Religion, democratic values and political conflict

Religion, democratic values and political conflict

Festschrift in Honor of Thorleif Pettersson
Edited by: Yilmaz Esmer, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, and Bi Puranen
ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS, 2009

This volume is written in honor of Thorleif Pettersson, an erudite social scientist with a special interest in sociology of religion, a gifted researcher and a scholar playing a key role in the World Values Surveys. Some of the closest colleagues and friends of Thorleif Pettersson have contributed insightful essays to the present volume in recognition of his academic achievements. Part I concentrates on religion, secularism and morality. The essays in Part II deal with the broad subject of democratization and good governance. Finally, Part III contains three chapters on values related to war and peace. The volume concludes with a chapter which offers a broader historical and theoretical perspective on the study of values. The chapters of Religion, Democratic Values and Political Conflict represent a broad spectrum research and analyses related to the study of human values and socio-cultural change. From Classical Greece to contemporary social science, this research tradition is based on the recognition that "values matter". Together the chapters illustrate a broad research field where surveys of people's values and attitudes in almost hundred societies on all six continents are analyzed. The values surveys provide knowledge and information about ordinary citizen's life and values. This 'bottom-up' perspective is vital for understanding the transition of societies and it is also a pivotal characteristic of the work of Thorleif Pettersson.



The book can be obtained via the World Values Survey Secretariat, info@worldvaluessurvey.org or Uppsala university Library, Box 510, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden, www.uu.se, acta@ub.uu.se