Measuring Religious Freedom in Perceptions

Olga Breskaya is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology at the University of Padua.

This post is part of a series on the sociology of religious freedom.

Together with theoretical perspectives on and analyses of religion’s judicialization worldwide, A Sociology of Religious Freedom devotes a key section to the empirical study of religious freedom and the methods developed to investigate it. As a coauthor, along with Giuseppe Giordan and James T. Richardson, my appreciation for this section was reinforced during a recent discussion of our book, when a panelist, a constitutional lawyer, made an insightful remark:

You sociologists talk about the measures and degrees of religious freedom. For us judges, who deal with legal cases in courts, there is only one scale—either there is freedom, or there isn’t.

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Religious Freedom and the Courts

James T. Richardson is Emeritus Foundation Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies, University of Nevada, Reno.

This post is part of a series on the sociology of religious freedom.

A Sociology of Religious Freedom, coauthored by Olga Breskaya, Giuseppe Giordan, and James T. Richardson, offers in part a sociological perspective on the theoretical underpinnings of the role played by the courts, especially in Western societies, in determining the meaning and implementation of religious freedom. It first explicates how and why this crucial role for the courts has evolved in recent decades and then explores specific trends and landmark cases in major judicial systems in the United States and in Western Europe, focusing on the role courts have played in the protection of religious freedom.

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