Abstract
The chapter is aimed to carry out discourse analysis of theoretical approaches and documents that highlight the issues of transformation of party-political systems of the EU countries. The religious factor is one of the catalysts for changes in modern parties of the EU, which, being different in their ideological orientation, electoral base, and territorial character, are influenced by general development trends. An important result of the discourse analysis is the conclusion about the weakening of the traditional parties, which from the national level has become a tendency of the pan-European political process. The religious factor stimulates the formation of small parties, which performs a great role in the development of tourism in the EU. The small parties are considered to be the defenders of local cultural and religious identities. The specific position of small parties to the development of tourism is caused by the wish to follow the economic interest and by the need to defend the local identities.
TopResearch Method
With this investigation, the authors intended to demonstrate that under the influence of the religious factor the political parties are changing forms and methods on their activities. We hypothesized that religion factor is one of the strongest societal factors which caused transformation political system and particularly political parties in modern Europe. The authors believed that it is possible to find evidence that religion is highlighted in political programs of the modern political organizations of Europe and it has an influence upon the formation of new types of political organizations.
The case study method was applied with the purpose to research and describe how religion factor is engaged in the political agenda of new types of parties in some EU countries to collect the data from the proper web-sites of political organizations.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Small Party: A small political organization which is not members of the government or local authorities and not oriented towards active participation in the elections in the future, due to orientation to a limited number of local voters.
Tourism Development: Process of establishing new forms and type of accompanied by a growing number of tourists.
Islamization: A political term for the process of enhancing the influence of Islam in various areas of public policy and public life.
Political Party: A united group of people directly setting themselves the task of seizing political power in the state or taking part in it through their representatives in government bodies and local self-government.
Religion: A belief system, including a set of moral norms and types of behavior, rituals, cult actions, and the unification of people in organizations.