Estonia is often described as one of the most secularised countries in the world in terms of de-institutionalisation and de-Christianisation. Old Religion, New Spirituality: Implications of Secularisation and Individualisation in Estonia, edited by Riho Altnurme, starts with the question: what are the historical reasons for Estonia to be so secularised? The decisive factor in the diminishment in the importance of Christianity was the overlap between social classes and ethnicities. The national identity of Estonians became disconnected to any religion. Second, what are the consequences? How...

This volume aims to provide consolidated analyses of the 2019 European elections and explanations about the future of the European party system, in a context in which the EU has to face many challenges, including the erosion of electoral support for mainstream parties and the increasing success of populist parties. The structure of the book is designed to combine the overall view on the role of elections in shaping the future European project with relevant case studies. The reader is given a perspective not only on the results of the European Parliament elections as such, but also on how...

In A Need for Religion: Insecurity and Religiosity in the Contemporary World Francesco Molteni tries to answer one of the broadest questions for scholars of religion: why is religiosity declining in developed countries? He does so by inspecting all the different nuances of the insecurity theory, which links the feeling of security typical of modern societies with the diminished need for religion as source of reassurance, support and predictability. In this respect, he notes that much of the evidence is far less clear than expected and that secularization processes are at an advanced stage...

This reference book provides the reader with an exhaustive array of epistemological, theoretical, and empirical explorations related to the field of cosmopolitanism studies. It considers the cosmopolitan perspective rather as a relevant approach to the understanding of some major issues related to globalization than as a subfield of global studies. In this unique contribution to conceptualizing, establishing, experiencing, and challenging cosmopolitanism, each chapter seizes the paradoxical dialectic of opening up and closing up, of enlightenment and counter-enlightenment, of hope and despair...

In The Political Potential of Upper Silesian Ethnoregionalist Movement: A Study in Ethnic Identity and Political Behaviours of Upper Silesians Anna Muś offers a study on the phenomenon of ethnoregionalism in one of the regions in Poland. Since 1945, ethnopolitics in Poland have been based on the so-called assumption of the ethnic homogeneity of the Polish nation. Even the transformation of the political system to a fully democratic one in 1989 did not truly change it. However, over the last three decades, we can observe growing discontent in Upper Silesia and the politicisation of Silesian...

In the immense literature on globalization, the work of Roland Robertson stands out. In particular, his insistence that globalization manifests itself primarily as glocalization, the simultaneity of the global and the local, of homogenization and heterogenization continues to influence how a wide variety of observers understand the process, including those who contest it. In honour of Robertson’s lifetime contributions, this volume brings together a set of essays that demonstrate the cogency of his approach, point out directions in which it can be further developed, and illustrate the...