Italy and Controversies around Religion-Related Issues: Overamphasizing Difference

For most of the twentieth century, the role of religion and especially religious values in politics has been neglected by political science and political sociology. This was largely a consequence of the adoption of the so-called ‘secularization paradigm’, as well as the fact that most analysis of religion in society was typically a field for specialists. Only since the 1980s has religion ‘returned’ into the public sphere and been framed as an issue for discussion. A growing scholarship, besides the specialist field, has developed on a number of topics, such as: religion and democratization, religiously oriented political parties, religion in international relations, or the public debate on ethical-religious issues, variously approached: this latter is the specific focus of this paper, in relation to the Italian case.