Religion, moralization and politics

a systemic diagnosis

Abstract

This article comprises the theoretical nature and discusses the validity of Niklas Luhmann’s diagnosis on the moralization of politics. The thesis is that the growth of phenomena of moralization of competition for power is nourished by opportunities created by the programmatic crisis of political parties. Gathering arguments about the differentiation between politics, religion and morality, about the secular condition of the social world and the modern protagonism of religion in the public space and in politics, it seeks to demonstrate that the religious moralization of politics does not result from processes of desecularization, but from problems of functional performance of democratic politics, associated to the crisis of the parties in offering programs and producing public policies capable of realizing expectations of inclusion of the welfare state.