Toward a Sociology of Irreligion in Post-Yugoslav States

Abstract

In the twenty-five years after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the percentage of the irreligious population has decreased sharply in all post-Yugoslav states with the exception of Slovenia. This article attempts to present the complexity of the topic by answering five relevant questions: (1.) How do we distinguish between irreligiosity and religiosity in an effort to extract and understand the subject of the sociology of irreligiosity in the post-Yugoslav states? (2.) What has occurred in the areas of irreligiosity and the irreligious in the past twenty-five years? (3.) How do we explain the different trajectories observed in various post-Yugoslav states? (4.) What are the basic socio-demographic and other characteristics of the irreligious? (5.) What possible scenarios are there for the future of irreligiosity and the irreligious in post-Yugoslav states? Finally, it is established that the processes that have been observed do not refute the theory of secularization when the latter is not meant to exclude possible processes of de-secularization (when appropriate conditions exist).