Is There a Religious Left?: Evidence from the 2006 and 2008 ANES (original) (raw)
Related papers
Beyond the God Gap: Mapping Religiopolitical Heterogeneity in the United States
Sociological Forum, 2022
Research has consistently found that the link between religious and political identification and behavior in the United States has grown significantly, as religious populations have increasingly aligned with the political right while secular Americans move toward the political left. Yet, other research cautions that most Americans are not extreme either politically or religiously. In this study I seek to integrate these claims by applying a latent class analysis to religious and political indicators from the 2016 American National Election Study. Results show six distinct profiles of religiopolitical orientation. Two of these profiles partially correspond to a religious conservative vs. secular liberal binary, but differ in key characteristics such as size and style of political engagement, exhibiting a dynamic of what I describe as asymmetric polarization. The remainder of the population exhibits religiopolitical orientations that fit with neither extreme. Instead, they fall into one of four internally coherent groups: 1) Religious but apolitical, 2) religious and political but ideologically diverse, 3) nonreligious and apolitical, and 4) nominally religious but behaviorally disengaged from both domains. Rather than polarization or moderation and incoherence, the relationship between religion and politics in the United States may be usefully described in terms of structured heterogeneity.
Religious Groups as a Force in Party Politics
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This paper delineates the position of American religious groups in modern party politics. We first outline two different models of religious politics, the ethnoreligious and the religious restructuring model. We then use a number of data sets to reconstruct the contribution that religious groups have made to party coalitions from the New Deal era to the present, considering both theoretical perspectives. We test the influence of religious factors against other influences on party identification, including region, social class and gender during the 1960s, the 1980s and the contemporary era. Finally, we explore the role that religious influences play in the contemporary ideological polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Politics & Policy, 2017
In this article, the argument is made that the religious activity generated by churches, which tends to focus an individuals attention either outward toward the larger community or inward toward ones self, can influence parishioners economic attitudes. Using survey data obtained during the 2008 presidential election cycle, this article tests the merits of that argument by examining the effect of multiple aspects of religion on economic attitudes. Evidence indicates that, along with some of the conventional religiosity measures, there is a previously noticed but understudied "communitarian" dimension of religion that explains variation in social welfare attitudes. Additional tests conducted on subsamples of denominational groups reveal that the communitarian religious perspective is a significant predictor of liberal welfare attitudes among Mainline Protestants. These findings shed light on characteristics associated with the "religious left," and provide a clearer picture of how religion, in different measurable forms, is related to economic attitudes.
God talk: Religious cues and electoral support
Political Research Quarterly, 2009
It was revealed in 2006 that Republican candidates employ a type of religious code in their political speeches. Their intention is to cue the support of religiously conservative voters without alienating other voters who may not share the same social issue agenda. We assess the efficacy of this GOP Code on the support of voters in specific religious traditions in an experimental setting. As expected, the Code proves to be an effective cue for white evangelical Protestants, but has no effect on mainline Protestants and Catholics. The form and function of the Code expands our understanding of religious influence, and broadens the spectrum of cues the electorate uses.
Beyond the "3Bs": How American Christians Approach Faith and Politics
While it is well-known that religiosity measures inform modern political alignments and voting behavior, less is known about how people of various religious orthodoxies think about the role of religion in society. To learn more about this veritable "black box" with respect to whether and why people connect their spiritual life to the political world, we conducted several focus groups in randomly selected Christian congregations in a mid-sized Midwestern city. Our analysis offers confirmatory, amplifying, and challenging evidence with respect to the "Three Bs" (believing, behaving, and belonging) perspective on how religion affects politics. Specifically, we show that while contemporary measures of religious traditionalism accurately reflect individuals' partisan, ideological, and issue preferences, attitudes regarding the broad intersection of faith and politics are perhaps best understood via the presence (or absence) of denominational guidance on questions of the role of religion in society. We conclude by offering suggestions for future survey research seeking to explain the relationship between religion and politics.
The Association of Religiosity and Political Conservatism: The Role of Political Engagement
Political Psychology, 2012
Some argue that there is an organic connection between being religious and being politically conservative. We evaluate an alternative thesis that the relation between religiosity and political conservatism largely results from engagement with political discourse that indicates that these characteristics go together. In a combined sample of national survey respondents from 1996 to 2008, religiosity was associated with conservative positions on a wide range of attitudes and values among the highly politically engaged, but this association was generally weaker or nonexistent among those less engaged with politics. The specific political characteristics for which this pattern existed varied across ethno-religious groups. These results suggest that whether religiosity translates into political conservatism depends to an important degree on level of engagement with political discourse.
Beyond the “Three Bs”: How American Christians Approach Faith and Politics
While it is well-known that religiosity measures inform modern political alignments and voting behavior, less is known about how people of various religious orthodoxies think about the role of religion in society. To learn more about this veritable "black box" with respect to whether and why people connect their spiritual life to the political world, we conducted several focus groups in randomly selected Christian congregations in a mid-sized Midwestern city. Our analysis offers confirmatory, amplifying, and challenging evidence with respect to the "Three Bs" (believing, behaving, and belonging) perspective on how religion affects politics. Specifically, we show that while contemporary measures of religious traditionalism accurately reflect individuals' partisan, ideological, and issue preferences, attitudes regarding the broad intersection of faith and politics are perhaps best understood via the presence (or absence) of denominational guidance on questions of the role of religion in society. We conclude by offering suggestions for future survey research seeking to explain the relationship between religion and politics.
POLITICS AND RELIGION JOURNAL, 2013
Recent literature in the religion and politics area has focused on the effect of various measures of religious affiliation on the political behavior of the mass public. Here we add to the evolving literature examining the influence of religious orientation on political elite behavior, focusing on the U.S. House of Representatives. Method. We use data on the religious affiliations of U.S. House members and National Journal scores of foreign policy voting to test the influence of religion on foreign policy ideology from 1998-2003. Our findings indicate that even after controlling for traditional political factors, religious identity influenced foreign policy voting in the House. African-American Protestants, Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and Evangelical Protestants present the most distinctive patterns. Conclusions. From this analysis we see further indications that religion influences legislative behavior in a way that, although intertwined with political partisanship, appears distinc...