The Strength of Religious Lifeworld: The Impact of Social Spaces on Religious Values in Central and Eastern Europe

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The key concept of the title and the theoretical background is social spaces, however, it is not clear whether the separate social spaces mean the entire region, countries or the private and public spheres. According to Lefebvre, the society of an area forms common social constructions, and these affect individual norms. The theoretical background uses the concepts of space, sphere, area - it seems - as synonyms. Authors also differentiate the terms, private and organizational norms, based on the theories of Wislon and Habermas. The clarification and separation of the meaning of the space-area-sphere concepts must be improved.

There is also a lack of conflicting theories and research results regarding the main claim of the study. Secularization theories do not argue that religiosity is relegated to the private sphere from the public domain, which includes tha large organizational systems also. The debates and discussions related to this are not presented, so the novelty of this research is not highlighted. It is definitely a new result of this manuscript, that in CEE countries the question is being examined over a longer period of time. However, the comparison of countries is only mentioned, but not explained.

Authors excellently operationalizes the effectiveness of norms for the private and social spheres, but it is not clear why he calls this "values" throughout the study. There is no doubt that the norms show which values ​​a community prefers, but here, altogether it is not the examination of values, but the enforcement of norms.

The hypotheses are understandable, but no hypothesis applies to countries as social spaces. However, in the social context of the countries, there are great differences in terms of religiosity, and based on Lefebvre's theory, this should cause differences between countries in terms of the perception of both private and public (organizational) norms.

The discussion part is completely missing, which should refer back to the theoretical debates, present the logical testing of the hypotheses and the scientific novelty of the study.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1

Thank you for your comments, whose perspectives helped us to better frame the research topics. We have revised and supplemented the paper along the lines of these suggestions and have presented the novel direction of our research in a more explicit way.
We have responded to the suggestions point by point and have highlighted the additions to the text in yellow. 

1. "The key concept of the title and the theoretical background is social spaces, however, it is not clear whether the separate social spaces mean the entire region, countries or the private and public spheres. According to Lefebvre, the society of an area forms common social constructions, and these affect individual norms. The theoretical background uses the concepts of space, sphere, area - it seems - as synonyms."

Thank you for your suggestions, which have helped us to formulate our theses more clearly on the relationship between social spaces and the emergence of religious values. In doing so, we have clarified the distinction between social spaces present in the countries of the region under study, according to the insights of the spatial theory literature presented. In expanding the text, we have discussed in more detail the authors who have worked on spatial theory and highlighted how their approach relates to our research topic. As part of this, we have also discussed the work of Lefebvre, which shows how social spaces can have a constitutive effect within a society.

2. "Authors also differentiate the terms, private and organizational norms, based on the theories of Wislon and Habermas. The clarification and separation of the meaning of the space-area-sphere concepts must be improved."

Thank you for drawing our attention to the issue of terminology. Here, for stylistic reasons, we have mostly used the terms space, area, sphere as synonyms. When we have done so, we have corrected the discrepancies in these cases and have consistently used the term "social space". (The reason for this is that after the spatial turn, the relevant literature mostly uses this notion). We have left the term "sphere" only for those concepts (when discussing the theory of Wilson and Habermas) where the authors have not yet reflected on the results of the spatial turn and have distinguished independently between the different parts of society that function in different ways. 

3. "There is also a lack of conflicting theories and research results regarding the main claim of the study. Secularization theories do not argue that religiosity is relegated to the private sphere from the public domain, which includes tha large organizational systems also. The debates and discussions related to this are not presented, so the novelty of this research is not highlighted. It is definitely a new result of this manuscript, that in CEE countries the question is being examined over a longer period of time. However, the comparison of countries is only mentioned, but not explained."

In order to shed more light on our own concept, we have discussed in detail the literature on spatial theory and its links to secularisation theory. We emphasised that, although the authors who have dealt with secularisation do not really deal with the issue of social spaces in any meaningful way (i.e. they mostly do not touch on the relationship between religiosity and public and private spaces), we have indicated that the seeds of this approach are already present in Wilson's conception. In addition, we have shown why this Wilsonian assumption has become the starting point for our present analysis. In doing so, we have also highlighted more explicitly the novelty of our approach, showing that there has been no previous substantive attempt to analyse the relationship between social spaces and the emergence of religious values using a quantitative database.  In addition, we have also discussed how studies of religion (e.g. Woodhead) interpreting changes in secularisation relate to our current analysis.

4. 
   "Authors excellently operationalizes the effectiveness of norms for the private and social spheres, but it is not clear why he calls this "values" throughout the study. There is no doubt that the norms show which values a community prefers, but here, altogether it is not the examination of values, but the enforcement of norms."

Thank you for pointing out to us that it is worth clarifying the meaning of the terms value and norm. Our supplement on this issue refers to both the theoretical and empirical literature on value research. All these insights support the study's use of terminology.

5. "The hypotheses are understandable, but no hypothesis applies to countries as social spaces. However, in the social context of the countries, there are great differences in terms of religiosity, and based on Lefebvre's theory, this should cause differences between countries in terms of the perception of both private and public (organizational) norms."

Thank you for these suggestions. Indeed, the text contained results about country differences, but we did not have any hypothesis about this. We added two new hypotheses (H5a and H5b) to the text, which reflect the expected differences between the less and more religious countries regarding the effect of religiosity on norms. We also altered our models to present the country (and wave) differences more straightforwardly. The result and discussion sections were also extended with the analysis of country differences. 

6. "The discussion part is completely missing, which should refer back to the theoretical debates, present the logical testing of the hypotheses and the scientific novelty of the study."

We have supplemented the paper with a Discussion part in which we refer back to the theoretical debates and summarize the novelties of our analysis for the study of religion. (The results concerning the hypotheses are already summarized in the Conclusion.) We have also discussed how our novel insights reflect on the theoretical debates and how they can give a new direction to the study of religion that now incorporates more strongly the results of spatial theory in its analysis.

Reviewer 2 Report

The study in question was carried out technically correctly, but substantively it raises doubts, which, in my opinion, require clarification before publishing the paper.
1. it was erroneously assumed that Central and Eastern Europe is homogeneous in the studied aspect of religiosity. The history of religion and religious institutions during the communist period in each was significantly different. We also have dissimilarities as a consequence of a more distant past. Hence, one should not expect the impact of faith on individual and public life to be similar in each of the countries studied. Since it is unlikely to repeat this study after correcting the initial assumptions, I propose that the analysis focus on comparing the dissimilarities between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the aspect under study. The appendices indicate that the researchers have this kind of data.

2 The study adopted a category of religiosity defined by religious practices, religious self-classification and the content of religious belief. Standardizing the category of religiosity on this basis seems useful in the research itself, but in fact the conclusions of the study are very simplistic and of little intellectual interest. It seems that an analysis based on such a standardized concept of religiosity may be correct with regard to secular societies, in which, due to the small size of the community of religious people, the relative homogeneity of this group can be assumed. Then, however, an analogous question arises about the methodologically correct approach to the majority group of people declaring themselves non-believers. In the case of societies in which 60-90% declare religious affiliation, the analysis of the impact of religiosity on attitudes in private and public life requires reference to the internal diversity of the group of people who declare themselves religious. Hence, it seems that an analysis should be made in view of declared religious practices and in view of the declared depth of religious faith. Only then would we probably see that strong religious beliefs have an impact on people's attitudes, while weak ones have rather little. It would therefore be necessary to deconstruct the applied concept of religiosity and supplement the research with suggested levels of analysis. From the description of the research, it appears that the authors have the data necessary for such an analysis. Perhaps this would also lead to an expansion of the list of hypotheses adopted in the study.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2

Thank you for your comments, whose perspectives helped us to better frame the research topics. We have revised and supplemented the paper along the lines of these suggestions and have presented the novel direction of our research in a more explicit way.
We have responded to the suggestions point by point and have highlighted the additions to the text in yellow. 

1. "The study in question was carried out technically correctly, but substantively it raises doubts, which, in my opinion, require clarification before publishing the paper.
   it was erroneously assumed that Central and Eastern Europe is homogeneous in the studied aspect of religiosity. The history of religion and religious institutions during the communist period in each was significantly different. We also have dissimilarities as a consequence of a more distant past. Hence, one should not expect the impact of faith on individual and public life to be similar in each of the countries studied. Since it is unlikely to repeat this study after correcting the initial assumptions, I propose that the analysis focus on comparing the dissimilarities between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the aspect under study. The appendices indicate that the researchers have this kind of data."
   
   

Thank you for drawing our attention to the theoretical orientation of the study. The study has been considerably expanded to shed light on the fact that the direction of our investigation is primarily concerned with the impact of social spaces on the emergence of religious values, and only secondarily with the role of the different degrees of religiosity in the different countries studied in the region in this context. (For the sake of clarity, we have also modified the title of the study and added to the abstract and the main text to indicate more precisely the direction of the research.) In order to clarify our position, we have discussed in more detail the insights of the spatial theory literature that shed light on the essence of our approach, which is new and therefore little known in sociological research on religion. On the other hand, after discussing the results of the "spatial turn" that have also fertilised the sociology of religion, we have also looked at the research that has interpreted the process of secularisation in order to shed more light on the novelty of our research. In line with our reviewer's intention, we have also addressed in more detail the question of the impact of the different levels of religiosity in the countries of the region under study on the context.  

The text contained some results about country differences, but we did not have any hypothesis about this. We added two new hypotheses (H5a and H5b) to the text, which reflect the expected differences between the less and more religious countries regarding the effect of religiosity on norms. We also altered our models to present the country (and wave) differences more straightforwardly. The result and discussion sections were also extended with the analysis of country differences. 

2 "The study adopted a category of religiosity defined by religious practices, religious self-classification and the content of religious belief. Standardizing the category of religiosity on this basis seems useful in the research itself, but in fact the conclusions of the study are very simplistic and of little intellectual interest. It seems that an analysis based on such a standardized concept of religiosity may be correct with regard to secular societies, in which, due to the small size of the community of religious people, the relative homogeneity of this group can be assumed. Then, however, an analogous question arises about the methodologically correct approach to the majority group of people declaring themselves non-believers. In the case of societies in which 60-90% declare religious affiliation, the analysis of the impact of religiosity on attitudes in private and public life requires reference to the internal diversity of the group of people who declare themselves religious. Hence, it seems that an analysis should be made in view of declared religious practices and in view of the declared depth of religious faith. Only then would we probably see that strong religious beliefs have an impact on people's attitudes, while weak ones have rather little. It would therefore be necessary to deconstruct the applied concept of religiosity and supplement the research with suggested levels of analysis. From the description of the research, it appears that the authors have the data necessary for such an analysis. Perhaps this would also lead to an expansion of the list of hypotheses adopted in the study."

We agree with the reviewer that it is vital to understand if there are any differences between the used indicators of religiosity. But the length of the paper does not allow us to open a new research direction that compares how different indicators of religiosity affect norms. Still, we re-run all of our models with the three different religiosity variables for a robustness check. In most cases, we found similar effect sizes, so it seems that different aspects of religiosity work similarly in the cases of effect on norms. We extended the text with these results and added the new models to the online appendix.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article in its current form is suitable for printing. The corrections made are satisfactory and significantly improve the scientific value of the text.

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