Experience of geographical typology of secularization processes in the modern world

• Published in: Geography and natural resources Vol. 37; no. 2; pp. 93 - 99
• Main Authors: Gorokhov, S. A., Dmitriev, R. V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01-04-2016
• Subjects: Earth and Environmental Science; Economic Geography; Geography; Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning; geospace; geographical types; eastern and western communities postsecular world; secularization
• ISSN: 1875-3728; 1875-371X
• DOI: 10.1134/S1875372816020013

In the modern world, seven geographical types of development of secularization processes have been identified; the level of secularization is determined not only by the maturity of social space but also by the structure of geospace. The Latin type includes some countries of Southern and Western Europe, most of the population of which confess Catholicism. The countries of the Anglo-Scandinavian type are characterized by Protestant pluralism. The polarized type combines countries and territories in which Protestants and Catholics form stable, influential and competing blocs. The countries in which the secularization processes were unable to seriously shake the influence of religion in society, because it is the institute of church that was resisting the political and cultural infringement by neighboring states over centuries, refer to the type of religious infringement. The resettlement type is characteristic for the countries whose population was being formed as a result of migration of various confessional (primarily Protestant) groups. The post-socialist type includes the countries in which an active policy of not infrequently forced “political” secularization was pursued. The Confucianistic type combines the states, most of the population of which was pursuing various religious-cultural traditions, with Confucianism predominating in general, and with a widespread occurrence of polyconfessionalism. This geographical typology of secularization embraces the countries, the communities of which have gone through the stages of secular development. The spatial boundedness of the secularization processes in the world is determined by the fact that secularization itself is the product primarily of the entire Christian European civilization.