Christian Democracy
Christian Democracy is a political ideology that seeks to integrate Christian values and principles with democratic governance. It emphasizes social justice, solidarity, and the common good, while also advocating for a mixed economy and a strong civil society. Christian Democratic parties have been influential in Europe and Latin America, promoting a centrist approach to politics that combines religious ethics with democratic ideals.
5 Key excerpts on "Christian Democracy"
eBook - ePub- Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, Jonathan White, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, Jonathan White(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...This concerns the definition of Christian Democracy, and in particular of the specific concepts I will be extrapolating from this ideological tradition for the purpose of interpreting the EU’s institutional framework. As in the case of all ideological traditions, there is an ongoing scholarly debate over what can be considered to count as a properly ‘Christian Democratic’ set of principles and values (on this point, see: Durand, 1995; Kalyvas, 1996; Kselman & Buttigieg, 2003; Kalyvas & Van Kersbergen, 2010). Adopting a ‘morphological’ approach drawn from Michael Freeden’s seminal work on political ideologies, it nonetheless seems possible to identify a ‘core’ of reciprocally defining concepts which demarcate the Christian Democratic ideology as a specific constellation of meanings attached to key political notions (on this point, see for instance: Freeden, 1996, 2006). On this basis, I have recently attempted to systematize the substantive content of the Christian Democratic ideology in a book-length monograph entitled precisely What is Christian Democracy? which applies Freeden’s methodology to the Christian Democratic ideological tradition (see: Invernizzi-Accetti, 2019). This paper therefore draws on my previous research on the topic, while also extending its scope by demonstrating the heuristic value of a morphological reconstruction of the Christian Democratic ideology’s core concepts for the purpose of interpreting the distinctive nature of the European Union’s institutional framework. Polity Type: Beyond Federalism And Intergovernmentalism The contemporary academic debate on the type of polity created by EU institutions is dominated by two conceptual categories: federalism and intergovernmentalism...
eBook - ePubWestern Europe's Democratic Age
1945—1968
- Martin Conway(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
...They wished to avoid the clerical politics of the recent past, and were aware of the need to appeal beyond the ranks of the conventionally faithful to the larger swathe of voters for whom an identification with Catholicism formed part of an amalgam of social and cultural values. Christian Democratic parties therefore preferred to avoid explicitly confessional language, in favour of more inclusive references to Christian heritage and beliefs. The models of a specifically Catholic-inspired political system that had proliferated in preceding decades were largely abandoned. Instead, the parties accepted the norms of the new democratic constitutions, while using their presence in national and local government to ensure that the new political regime did not limit the freedom of action of the Church and its institutions, notably schools. 80 The success of this rhetoric of democracy with its interlinking of the languages of freedom, of Catholic-inflected social values, and of individual opportunity was, thus, a mixture of the ideological and the more simply material. It drew on the considerable heritage of Catholic political and social thought, but more importantly converted those ideas into an evolving set of policies—what Kees van Kersbergen has termed “social capitalism”—calibrated to appeal to a cross-class coalition of supporters. 81 In this way, it also fostered a new relationship between the parties and their electors. The somewhat pejorative sense of clientelism that often characterizes studies of Christian Democracy fails to do justice to the way in which the parties operated in their electoral heartlands as a two-way intermediary between voters and the state...
eBook - ePub- John Witte(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...In Christianisme et démocratie, written in 1942 in the middle of the world conflict, and then in Man and the State, in which Maritain hardly refers to the term “Christendom,” the fundamental idea is a personalist democracy drawing its Christian inspiration from the soul: a soul that acts as “historical energy,” not as a religious confession. The democratic ideal has become “the profane name of the Christian ideal.” 4 Christianity and democracy are two exceptionally rich concepts, and the fact that they have been gradually joining forces offers the latter a potentiality of values that distances it from a purely formal democraticism, conceived as no more than procedures. Maritain may rightly be called the Christian philosopher of democracy as well as of the rights of man. Democracy as a system of values whose historical root is evangelical—a concept taken up by Henri Bergson—deserved in Christian eyes an esteem that liberalism found hard to attain. Such a view gave democracy the theoretical weapons it needed to combat dictatorships in the old world and the new, supplying a faith in the democratic ideal that democracy conceived simply as rules of the game could not provide. 5 The Christian Democratic Concept of Democracy Although the history of Christian Democracy began with the events of 1848 in Europe and the national, liberal and social uprisings that followed it, the history of the Christian Democrat parties began in the first quarter of this century, especially after the First World War, in some central and east European countries and, above all, in Italy, then Spain and France, with the “popular” parties. Historically, these Christian Democrat parties emerged from the prevalently socially-oriented Catholic movements, in response to expectations that society would be reorganized on democratic lines in the aftermath of World War I...
eBook - ePubA Light in the Heavens
Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII
- (Author)
- 1995(Publication Date)
- TAN Books(Publisher)
...Not much exception is taken to the former, i.e., Christian Socialism, but many excellent men find the term Christian Democracy objectionable. They hold it to be very ambiguous and for this reason open to two objections. It seems by implication to covertly favor popular government, and to disparage other methods of political administration. Secondly, it appears to belittle religion by restricting its scope to the care of the poor, as if the other sections of society were not of its concern. More than that, under the shadow of its name, there might easily lurk a design to attack all legitimate power either civil or sacred. Wherefore, since this discussion is now so widespread, so exaggerated and so bitter, the consciousness of duty warns Us to put a check on this controversy and to define what Catholics are to think on this matter. We also propose to describe how the movement may extend its scope and be made more useful to the commonwealth. What Social Democracy is and what Christian Democracy ought to be, assuredly no one can doubt. The first, with due consideration to the greater or less intemperance of its utterance, is carried to such an excess by many as to maintain that there is really nothing existing above the natural order of things, and that the acquirement and enjoyment of corporal and external goods constitute man's happiness. It aims at putting all government in the hands of the people, reducing all ranks to the same level, abolishing all distinction of class, and finally introducing community of goods. Hence, the right of ownership is to be abrogated, and whatever property a man possesses, or whatever means of livelihood he has, is to be common to all. As against this, Christian Democracy, by the fact that it is Christian, is built, and necessarily so, on the basic principles of divine faith, and provides for the betterment of the masses, with the ulterior object of availing itself of the occasion to fashion their minds for things which are everlasting...
eBook - ePubReassessing Political Ideologies
The Durability of Dissent
- Michael Freeden, Michael Freeden(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...And yet Taylor's thesis comprises more than one important point. In order to analyse this ideological perspective thoroughly, we must first impose some sort of order on the confused panorama of religiously-based political ideologies. Secularization and the general anti-religious prejudice displayed by a substantial part of academic research often make it impossible to grasp the diverse layers of the phenomenon. Christian Democracy, in fact, was the final outcome of a process that was by no means linear; and it was moreover a typical ‘ideology of transition’. Its goal was not so much to fashion a new explanation (and perhaps a new organization) of public space as to move a cultural community (in this case a religious community) towards a new organization of public space hostile to it; and to do so in such a way that this community not only found protection for its identity on this new terrain but could also act with its heritage recognized and thus potentially assume leadership. If one does not take account of this context, it is difficult to understand either the exact position of the ideology in the overall panorama or the historical process of its growth and current decline (irreversible, in my view). It is first necessary to examine the relationship between the denomination Christian Democracy – which may theoretically refer to Christianity in its entirety – and the specific position occupied within it by Catholicism. This is an important point because in the post-war period an ‘interconfessional’ form of Christian Democracy arose in Germany which appealed to the Catholic world and the reformed churches alike. As we shall see, this development was exceptional, and in a strict sense the phenomenon of ‘Christian Democrat’ ideology has been closely bound up with Catholicism. At the origin of the problem, obviously, lies the Roman Church's traumatic relationship with the modern political organization...
