The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in Order to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity of a Whole Country

Religious diversity is often captured in “mapping studies” that use mostly qualitative methods in order to map and assess the religious communities in a given area. While these studies are useful, they often present weaknesses in that they treat only limited geographic regions, provide limited possibilities for comparing across religious groups and cannot test theories. In this article, we show how a census and a quantitative national congregations study (NCS) methodology can be combined in order to map and assess the religious diversity of a whole country (Switzerland), overcoming the problems mentioned above. We outline the methodological steps and selected results concerning organizational, geographic, structural, and cultural diversity

Space telecommunications privatization and international organizations

If the privatization of space telecommunications, because of its impacts, has been subject to various studies, this thesis focuses the analysis of this phenomenon on a particular point: its implications on international organizations.Because of the evolution of the sector, international satellite organizations have undertaken for around ten years several internal reforms that lead today to the privatization of the three major organizations: Intelsat, Inmarsat and Eutelsat. These transformations constitute a particular sensitive issue as these organizations have been initially established so that to exploit satellite systems for the general interest of their members.The impact of this phenomenon is no less considerable on the ITU, in charge of the international regulation, from a regulatory but also structural point of view. Moreover, the liberalization of telecommunication market undertaken under the aegis of the WTO grants to this organization a new major place in space telecommunication regulation

Das religionswissenschaftliche Dreieck. Elemente eines integrativen Religionskonzepts.

Der Beitrag diskutiert die gegenwärtige Lage des religionswissenschaftlichen Fachdiskurses, fokussiert auf den deutschsprachigen Wissenschaftsraum, und präsentiert ein Modell zur Integration verschiedener Ansätze. Im Rückgriff auf Talcott Parsons’ Handlungstheorie wird auf der Basis dessen, was ReligionswissenschaftlerInnen erforschen, ein in der Gesellschaft verortetes „religionswissenschaftliches Dreieck“ konstruiert: Die Ecken werden durch die Forschungsgegenstände „Symbolbestand“, „Individuum“ und „Gemeinschaft“ konstituiert; die Schenkel beschreiben die Austauschprozesse innerhalb des Dreiecks. Schließlich wird dargelegt, wie die Bestandteile des Dreiecks mit der Gesamtgesellschaft interagieren. Das religionswissenschaftliche Dreieck lässt sich auf historische und gegenwartsbezogene, europäische und nicht-europäische Forschungsgegenstände anwenden und dient der Präzisierung und Zuordnung unterschiedlicher religionswissenschaftlicher Fragestellungen