Recent data show that Romania is the most religious among 34 European countries (
Evans and Baronavski 2018), as well as one of the least developed European Union member states (
UN Human Development Reports 2019). Although a signatory of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and therefore committed to reach its goals, Romania presently finds itself quite distant from realizing them. Recent research has shown that the implementation status of sustainable development goals (SDGs) is sub-optimal, forecasting that only 40 of the 107 indicators analysed will be reaching EU average values by 2030 (
Firoiu et al. 2019). However, it also emphasises that, if the right measures are taken, Romania can still remain on the path to development. Although religion seems to play an important role in Romanian society and culture, empirical research assessing the influence of people’s religiosity on their attitudes and behaviour towards others and the environment in which they live is lacking. Moreover, the success of development plans and strategies for the near future will significantly rely on the current younger generation. As previous results indicate, the Romanian young people also show significantly high levels of religiosity (
Rogobete and Reisz 2018). The question addressed in this study therefore is whether their religiosity can be a predictor for development attitudes and predispositions.
The concept of development is being used in this work in the general sense given by the UN’s 1987 Brundtland Commission Report [1987], as “[development] that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (
Brundtland 1987). This concept is at the centre of the UN’s Agenda 2030 (
UN 2030 Agenda 2015). Academic literature quite widely backs the idea that the key to development is a strong culture of support for human rights, and value-based predispositions towards the fulfilment of sustainable developmental goals (
Sen 2000). The current research project considers drivers or attitudes conducive to development to be support for human dignity, support for human rights, and individual values (self-direction, universalism). Given the complexity of the concepts involved, the first part of this paper maps their dynamic interconnections by a review of the relevant literature.
1.1. Religion, Values and Development
One possible starting point is the contested place played by religion (
Rakodi 2015). In fact, for most of the 20th century, dominated by secularism, religion was seen, in the former communist atheistic regimes, as an outright “enemy”, while in the West, it was perceived as an unimportant contributor to the public sphere, and thus was pushed into the private realm. The Weberian “dis-enchanting” of the world was taken as a given certainty with the dawn of modernity (
Berger 1969). This situation is significantly changing, to the point where the same authors are often, based on new empirical data, reconsidering their evaluations (
Berger 1999). In countries such as Romania, which were until 1989 part of the Eastern communist bloc, all three aspects of life, religion, human rights and development, were contested (
Kolakovski 1983;
Tismăneanu 2003;
Rogobete and Reisz 2018).
However, the dramatic failure of the atheist-totalitarian political regime in Romania led to a rather unexpected return to religion as well as to a growing movement towards embracing democracy and human rights. In regard to religiosity, both in terms of practice and belief, Romania is the most religious country in Europe. Currently, 98% of the population claims to belong to a Christian denomination (87% Eastern Orthodox), 95% of the population believe in God, 55% of Romanian adults are “highly religious”, 50% say “religion is very important in their lives”, 50% attend church at least monthly, 44% say they pray daily and 64% say they “believe in God with absolute certainty” (
Evans and Baronavski 2018). Earlier studies have shown that the young people whose attitudes are surveyed in this work also display high levels of religious practice and belief, with 81% of the sample considering themselves as believers, 88% praying regularly, and 44% attending religious services at least once a month (
Rogobete and Reisz 2018). Such figures are higher than in other European nations, as shown by results of comparative studies based on the same data (
Unser et al. 2018;
Breskaya et al. 2019;
Breskaya and Rogobete 2020). Hence, in this study too, religiosity will be assessed both in regard to its content/substance, and its various forms of manifestation. In other words, we are interested at looking into both the content of religious beliefs (faith in general, faith in God in particular) and religious practice (frequency of prayer and religious service attendance) of the subjects involved in the study.
Academic assessments of the role of religion in development in the Romanian context are limited (
Lazar 2011). Relevant for the current study is a doctoral thesis (
Bates 2013), which offers a solid conceptual analysis of the ways in which core teachings of the majority Eastern Orthodox tradition are compatible with development studies. Generally following
Deneulin and Bano’s (
2009) approach to the relationship between religion and development studies, it shows how some key aspects of Orthodox theology, such as phronesis (practical wisdom) or its Trinitarian (communitarian) theological anthropology, can contribute to a conceptual framework for human development.
Francis Fukuyama (
2014) endorsed the research, highlighting the strong connections that can be explored between Eastern Orthodoxy and development studies, entailing an image of the human person as a morally responsible agent called to engage in human development, “which is to say a process of understanding and appropriately developing all of nature’s potentials (biological, sociological, etc.), and for the benefit of all”.
In one recent comprehensive exploration of the role of religion and the “faith actors” in the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda of the sustainable development goals, the authors confirmed the “turn to religion” in global development policy and practice from the early 2000s (
Tomalin et al. 2019). Their study offers an in-depth evaluation of the role that faith actors have played in the elaboration and implementation of the SDGs.
Looking at the content of religious practice and belief,
Deneulin and Bano (
2009) challenged contemporary views that religion remains a private affair. Assessing core beliefs and practices of Christians and Muslims around the world, they argued that for religious persons and for their communities, alleviating poverty, and promoting social justice and equality are intrinsic acts and expressions of faith. In other words, it is not only the function of religion that counts in development studies but also the content and the practice of religious beliefs that can result in acts supportive to development. Religious people concerned with development do so in a way informed by who they are and what they believe in: “religion infuses all aspects (and decisions) of their lives, and this has implications for the way they understand what development processes and outcomes ought to be” (
Deneulin and Bano 2009, p. 6). Their book highlights the role of religion in development, emphasizing that “religion forms people’s values and what counts as legitimate development” (
Deneulin and Bano 2009, p. 28).
This argument takes further
Amartya Sen’s (
1999) view of development as based not so much on practices and institutions, as on the free agency and values people deeply hold. Although Sen does not make references to religion, his central ideas, developed around the concept of the capability approach, place individual and collective values at centre stage for human development. Religion, by its nature, provides a metaphysical ground for intrinsic values that often go beyond such wellbeing dimensions, such as education or health, perceived in largely functional extrinsic terms. Therefore, religion should not be “viewed instrumentally but recognized as shaping peoples’ deeply held moral values and what they see as desirable and worthy of pursuit” (
Deneulin and Bano 2009, p. 8). Hence, it is important to understand and further enquire into the ways in which religion is capable of shaping individual values, which in turn, are relevant resources to a sustainable development agenda.
Narayanan (
2013) applies a similar approach, further analysing the complex connections between religion and sustainable development. She argues that, particularly in contexts in which religion is problematic or plays a crucial role, “it is even more important for sustainable development to engage actively and critically with it, to retrieve religion’s life-enhancing potential” (
Narayanan 2013, p. 132). Furthermore, she highlights that religion can have an influential role in determining socioeconomic sustainability. Her analysis emphasises three important dimensions. First, religion provides universal values, which can become a resource for the knowledge and practice of sustainable development. Second, religion has a role in sustainable development, by providing a solid ground for the human self and its own development. For instance, religion can provide a set of individual values, such as unconditioned benevolence or self-sacrifice. Thirdly, a strong notion of the self can be a powerful resource for socioeconomic activism targeting a sustainable agenda. Assessing religiosity, its role in defining who we are, what we value most, and what ultimately motivates us to act, becomes a relevant task in assessing dispositions towards a sustainable future. Religiosity can thus contribute to a person’s development, alongside other general aspects intrinsically valued by individuals, such as safety, health, or self-direction (
Narayanan 2013).
The links between religion and individual values, particularly in relation to sustainable development, however, are still underexplored (
Ives and Kidwell 2019). Based on
Schwartz’s (
1992,
1994) earlier research on universal individual value systems,
Ives and Kidwell (
2019) define religion as a strong identity provider, and an important player in establishing and shaping values and norms. This, in turn, can be instrumental in providing the right ingredients for sustainable development. Research findings have pointed out that the religiosity of adherents to all major Christian denominations and to Jewish faith correlated positively with benevolence, empathy, traditionalism, conformity and security values, and negatively with power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, and self-direction (
Schwartz and Huismans 1995). Another relevant study, based on Schwartz’s model, is a meta-analysis that showed that religious people scored highly on values that promote conservation of social and individual order, along with limited self-transcendence (i.e., benevolence, but not universalism) (
Saroglou et al. 2004). However,
Ives and Kidwell (
2019) rightly argue that a deeper understanding of the ways in which values are influenced by religion, therefore making them compatible with sustainable outcomes, requires a better knowledge of the wider contexts in which they operate.
1.2. Religion, Human Rights and Sustainable Development
Human rights and the right to development have been affirmed as intrinsically linked—the right to development is a fundamental human right (
Vienna Declaration 1993). A careful assessment of the
UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development also offers ample proof that the right to development remains central to the project of human rights, yet in the new context of increasing globalization, it moves forward to include issues of sustainability. Moreover, human dignity is to be found at the foundation of all discourse and practice of the UN and the EU agendas on human rights and development. Dignity is the legal concept underlying all other human rights (
Grimm 2013). Hence, human rights and human dignity, seen in a global context, remain the main underlying concepts, the
raison d’etre, of the UN 2030 Agenda. Its preamble makes both of these points explicitly clear, while a careful analysis shows how human rights, particularly socioeconomic rights, can be found enshrined in all of its 17 goals.
Conceptually, links between human capabilities, human agency and dignity, freedom and the pursuit of safety and happiness enshrined in human rights and human development have been explored by
Amartya Sen (
1982,
2004,
2005) and
Martha Nussbaum (
2003). As a normative theoretical framework, “the capability approach”, launched by
Sen (
1980), starts from stating that the right of a person to pursue and to achieve well-being is a fundamental moral question. Going beyond utilitarianism and equalitarianism, such a right must, however, include both concrete access to resources, and the individual’s real capabilities to reach them. Moreover, the pursuit for well-being starts from the individual’s concrete capabilities, centred on, and informed by what she has strong reasons to value. In other words, being capable to live “free from fear” and “free from want” means being capable to “be” and to “have” what one values most. As such, human rights are intrinsically connected with human development and human dignity. Empirically, such theoretical framework led to a growing literature relating human rights and development, a relevant example being the
Economic and social rights fulfilment index used to measure human rights support through the lens of socioeconomic developmental measures (
Fukuda-Parr et al. 2009;
Randolph et al. 2010). Hence, it displays the relevance of support for socioeconomic rights in development.
In regard to religion and human rights, previous studies on the same sample of participants as the current one, based on different variables, have shown that belief in God and attendance of religious services have a limited negative effect on attitudes to certain judicial rights, but no effect for political rights (
Rogobete and Reisz 2018). In addition, assessing whether the religiosity of the students, or the self-acquired socio-political and psychological traits have a more significant influence on their support for socioeconomic rights, the findings show the most significant issues supporting socio-economic rights to be: the respondents’ belief in God, their view that politicians may consult religious leaders about ethical issues, and their high levels of empathy (
Rogobete and Vitelar 2020). The current study intends to take these inquiries further, assessing the role religiosity and individual values play in generating attitudes relevant to sustainable development (i.e., support for human rights and human dignity).
Gas-Aixendri and Albareda-Tiana (
2019) use religion as an independent variable, while measuring commitment to human rights values and actions within a sustainable development framework. Their study shows that an increased support for socioeconomic human rights, using religion as an independent variable, can be translated into advancing a development agenda. Moreover, to prove such development sustainable, they argue that the enquiry needs to address some concrete concerns for sustainability, such as care for the environment (universalism).
However, some scholars have a rather critical view of the interplay between human rights and sustainable development, describing them as different conceptual constructs with often contrasting agendas (
Donnelly 1999). Other scholars question the compatibility between promoting important sustainable goals, such as long-time environmental responsibilities, while potentially harming such rights as the right to self-determination, free movement, or the right to work in the present (
Grimm 2013).
Finally, the present study seeks to inquire if religiosity can be a predictor for support for human rights, values, and attitudes, conducive to sustainable development. Thus, the study includes the following steps: (1) assessing the impact of religiosity (beliefs and practice) on participants’ individual values, (2) analysing how religiosity influences respect for human dignity (merit, moral and intrinsic), (3) evaluating the impact of religiosity on and attitudes to an extensive range of human rights (civil, political, judicial, social and economic), while at the same time considering the potential influence of individual values and views of moral dignity. The study finds that, for this sample, religiosity has a real but limited impact in supporting and promoting a culture of sustainable development as enshrined in the UN 2030 Agenda. More support was found in the realm of the respondents’ individual values related to self-direction and universalism.