Secularisation and partisan dealignment : two sides of the same coin?

Abstract

Both party politics and the Catholic Church have impacted on the social reality of the Maltese Islands so that cultural life and “national pride” are largely dominated by religion and politics. This notion has been aptly captured by Baldacchino who argues that in Malta “National symbols remain significant in their absence and, where identified, are quickly taken over and co-opted by partisan and/or religious motifs,” such that “only the members of the troika – the two main political parties and the Catholic Church - loom large as anchors of identity.”