Grace Riestra Claire Davie (born 1946) is a British sociologist who serves as professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Exeter.
[2] Born on 2 September 1946,[3] Davie has an undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Exeter, and a PhD from the London School of Economics.
[14] With this and other works, Davie entered the international ongoing debate on secularization, after Rodney Stark and other American scholars had observed that quantitative data about the United States did not confirm the theory defended in Europe by Karel Dobbelaere and Steve Bruce, implying that modernization necessarily causes a decline of religion.
European defenders of secularization theories suggested that an "American exceptionalism" explained why a generally valid hypothesis did not apply to the United States, due to some unique circumstances prevailing there.
[15] To explain European exceptionalism, Davie introduced yet another new concept, "vicarious religion", meaning that modern Europeans are happy to "delegate" to a minority of active believers participation in regular church activities, something they approve of but are no longer ready to engage in.