Rights not working? Grassroots-level impact of the European Court of Human Rights on religion

Abstract

This article offers a sociology of religion approach to the study of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) religious freedoms jurisprudence. Specifically, it presents multidisciplinary research conducted on grassroots-level impact of that jurisprudence. That research maps onto the European context North American socio-legal theory which demonstrates that the direct effects of courts, in terms of prompting legal change, entail only a very small part of courts’ potential impact on society and which encourages instead attention to courts’ ‘indirect’ or ‘radiating’ effects, such as influence on how grassroots actors conceive of, talk about, and pursue their rights at the local and national level. Our relevant research in the European context shows how little attention grassroots social actors with a vested interest in religion-related rights are paying to the relevant ECtHR jurisprudence. The article discusses the broader importance of this finding for sociologists of religion.