Abstract

The authors examine developments in the relationship between Catholic social organizations and their electoral channel up to the beginning of the Second World War. Urwin's thesis, which suggests that the connection between Catholic organizations and the electoral channel was completed in 1884, must be rejected. This connection, which is also discussed by Rokkan in his general theory of pillarization, must be regarded as an ideal rather than as an actual situation. During the entire period under study, the ideal was never completely realized. The relationship between the two channels became more difficult as the organizations developed. It was probably not until after 1945 that the actual situation most closely resembled the ideal. The pillarization and the attempts to link the social organizations and the electoral channel can only be accounted for in a field of tensions between protection of one's own milieu, rechristianization, power acquisition, emancipation of social strata, and control by political elites. The results of the actions of the various agents in this field of tensions (episcopacy, socially active clergy and laity, politicians) were certainly not extensions of the direct motives and intentions of one or another group. Processes of power acquisition are complex and we cannot explain them by monocausal or voluntaristic schemas

How to Cite:

Billiet, J. & Gerard, E., (1986) “Kerk en politiek: de lastige relatie tussen de katholieke organisaties en hun politieke partij tot 1940”, Tijdschrift voor Sociologie 7(1-2), 87–118. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/sociologos.85935