In her research, Anna Grzymala-Busse, professor of political science and newly appointed Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies, examines how churches influence politics, and why some have been so successful in framing policy debates and shaping policy outcomes. She will discuss this in the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professorship of European and Eurasian Studies Inaugural Lecture.
Conversations on Europe: “The Sacralization of Politics in Europe and Beyond” will take place 4-5:30 p.m. Dec. 2 at Room 1636, International Institute, School of Social Work Building.
Peter Smith Photography
Examples of the church’s impact can be found in discourse over stem cell research in Italy, abortion in Poland and the teaching of evolution in the United States. In other countries, such as Croatia or Canada, churches have had much less impact on even the most sensitive areas of public policy.
Grzymala-Busse, director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED), maintains the differences persist even when levels of popular religious belief and practice are considered, so that equally religious societies can produce very different public policy outcomes.
The event is sponsored by LSA, the Center for European Studies-European Union Center, Department of Political Science, the WCED and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
