IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/fsesxx/v17y2012i4p573-589.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Growing Secularisation in a Catholic Society: The Divorce Referendum of 28 May 2011 in Malta

Author

Listed:
  • Roderick Pace

Abstract

The divorce referendum held in Malta on 28 May 2011 was another watershed in Maltese politics, particularly because it confirmed the secularising trends in Maltese society and exposed the complicated cleavages within the Maltese electorate. The result was a major political embarrassment for the ultra-conservative Prime Minister and leader of the Nationalist Party, particularly after he doggedly voted against the divorce bill in parliament notwithstanding the referendum result. The Catholic Church was also embarrassed after leading an aggressive ‘no’ campaign that did not resonate with the demands of society or the expectations of progressive Catholics. While the issue has severely affected the ruling Nationalist Party's chances of winning the next general election, due in the first quarter of 2013, it may have forced the Church finally to contemplate serious reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Roderick Pace, 2012. "Growing Secularisation in a Catholic Society: The Divorce Referendum of 28 May 2011 in Malta," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 573-589.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:fsesxx:v:17:y:2012:i:4:p:573-589
    DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2012.755761
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13608746.2012.755761
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13608746.2012.755761?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:fsesxx:v:17:y:2012:i:4:p:573-589. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/fses .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.