal of Open Source Software, 6(61), 3167. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.03167

  14. R Core Team. (2023). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical omputing.

  15. Remizova, A., Davidov, E., Rudnev, M. (2022). Religious involvement across Europe: Examining its measurement comparability. Survey Research Methods (pp. 51-62).

  16. Rosseel, Y. (2012). lavaan: An R Package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2). https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02

  17. Ruiter, S., van Tubergen, F. (2009). Religious attendance in cross‐national perspective: A multilevel analysis of 60 countries. American Journal of Sociology, 115(3), 863-895. https://doi.org/10.1086/603536

  18. Seul, J.R. (1999). 'Ours is the Way of God': religion, identity, and intergroup conflict. Journal of Peace Research, 36(5), 553-569. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343399036005004

  19. Shai, O. (2022). Does armed conflict increase individuals' religiosity as a means for coping with the adverse psychological effects of wars? Social Science & Medicine, 296, 114769. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114769

  20. Sosis, R., Handwerker, W.P. (2011). Psalms and coping with uncertainty: Religious Israeli women's responses to the 2006 Lebanon war. American Anthropologist, 113(1), 40-55. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01305.x

  21. Tajfel, H., Turner, J.C., Austin, W.G., Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational Identity: A reader, 56(65), 9780203505984-16. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199269464.003.0005

  22. van Tubergen, F., Kosyakova, Y., Kanas, A. (2023). Religious responses to existential insecurity: Conflict intensity in the region of birth increases praying among refugees. Social Science Research, 113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102895

  23. Wallwork, E. (1985). Durkheim's early sociology of religion. Sociological Analysis, 46(3), 201. https://doi.org/10.2307/3710690

Received 04.11.2023

Perspective(s) of R. Inglehart’s Theory of Evolutionary Modernization: Analysis of Change in Religiosity in Ukraine during the War

stmm. 2024 (1): 93-109

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/sociology2024.01.093

Full text: https://stmm.in.ua/archive/ukr/2024-1/8.pdf

DANIIL KARAKAI, PhD Student at the Faculty of Sociology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Manager of Sociological Research at Kyiv School of Economics (3, Mykoly Shpaka St., Kyiv, 02000)

dkarakai08@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9121-5282

VALENTYN HATSKO, PhD Student at the Faculty of Sociology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Researcher at the Center for Center for Sociological Research, Study of Decentralization and Regional Development, Kyiv School of Economics (3, Mykoly Shpaka St., Kyiv, 02000)

valgat29@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6572-9584

The study analyzes two waves of panel data collected before and during Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. The first wave of the survey was conducted in February 2022 using the European Social Survey questionnaire F2F, and the second wave was conducted using a shortened 47-question questionnaire by telephone in the autumn of the same year. The main focus of the article is on Ronald Inglehart’s theory of evolutionary modernization, which links the changing importance of religion in society to changes in the level of security of the environment. This theory is applied to the study of changes in religiosity in Ukraine during the war. The data analysis showed that the experience of war contributed to a significant increase in self-assessment of religiosity among the panelists (N = 595). The data analysis did not confirm the existence of a linear relationship between the increase in religiosity and the degree of proximity of the respondents’ region of residence (ordinal variable) to the combat zone. When analysing the relationship between place of residence and changes in religiosity by macro-region, no significant differences were found among the panelists from the Eastern macro-region. At the same time, the study found a statistically significant relationship between the growth of religiosity and indicators of in-group solidarity. It was found that the change in the importance of the democratic system is positively correlated with the change in religiosity and is not related to the change in authoritarian values.

Keywords: religious transformation; war in Ukraine; panel data; Ronald Inglehart; theory of evolutionary modernization; existential insecurity theory

References

  1. Adair-Toteff, C. (2016). Max Weber's Sociology of Religion (pp. 154-430). Mohr Siebeck. https://doi.org/10.1628/978-3-16-154430-9

  2. Bentzen, J. (2019). Acts of God? Religiosity and natural disasters across subnational world districts. The Economic Journal, 129(622), 2295-2321. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uez008

  3. Bentzen, J.S. (2021). In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 192, 541-583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.10.014

  4. Echeverría Vicente, N.J., Hemmerechts, K., Kavadias, D. (2021). Armed conflict and religious adherence across countries: A time series analysis. Sociology of Religion, 83(3), 371-401. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srab055

  5. Henrich, J., Bauer, M., Cassar, A., Chytilová, J., Purzycki, B.G. (2019). War increases religiosity. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(2), 129-135. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0512-3

  6. Immerzeel, T., van Tubergen, F. (2013). Religion as reassurance? Testing the insecurity theory in 26 European countries. European Sociological Review, 29(2), 359-372. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcr072

  7. Inglehart, R. (2021). Religion's Sudden Decline: What's Causing it, and What Comes Next? Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197547045.001.0001

  8. Inglehart, R.F. (2018). Modernization, Existential Security, and Cultural Change. Issue 1. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190879228.003.0001

  9. Li, C.-H. (2016). Confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal data: Comparing robust maximum likelihood and diagonally weighted least squares. Behavior Research Methods, 48(3), 936-949. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0619-7

  10. Meuleman, B., Billiet, J. (2018). Religious involvement. In: Cross-Cultural Analysis (pp. 181-214). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315537078-7

  11. Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A.F., Gervais, W.M., Willard, A.K., McNamara, R.A., Slingerland, E., Henrich, J. (2016). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356

  12. Norris, P., Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791017

  13. Patil, I. (2021). Visualizations with statistical details: The 'ggstatsplot' approach. Journal of Open Source Software, 6(61), 3167. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.03167

  14. R Core Team. (2023). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical omputing.

  15. Remizova, A., Davidov, E., Rudnev, M. (2022). Religious involvement across Europe: Examining its measurement comparability. Survey Research Methods (pp. 51-62).

  16. Rosseel, Y. (2012). lavaan: An R Package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2). https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02

  17. Ruiter, S., van Tubergen, F. (2009). Religious attendance in cross‐national perspective: A multilevel analysis of 60 countries. American Journal of Sociology, 115(3), 863-895. https://doi.org/10.1086/603536

  18. Seul, J.R. (1999). 'Ours is the Way of God': religion, identity, and intergroup conflict. Journal of Peace Research, 36(5), 553-569. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343399036005004

  19. Shai, O. (2022). Does armed conflict increase individuals' religiosity as a means for coping with the adverse psychological effects of wars? Social Science & Medicine, 296, 114769. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114769

  20. Sosis, R., Handwerker, W.P. (2011). Psalms and coping with uncertainty: Religious Israeli women's responses to the 2006 Lebanon war. American Anthropologist, 113(1), 40-55. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01305.x

  21. Tajfel, H., Turner, J.C., Austin, W.G., Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational Identity: A reader, 56(65), 9780203505984-16. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199269464.003.0005

  22. van Tubergen, F., Kosyakova, Y., Kanas, A. (2023). Religious responses to existential insecurity: Conflict intensity in the region of birth increases praying among refugees. Social Science Research, 113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102895

  23. Wallwork, E. (1985). Durkheim's early sociology of religion. Sociological Analysis, 46(3), 201. https://doi.org/10.2307/3710690

Received 04.11.2023

LATEST PRINTED ISSUE

LATEST FREELY ACCESSIBLE MATERIALS

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