Detraditionalization and individualization of religion in the Czech Republic and their socio-political and socio-economic consequences

The project aims to analyze processes of detraditionalization, individualization and privatization of religious values and forms of religious life in contemporary Czech society, including implicit ones and their functional equivalents. Although surveys show that the level of (declared) religiosity of Czech population is low, qualitative studies have carried out that current religiosity/spirituality is to a great extent defined by privatized and detraditionalized „post-Durkheimian“ forms, that significantly influence political and economic behaviour of people, often without direct awareness of the actors. The apparent rationality of socio-economic and political action, which is counted by neoclassical theories, is thus shown to be a fiction leading to incorrect models and predictions. The project is therefore going to focus its research on the analysis of deep-seated roots of such actions, and their practical impacts in social processes including family life and reproduction, social action and relationship to supra-individual entities, etc. The project is theoretically and methodologically grounded in sociology of religion, economic sociology, history and social anthropology. Apart from multidisciplinary theoretical elaboration of the problem, the project is going to include both quantitative and qualitative empirical surveys.