RELIGION, STATE & SOCIETY

2019, VOL. 47, NOS. 4–5, 390–404

https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2019.1668213

ARTICLE

Religious governance in the Spanish city: hands-on versus

hands-off approaches to accommodating religious diversity
in Barcelona and Madrid
a a b
Avi Astor , Mar Griera and Mónica Cornejo
a
Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain; bDepartment of Social
Anthropology, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This contribution examines divergent trajectories of religious govern- Received 23 January 2019
ance in Madrid and Barcelona, two cities that have pursued distinct Accepted 12 September 2019
approaches to accommodating religious diversity despite being KEYWORDS
located in the same national context. Whereas Madrid has dealt with Religion; governance;
religious diversity under the broader rubric of immigration and culture, diversity; cities; Spain
and has been largely passive and ‘hands-off’ in its approach to govern-
ance, Barcelona has demarcated religion from other cultural issues and
developed a more proactive and ‘hands-on’ approach to governing
religious diversity. In explaining this difference, our study builds on
recent work highlighting the relative autonomy of cities vis-à-vis states
in the definition and implementation of diversity policies. We trace the
divergent patterns of religious governance in Madrid and Barcelona to
differences in their respective political and territorial positioning. These
differences have given rise to contrasting objectives, relations with
national agencies, and local structures of opportunity for religious
actors to enter into the governance process.

Introduction
Since the 1990s scholars have taken a growing interest in how different societies regulate and
accommodate religious diversity. Controversies surrounding mosques, headscarves, and other
issues related to the presence of Muslims in Europe and other Western contexts have played
a significant role in motivating the now sizable body of literature on this topic. Yet the bulk of
this literature remains centred on the influence of national laws, policies, and ideological
frameworks, to the neglect of more local approaches to addressing the challenges of religious
diversity.
This contribution addresses this gap by examining how and why local policy initiatives and
frameworks for managing religious diversity vary from city to city. Our analysis centres on
Madrid and Barcelona, two large metropolises where religious diversity has increased signifi-
cantly over the past two decades due to rising levels of immigration. Although both cities are
located in Spain and hence subject to the same national laws regulating church-state relations,
they have developed markedly distinct approaches for addressing the needs and demands of

CONTACT Avi Astor avi.astor@uab.cat Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona,

Bellaterra, Spain
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 RELIGION, STATE & SOCIETY 391

religious minorities. Whereas Madrid has treated religion under the broader rubric of immigra-
tion and culture, and has been relatively passive and impromptu in its approach to religious
governance, Barcelona has demarcated religion from other cultural issues and developed
a proactive, interventionist, and systematic approach to governing religious diversity.
We argue that the divergent patterns of religious governance in Madrid and Barcelona
derive from their distinctive political and territorial positioning. Madrid’s status as the national
political capital and Barcelona’s status as the capital of a region located at a distance from the
political centre and where (sub)nationalist sentiment and aspirations run high have led to
important differences in: 1) the role of diplomatic objectives in each city’s treatment of
religious diversity; 2) relations between local and national agencies involved in regulating
religious affairs; and 3) local structures of opportunity for diverse religious actors to enter into
the governance process. Over the course of this contribution, we show how these differences
are key for explaining why Madrid has pursued a relatively passive and ‘hands-off` approach
to accommodating religious diversity, while Barcelona has pursued a more proactive and
‘hands-on’ approach.
Our analysis employs methods of process tracing and theory-driven historical analysis
based mainly on a thorough review of secondary sources on religious governance at the
local, regional, and national levels in Spain (Beach and Pedersen 2013). We also revisited and
re-analysed primary source materials gathered for previous research on religious govern-
ance and related topics (Astor 2014, 2017; Blázquez, Cornejo, and Pichardo 2018; Cornejo
2016; Cornejo and Pichardo 2017; Griera 2009, 2012, 2016). These materials included media
reports, public documents, and transcriptions of interviews conducted between 2007 and
2017 with public officials, civil servants, and religious actors.

The importance of the ‘local’ in religious governance

Despite what some have called the ‘local turn’ in the literature on immigrant integration
policies and the increasing emphasis placed by scholars on processes of ‘multilevel govern-
ance’ in the area of cultural diversity (Alexander 2007; Scholten 2014; Scholten and Penninx
2016; Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017), scholarship on the regulation and accom-
modation of religious diversity has devoted little attention to the importance of local-level
policy initiatives and frameworks. The bulk of existing literature on how different societies
respond to the needs and demands of religious minorities still centres on the influence of
national laws, policies, and models regulating church-state relations (Ferrari 2003; Fetzer and
Soper 2005; Monsma and Soper 1997; Shadid and van Koningsveld 2002). This is surprising,
given the diverse criticisms that have been levelled against the ‘national models’ approach.1
To the extent that local studies of religious accommodation exist, they have tended to centre
on highly specific issues, such as the regulation of places of worship, as opposed to more
general policy frameworks.2
The neglect of local approaches to religious governance may be due, in part, to the
emergence of a robust literature on the domain-specific logics of religious accommodation
particular to distinct institutional settings (i.e. public schools, hospitals, prisons, and the
military) as the principal alternative to approaches that emphasise the importance of
national models (Bowen et al. 2013; Cadge et al. 2017; Martínez-Ariño et al. 2015).
Alternatively, it may reflect the presumption that local approaches to religious governance
derive rather straightforwardly from national church-state models or mundane pragmatic
392 A. ASTOR ET AL.

concerns that do not warrant detailed scrutiny. Regardless, the neglect of local approaches
has hindered our understanding of how legislation and ideological frameworks developed
at the national level are interpreted and implemented on the ground. As has been shown in
the case of the literature on immigrant integration (Scholten 2016), there may exist
instances of tension between national-level and local-level policies and frameworks that
deal with religious matters. Moreover, although it is commonly assumed that religious
governance frameworks tend to filter downward from the national level to the local level,
there may be instances in which the flow is reversed. That is, innovations at the local level
may filter upward and be adopted at the national level. Inattention to local approaches to
religious governance has also led to a dearth of knowledge regarding how international
consortia and networks that connect cities from distinct regions or countries have led to
more horizontal forms of policy circulation that may, in some instances, transcend national
boundaries (cf. Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017).
Cities differ in a variety of ways with regard to how they regulate religious affairs. In
most municipalities, local agencies and personnel that focus primarily on questions of
immigrant integration, civic cohesion, or other social and cultural issues are assigned
responsibility for responding to the demands of religious communities. In some cities,
however, religion is treated as a distinct ‘policy sector’ (Jobert and Muller 1987) that is
sufficiently unique and important to warrant the hiring of specialised personnel, the
creation of special licences for religious activities, or the development of local ordi-
nances that pertain explicitly to religious issues. Certain cities, such as Barcelona and
Washington, D.C., have gone so far as to create municipal offices devoted exclusively to
religious affairs (Griera 2012). Such offices generally do not directly regulate religious
matters, but rather liaise between religious communities and regulatory agencies, and
carry out other types of initiatives that we describe in more detail below.
Cities may also be distinguished with respect to their degree of permissiveness or restric-
tiveness regarding religious practice. While most cities located in liberal and democratic
societies tend to be broadly permissive of religious practice, there are nonetheless important
differences in the strictness with which they regulate religious structures and activities. Some
cities put in place significant obstacles to the establishment of places of worship, often in the
form of cumbersome bureaucratic requirements, while others are supportive of centres of
worship that cater to religious minorities. Likewise, whereas some cities are relatively permis-
sive of religious expressions in open urban spaces, others are quite restrictive. This is especially
the case with regard to religious activities perceived to clash with the sensibilities of the
general populace. For instance, some Spanish cities, including Barcelona for a limited time
period, banned the wearing of face veils in public institutions (Burchardt and Griera 2019),
though such bans are more typically enacted at the national or regional levels.
Cities additionally differ in the degree to which they proactively intervene in religious
affairs, whether in a restrictive or permissive fashion. Some cities try to refrain from inter-
vening in the affairs of religious minorities as much as possible, limiting their involvement to
concrete ‘problem situations’. Other cities take a more proactive and interventionist
approach to religious governance, putting significant effort into collecting data on religious
communities, engaging in ongoing dialogue with local religious leaders, promoting public-
private partnerships around religious matters (Duemmler and Nagel 2013), and developing
other types of initiatives aimed at facilitating processes of accommodation or enhancing
local regulatory capacities.
 RELIGION, STATE & SOCIETY 393

Cities vary with respect to the level of public resources they dedicate to religious
accommodation as well. In certain countries like the US, national laws prevent cities from
providing public funding to religious entities. In most countries, however, cities have
a significant amount of discretion in deciding whether or not to direct public resources
to religious communities or associations. It is common, for instance, for cities in Europe
to donate public land for the establishment of places of worship or to allow religious
minorities to use public buildings for worship during major festivals. Some cities also
provide public funds to religious communities in order to alleviate financial burdens or
to support activities that facilitate interreligious dialogue and interaction. In a number of
contexts, issues of framing are key in so far as religious communities must present their
activities as cultural, rather than religious, in order to receive public subsidies.
Finally, cities differ in the extent to which they promote public-private partnerships and
the incorporation of non-state actors in the process of religious governance. Here, we follow
recent work that distinguishes between ‘religious governance’ and ‘religious government’
(Bader 2007; Martikainen 2013). Whereas the former encompasses both state and non-state
actors, the latter centres exclusively on state actors. As we will show in the case of Barcelona,
the line between governmental and non-governmental actors is, at times, blurred. It is
nonetheless possible to differentiate between municipalities that foster connections with,
as well as between, civil society organisations in addressing religious affairs, and munici-
palities that place little priority on fostering such connections.
This outline of the principal dimensions of religious governance at the local level is not
meant to be exhaustive. Nor are the dimensions specified necessarily independent. For
instance, the degree to which cities foster public-private partnerships may be linked to their
more general orientation as proactive or passive in the regulation of religious affairs. It is,
nevertheless, useful to distinguish these dimensions analytically even if it is not always
possible to do so empirically. The sources of variation along the different dimensions of local
religious governance are diverse and highly contextual. In the analysis that follows, we
emphasise differences in political and territorial positioning as critical for explaining the
divergent approaches to religious governance pursued by Madrid and Barcelona.

Two distinct approaches to religious governance

Throughout Spain’s history Catholicism has predominated in the country’s religious land-
scape, and the state has maintained close, though at times conflictual, relations with the
Catholic Church. Following the end of Franco’s prolonged dictatorship (1939–1975), a new
constitution was passed that disestablished the Church and instituted a new framework for
church-state relations premised upon the protection of religious freedom, and the devel-
opment of cooperative relations between public institutions and ‘the Catholic Church and
other confessions’.3 The state subsequently signed a series of cooperative agreements with
Jewish, Muslim, and Protestant federations modelled largely on previous treaties with the
Vatican. It later extended a measure of official recognition (notorio arraigo) to several other
religious groups, including Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists, and Orthodox
Christians (Díez de Velasco 2010).4 Spain’s national framework for church-state relations
may thus be described as a ‘graduated model of religious recognition and cooperation’ in
which the explicit referencing of the Church in the 1978 Constitution and the international
treaties with the Vatican represent the highest form of recognition and cooperation,
394 A. ASTOR ET AL.

followed by the 1992 agreements with Judaism, Islam, and Protestantism, and the more
minor forms of recognition granted to other confessions (Astor 2017).
Although the national framework for church-state relations established by the
Constitution and subsequent legislation has set broad limits on the range of public
policies and initiatives that are possible in the sphere of religious governance, cities have
significant leeway to develop their own local approaches to managing religious affairs.
This has become increasingly evident as Spain’s religious landscape has changed due to
rising levels of immigration and religious diversification, especially since the late 1990s.
Religious diversification has been most significant in major cities like Madrid, Barcelona,
and Valencia, as well as their surrounding metropolitan areas, due to their strong appeal
as migrant destinations (Díez de Velasco 2010). Protestants, Muslims, and Eastern
Orthodox predominate among religious minorities in both cities, though each is also
home to a wide panoply of other religious communities as well. Non-Catholic places of
worship now outnumber Catholic places of worship in both Madrid (59%) and Barcelona
(69%). Table 1 provides a general overview of each city’s religious panorama.
Although the timing of religious diversification in Madrid and Barcelona has been
similar, the two cities have developed highly distinct approaches to religious govern-
ance. In Madrid, religious affairs have not been treated as an autonomous policy sector,
but rather as a dimension of immigration and cultural diversity more broadly conceived.
There are no personnel dedicated exclusively to religious matters, and municipal officials
have not expended significant effort into developing close and ongoing ties with local
religious leaders and organisations. Madrid’s approach to religious governance has also
been largely ad hoc and impromptu in so far as measures of religious accommodation in
the city have often been tailored to the idiosyncrasies of different religious groups, and
the city’s engagement with religious communities has revolved, to a great extent,
around personal and political connections.
Barcelona, by contrast, has an Office of Religious Affairs (Oficina d'Afers Religiosos, OAR)
that includes full-time staff and provides funding to support the activities of religious
communities. The OAR liaises between religious communities and other municipal agencies.

Table 1. Overview of the religious landscape in Barcelona and Madrid.

Madrid Barcelona
Total population 3,223,000 1,620,000
Religious affiliation Catholic 58% 57%
Other religion 4% 4%
Unaffiliated* 29% 38%
No reply 9% 1%
Places of worship Catholic 356 138
Evangelical/Protestant 373 202
Muslim 40 33
Jehovah’s Witness 20 16
Buddhist 19 14
Orthodox Christian 15 6
Jewish 5 4
Other 40 28
* ‘Unaffiliated’ encompasses both ‘non-believers’ and ‘atheists’.
Sources: National Institute of Statistics (https://www.ine.es), 2018 Municipal Register Data (total
population); Centre for Sociological Research (http://www.cis.es), February 2019 Barometer
(Survey #3240) (religious affiliation); Observatory of Religious Pluralism in Spain (http://www.
observatorioreligion.es), Places of Worship Directory.
 RELIGION, STATE & SOCIETY 395

It assists religious communities in obtaining licences and funding for places of worship, and
supports them in their efforts to organise activities oriented towards the broader public. It
has also developed didactic materials and programmes on religious diversity for schools,
hospitals, and other public institutions. Finally, it has worked to fortify and expand networks
comprising public agencies and private organisations that address religious matters (Astor
2014; Griera 2009).
As is evident from these aims, the OAR sees itself as an advocate for religious minorities; it
has assumed responsibility for defending their rights and for urging other municipal agencies
to accommodate their demands. This general orientation stems, in part, from the OAR’s
location within Barcelona’s Department of Civil Rights and Diversity, which pursues
a human rights agenda. It has also resulted from the political and social vision of the office’s
personnel. The OAR’s administration has been largely outsourced to two NGOs, the Catalonia
UNESCO Centre (2005–2012), a secular NGO founded by Catholic intellectuals, and the Bayt al-
Thaqafa Foundation (2013–present), a Catholic organisation founded by the Franciscan
activist and philologist Teresa Losada. Both organisations are dedicated to providing mino-
rities with social services, defending their rights, and facilitating their religious practices (Astor
2014; Griera 2012). Their key role in administering the OAR highlights the blurriness of the
boundaries separating governmental from non-governmental agencies, and the importance
of public-private partnerships to religious governance in Barcelona.
While political connections and pragmatic improvisation are certainly part of religious
governance in Barcelona as in Madrid, municipal authorities in Barcelona have put greater
effort into developing frameworks that address matters of accommodation systematically
across different groups. This is evident in the various guidelines for religious practice in
public spaces and institutions developed by the OAR.5

The influence of political and territorial positioning on local religious

governance
The contrasting approaches to religious governance pursued by Madrid and Barcelona may
be traced to their distinctive political and territorial positioning within Spain. Differences in
the political and territorial positioning of the two cities, we argue, have led to variation in: 1)
the primacy placed on foreign diplomacy when dealing with religious issues; 2) proximity to,
and collaboration with, national agencies involved in addressing religious matters; and 3)
the structure of the local religious field and the participation of religious actors in the
governance process. Variation with respect to these factors has, in turn, led to differences
along several of the dimensions of governance outlined above, especially the treatment of
religion as a distinct policy sector, the degree of proactivity or passivity in addressing
matters of religious accommodation, the level of resources dedicated to religious issues,
and the promotion of public-private partnerships.

The primacy of foreign diplomacy

Given Madrid’s status as Spain’s capital city, foreign relations have often figured centrally in
the city’s treatment of religious affairs pertaining to minority confessions. The role of
diplomatic objectives in shaping Madrid’s treatment of religious affairs is particularly evident
with respect to the city’s initiatives concerning Islam. In 1977 the city donated a large plot of
396 A. ASTOR ET AL.

public land to the Muslim World League for the construction of an Islamic cultural centre
and mosque. The donation was motivated by the desire to fortify relations with wealthy Gulf
nations, rather than by the demands of local Muslim minorities at the time. A grand event
celebrating the donation was attended not only by the mayor and local Muslim leaders, but
also by the Spanish King and Queen, and several prominent members of the Saudi royal
family. Spanish and Saudi royalty were also present for the eventual inauguration of the
Islamic Cultural Centre of Madrid (Centro Cultural Islámico de Madrid, CCIM) in 1992, as were
several other prominent Spanish officials (Astor 2017).
In a similar vein, relations with the Jewish community have been influenced by the
desire to consolidate cultural and economic relationships with Israel. The former mayor
of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, had established strong ties with Jewish businessmen
in Madrid and Israel as a result of his prior involvement in a regional commission that
sought to foster trade and investment between Spain and Israel (Córdoba Hernández
2011). As mayor, he supported the installation of a Holocaust memorial in a public park,
the creation of a Jewish history museum, and the organisation of a public ceremony
celebrating Hanukkah. The significant diplomatic presence at the various events sur-
rounding these initiatives was reflective of the key role played by personal ties and
diplomacy in shaping the city’s overtures towards the Jewish community.
Although there is certainly a symbolic dimension to Barcelona’s treatment of religious
affairs, especially with respect to its self-presentation as an inclusive and ‘intercultural’ city,
diplomatic objectives have been less central to the initiatives concerning religious diversity
that it has promoted since Spain’s democratic transition. Since Barcelona is not the national
capital, political elites have been less inclined to see religious initiatives in the city as an
instrument of foreign policy. Moreover, it has drawn less interest among foreign actors
seeking to exert broad religious influence within the Spanish context. Consequently, munici-
pal programmes and policies addressing religious diversity have focused more on local
challenges and demands.
Indeed, the absence of a major mosque in Barcelona akin to the CCIM has resulted, in
large part, from the resistance of local Muslim leaders to foreign proposals perceived as
a potential threat to their ability to fashion Islamic belief and practice in accordance with
their principles. During the early 2000s for example, several Muslim leaders voiced their
unease with a Saudi-backed mosque proposal they felt would have given the Saudis undue
ideological influence over the local Muslim population. Given that diplomatic concerns did
not weigh as heavily in Barcelona as in Madrid, the city ended up prioritising the demands of
the local Muslim leadership over the wishes of the Saudi delegates with whom it had been
negotiating (Astor 2017). More generally, the lesser impact of diplomatic matters on
religious governance in Barcelona has facilitated its efforts to develop a more systematic
and uniform approach to accommodating religious diversity, as municipal officials face
fewer pressures to grant preferential treatment to particular groups for political reasons.

Collaboration with national agencies

Madrid’s status as the Spanish capital has also led to closer collaboration with national
agencies involved in addressing religious affairs. Madrid is home to both the Ministry of
Justice’s Sub-Directorate General for Relations with Religions and the Pluralism and
Coexistence Foundation (Fundación Pluralismo y Convivencia, FPC), a public agency created
 RELIGION, STATE & SOCIETY 397

in the aftermath of the 2004 terrorist bombings of the metropolitan train system to facilitate
the integration of Muslims and other religious minorities (Bleich 2009). The FPC’s official
mission is to promote religious freedom through supporting cooperation between religious
communities and the state, to improve knowledge and appreciation of religious diversity, and
to develop a framework for peaceful coexistence between different religious communities
(Hernández 2006). While the FPC’s mission and activities are national in scope, it has become
involved in addressing religious issues in Madrid due to the expertise of its personnel and their
proximity to the local religious scene. As a result, it has alleviated some of the pressures and
taken on responsibilities that might otherwise have prompted Madrid’s city government to
become more proactive in managing religious affairs in the city.
Barcelona, by contrast, is located at a distance from national agencies dedicated to
religious issues, both geographically and politically. Many of the public officials involved in
addressing religious matters in Barcelona, and Catalonia more generally, have seen them-
selves to varying degrees as part of the Catalan national project (Griera 2016; Seglers 2000).
Consequently, they have sought to chart a distinctive and innovative approach to governing
religious affairs that might serve as an example for other Spanish regions to follow (Castro
Jover 2005). This was one of the main motivations for the Catalan government’s creation of
a regional Directorate General of Religious Affairs (Direcció General d'Afers Religiosos, DGAR) in
2000, as well as its own law regulating centres of worship in 2009.6 It was also a motivating
factor for the establishment of Barcelona’s OAR, whose original incarnation – as we explain in
more detail below – actually predated the DGAR and may have served as an inspiration for its
creation. By establishing their own agencies for managing religious affairs, public officials in
Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia have sought to augment Catalonia’s level of self-
determination and to develop an approach to religious governance more suited to the
particularities of the Catalan sociopolitical context (Burchardt 2017; Griera 2016).
An important ramification of these developments has been the designation of religious
governance as a distinct policy sector that warrants its own local agency and personnel. The
presence of the OAR and civil servants who work full time on religious matters has facilitated
close and ongoing relations between the city, religious communities, and NGOs dedicated
to religious matters. This is essential for understanding the proactive and interventionist
character of the Catalan capital’s approach to religious governance, as well as the concerted
efforts made by the city to foster public-private partnerships.

The promotion of public-private partnerships and involvement of non-state

religious actors
Finally, and arguably most importantly, the distinct political and territorial positioning of
Madrid and Barcelona have given rise to different local structures of opportunity for
religious actors to develop partnerships with public officials, and to become involved in
the religious governance process. Many of the individuals who initially reached out to
religious minorities and facilitated the accommodation of religious diversity in Spain
were Catholic activists who drew inspiration from principles of ecumenism promoted by
the Church and associated movements, most notably Pax Christi, beginning in the mid-
twentieth century (Griera and Forteza 2011). The emphasis placed on ecumenism during
the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) further contributed to the interest among
398 A. ASTOR ET AL.

Catholic activists in developing initiatives to improve interdenominational relations, and

interfaith dialogue more generally (Casañas 1989).
The most prominent interfaith initiatives were organised in Madrid and Barcelona since
they had the highest levels of religious diversity in Spain and presented logical settings for
activists to stage ecumenical activities. Yet it was only in Barcelona that Catholic activists and
organisations involved in interfaith initiatives later became involved in religious governance
in a more formal capacity. This was not due to differences in the character or scope of
interfaith initiatives per se in the two cities. If anything, interfaith initiatives in Madrid were
more prominent than those in Barcelona, both nationally and internationally. It was due,
rather, to differences in the structure of the local religious fields and the historical relations
between political elites and religious leaders in the two cities.
Many of the activists who pioneered interfaith initiatives in Spain belonged to religious
orders or societies that, by and large, functioned independently of diocesan structures, as they
had their own codes of conduct and organisational makeup. Depending on the order or
society in question, it was not uncommon for their ideological positions and social activities to
emanate from principles that departed somewhat from those espoused by the Vatican and
more mainstream ecclesiastical authorities. In Spain, many activists affiliated with religious
orders and societies were what Portier (2002) has termed ‘open Catholics’ in so far as they had
links to progressive social movements and a degree of distance from hierarchical
pronouncements.7 In Madrid, two of the most active interfaith associations established during
the 1960s, the Judeo-Christian Friendship Association and the Islamo-Christian Friendship
Association, were spearheaded by activists associated with the Congregation of Our Lady of
Sion and the White Fathers missionary society respectively (Astor 2017; Rozenberg 2010).
While these and other interfaith initiatives achieved a degree of visibility in Madrid during the
decades following their creation, their engagements with municipal officials were limited due
to the structure of the local religious field.
As the Spanish capital, Madrid is home to the Spanish Episcopal Conference’s main
headquarters. The archbishop of Madrid and auxiliary bishops based in the city figure
centrally in the Conference and, as a whole, possess significantly more political power and
influence than bishops based in Barcelona. Moreover, between 1991 and 2015 Madrid’s city
government was controlled by the conservative Popular Party (Partido Popular, PP), which
maintained strong ties with the traditional Church hierarchy, and which has generally been
supportive of the Spanish Church’s social and cultural agenda. Consequently, bishops and
their associates were the primary interface between religion and politics during the period
in which religious diversity grew most in the city. Although interfaith initiatives proliferated
during these years, the Catholic activists and organisations involved in their development
were not included in the process of planning or implementing policies of religious accom-
modation. Nor did the city put significant effort into developing public-private partnerships
that included organisers of interfaith initiatives, NGOs, associations representing religious
minorities, or other non-state actors involved in religious affairs.
In Barcelona, by contrast, bishops and their associates – while certainly influential – have
not monopolised engagements between religious representatives and political elites to the
extent they have in Madrid. This has been due to a variety of factors. As mentioned above,
bishops based in Catalonia have tended to be less connected to core structures of political
and religious power than bishops based in Madrid. Although Catalan bishops have coa-
lesced to form a Tarragonian Episcopal Conference (Conferència Episcopal Tarraconense), it
 RELIGION, STATE & SOCIETY 399

remains unsanctioned by the Vatican and hence does not wield power or influence at all
comparable to that of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (Cardús 1995; Fàbregas i Escatllar
2012). Within the context of Barcelona, this has meant that political elites have not been as
beholden to the local bishopric as in Madrid.
Many of the elites that dominated the political scene in Barcelona, and in Catalonia
more generally, during the post-transitional period – including the former mayor
of Barcelona, Pasqual Maragall, and the former president of the Catalan Regional
Government (Generalitat de Catalunya), Jordi Pujol – had significant ties to religious
orders, such as the Benedictine Order of Montserrat, various Jesuit communities, and the
Capuchin Franciscan Friars (Costa 1993). The role of Catalan religious orders in defending
and preserving Catalan language and culture, protecting Catalan dissidents, and other
actions aimed at countering the persecution of Catalan identity during Franco’s dictator-
ship is key for understanding their proximity to Catalan political elites in the aftermath of
the transition (Casañas 1989; Guibernau 2004; Massot i Muntaner 1975). When faced
with new challenges related to religious diversity, political elites in Barcelona have
consequently been more inclined than elites in Madrid to consult with the leadership
of these orders and to incorporate them in the governance process.
Questions of political colour are equally relevant for understanding the distinctive
nexus between religion and politics in Barcelona. In contrast to Madrid, where the PP
has controlled the city government during the better part of the post-transition period,
in Barcelona the left-leaning Catalan Socialist Party (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya,
PSC) was in power during the critical period (1992–2011) in which the city’s religious
governance agencies and frameworks were initially developed. Unlike the PP, the PSC
did not view bishops and the traditional Church hierarchy as having exclusive authority
on religious matters.
Maragall, who represented the PSC as mayor of Barcelona from 1982 until 1997,
played a particularly instrumental role in integrating Catholic activists involved in inter-
faith initiatives into the political process. In the context of the 1992 Olympic Games, the
International Olympic Committee called on Barcelona to prepare a multireligious service
for athletes, their families, and foreign workers. In taking up this initiative, Maragall
sought the assistance of Joan Botam, a Capuchin friar and president of the Ecumenical
Centre of Barcelona. Under Botam’s leadership, the city created a coalition called the ‘92
Intercultural Coalition, which included Protestants, Buddhists, Muslims, Orthodox
Christians, and Brahma Kumaris, among other minorities. The coalition participated in
the creation of a multifaith house of worship called the Abraham Centre (Centre
Abraham), which was sponsored jointly by the city and the Church (Griera 2012).
The city continued to work in collaboration with Botam and other religious actors
following the Olympics. During the mid-1990s Maragall called upon Botam to form an
interfaith commission that would advise the city regarding the accommodation of religious
minorities. At the behest of the commission, the city established the Barcelona Interreligious
Centre in 1998 (Puig 2012). The centre was administered by several progressive Catholic
intellectuals, activists, and academics. Its aim was to foster an inclusive approach to
accommodating the religious needs and demands of minorities, and to generate an atmo-
sphere of collaboration and mutual enrichment among different confessions. The centre
was later renamed the Office of Religious Affairs and became instrumental to religious
governance in Barcelona (Itçaina and Burchianti 2007).
400 A. ASTOR ET AL.

As religious diversity increased during the 2000s, a group of progressive Catholic intel-
lectuals founded the UNESCO Association for Interreligious Dialogue (Associació UNESCO per
al Diàleg Interreligiós, AUDIR) with the support of a local chapter of UNESCO in Catalonia.
From the outset, AUDIR played an active role in advocating on behalf of religious minorities
and lobbying for a ‘cosmopolitan’ approach to religious accommodation. Together with the
OAR, AUDIR organised the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona in 2004 in
parallel to Barcelona’s Universal Forum of Cultures. Renowned global religious leaders
attended the event, as did 9,000 participants from 74 different countries. The gathering
heightened the OAR’s visibility and stimulated the creation of new interfaith initiatives in
municipalities throughout Catalonia. In Barcelona, local Catholic leaders participated in the
creation of an interfaith council called the Stable Working Group of Religions (Grup de Treball
Estable de Religions, GTER) with the aim of designating religious leaders who could act as
representatives on behalf of their respective religious traditions so as to facilitate dialogue
with municipal officials. The religions with representation on the council included Judaism,
Islam, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, and Catholicism. Their respective representatives
continue to assist in brokering relations between religious communities and public
authorities.

Conclusion
The analysis we have advanced over the course of this contribution highlights how the
political and territorial positioning of Madrid and Barcelona have shaped each city’s
approach to religious governance. Given Madrid’s position as Spain’s national capital,
matters of diplomacy have figured centrally in its policies of religious accommodation,
contributing to an ad hoc and impromptu approach that affords flexibility for tailoring local
initiatives to diverse diplomatic objectives. Moreover, the proximity of national agencies
that deal with religious affairs, and their involvement in addressing local matters, has
lessened the need for a more proactive and ‘hands-on’ approach to addressing the chal-
lenges engendered by religious diversification. Finally, the predominance of ecclesiastical
leaders of status within the traditional Church hierarchy in the local religious field has
limited the opportunities for Catholic activists associated with more peripheral religious
orders and societies to enter into partnership with public authorities and to take on a larger
role in the governance process.
In the case of Barcelona, by contrast, the city’s physical and political distance from the
Spanish centre has mitigated the importance of diplomacy and the role of national agencies
in shaping the city’s approach to religious governance. The strong (sub)nationalist senti-
ment and aspirations among political elites in the Catalan capital have contributed to the
entanglement of religious governance in the city with the broader project of enhancing
Catalonia’s autonomy from Spain. This, in turn, has contributed to the demarcation of
religion as a distinct policy sector, as local elites have sought to carve out space for the
development of a distinctly Catalan approach to religious governance. This demarcation has
also been influenced by the presence of historical ties between political elites and peripheral
religious orders, which, along with the more horizontal configuration of the Catholic
religious field, has facilitated the development of robust public-private partnerships and
the formal involvement of a multiplicity of non-state actors in the governance process.8
Major events, such as the Olympics and the Parliament of the World’s Religions, played
 RELIGION, STATE & SOCIETY 401

a crucial role in generating impetus for the creation of these partnerships and are thus
essential to consider when explaining the timing of the various initiatives pertaining to
religious diversity that have been launched in Barcelona.
In recent years, several religious actors in Madrid have called upon the city government
to develop an approach to religious governance more akin to that of Barcelona. For
example, the progressive Catholic organisation Justice and Peace (Justicia y Paz) recently
petitioned the city to create a municipal office to manage religious affairs, to hire personnel
with knowledge of religious issues, to promote expert advisory councils, and to improve
religious accommodation in public institutions.9 Barcelona’s approach to religious govern-
ance served as a clear model for many of the requests included in the petition. With the
election of Manuela Carmena and the progressive Ahora Madrid party in 2015, steps were
taken to foster a more proactive approach to religious governance. For instance, public
authorities coordinated several interfaith initiatives, and Carmena openly recognised the
value that religious diversity brought to Madrid. Nevertheless, Carmena’s administration has
since been replaced by a more conservative administration, headed by the PP, which is
unlikely to continue in the same direction. More generally speaking, it remains to be seen
whether and to what extent horizontal diffusion of Barcelona’s approach to religious
governance will occur within Spain, and whether this approach is suitable for local contexts
characterised by different sociohistorical and political trajectories.

Notes
1. For a summary of these criticisms, see (Astor 2014; Bertossi and Duyvendak 2012; Finotelli
and Michalowski 2012).
2. For a comprehensive review of existing literature on religious governance at the local level,
see Martínez-Ariño (2018).
3. See Article 16 of the 1978 Constitution: https://www.boe.es/legislacion/documentos/
ConstitucionINGLES.pdf. Accessed 13 April 2019.
4. The guidelines for the cooperative agreements and the status of notorio arraigo (deep
rootedness) were established by the 1980 Organic Law on Religious Freedom: https://www.
boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1980-15955. Accessed 13 April 2019.
5. See: http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/oficina-afers-religiosos/ca/materials-de-consulta-i-refer
encia. Accessed 16 January 2019.
6. The DGAR was initially created as the Secretariat for Relations with Religious Confessions
(Secretaria de Relació amb les Confessions Religioses).
7. Portier distinguishes ‘open Catholics’ from ‘identity-oriented Catholics’, deeming the latter
more conservative and forceful in their assertion of a strong and visible Catholic identity.
8. There are interesting parallels between the local dynamics of religious governance and the
role of religious actors in local welfare provision in Barcelona and Madrid. Whereas in
Barcelona the predominance of left-leaning administrations has facilitated the participation
of faith-based organisations ‘as policy implementers and as advisers and key social agents’
in the local welfare regime, in Madrid the preponderance of conservative administrations
has led to the more limited participation of such organisations ‘as service providers in
competition with for-profit organisations’ (Elander, Davelaar, and Walliser 2012, 91).
9. The full list of Justice and Peace’s proposals ‘for the respect of religious liberty’ may be found at
the following website: https://madrid.juspax-es.org/relaciones-interconfesionales/propuestas-
de-justicia-y-paz-al-ayuntamiento-de-madrid/. Accessed 27 October 2018.
402 A. ASTOR ET AL.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Julia Martínez-Ariño, Salvador Cardús, and the anonymous reviewers for
their helpful comments on previous drafts of this contribution.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This contribution is connected to the project Expresiones religiosas en el espacio urbano en Madrid
y Barcelona (Religious Expressions in Public Space in Madrid and Barcelona), which is directed by
Dr Mar Griera and financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity Programa
Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia (State Programme for the
Promotion of Scientific and Technical Research and Excellence) (Ref. CSO2015-66198-P); Ministerio
de Economía y Competividad (ES) [CSO2015-66198-P].

Notes on contributors
Avi Astor is a Ramón y Cajal Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the Autonomous University
of Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB) and a member of the Research Centre on
the Sociology of Religion (ISOR). He has written on a variety of topics related to religion, culture,
and Islam in Spain. He recently published a book entitled Rebuilding Islam in Contemporary Spain:
The Politics of Mosque Establishment, 1976–2013 (Sussex Academic Press 2017).
Mar Griera is an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the director of
ISOR. She studies religious diversity and public space, interreligious relations, and the role of
religion in public institutions. She recently co-edited a special issue on ‘Interreligious relations and
governance of religion in Europe’ (with A. Nagel in Social Compass).
Mónica Cornejo is an associate professor in the Social Anthropology Department at the Complutense
University in Madrid. She is co-director of the Anthropology, Diversity, and Integration research group.
She studies popular Catholicism and religion in public spaces, as well as religious opposition to sexual
and reproductive rights. She is the author and editor of several books, including La construcción
antropológica de la religión (Ministerio de Cultura 2008).

ORCID
Avi Astor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4720-1841
Mar Griera http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1773-4874
Mónica Cornejo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1001-6666

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