How (Not) to Explain Czech Irreligiousness? Analytical Sociology as Inspiration for the Sociology of Religion

In the last two decades, the sociology of religion in Czechia has produced a great deal of empirical analyses of Czech religiosity, revealing a high level of irreligion and distrust to (traditional) religious institutions in the Czech society. However, most of them lack in explaining the identified phenomena and do not go beyond the level of description and/or historicization. As suggested by the author, Czech sociology of religion has been in short supply of theory that might help to achieve a deeper understanding of the factors that lie behind the observed tendencies. The paper suggests that analytical sociology, with its central concept of social mechanisms, can be viewed as one of possible remedy for the perceived deficit.