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Political Impact of Religious Commitment

Political Impact of Religious Commitment. Widespread belief that “religiosity” promotes political conservatism Some work on American recent elections supports this view “God Gap” – regular church attenders more conservative in partisanship, vote choice and policy attitudes

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Political Impact of Religious Commitment

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  1. Political Impact of Religious Commitment • Widespread belief that “religiosity” promotes political conservatism • Some work on American recent elections supports this view • “God Gap” – regular church attenders more conservative in partisanship, vote choice and policy attitudes • Within religious traditions, higher levels of involvement associated with conservatism

  2. A Consequence of Measurement Decisions? • Literalist view of the Bible • Attendance at religious services • Importance of religion in one’s life • Frequency of private prayer

  3. Taps Only 1 Form of Commitment • Largely measures one of two approaches to understanding religious commitment • Religion as doctrine – Max Weber • Focuses on religious belief & piety • Assumes affinity between religious & political ideas • Religion as group attachment – Emile Durkheim • Cultural & social interaction – religion in a communal, quasi-ethnic sense • Values tradition in itself

  4. Does communalism exist? • Decided to test this as part of the NES 2006 Pilot Study – reinterview of 530 participants in the 2004 election study • Competed for space as a research team • Several of the items were included on the Pilot and incorporated in the 2008 election study

  5. New Items on 2006 Pilot • Belief in & salience of Jesus as son of God • Belief in & salience of transubstantiation of the Eucharist • God is green • Has tried to be a good Christian • by avoiding sin vs. helping others • helped others did so one at a time vs. many at once

  6. Does This Capture a 2nd Dimension? Factor Analysis of Religion Items 1 2 Salience of religion .853 -.007 Impt Jesus is Son of God .794 .155 Church attendance .781 -.042 Help others more than avoid sin -.177 .872 Impt of transubstantiation .450 .583

  7. Theoretical Payoff? Republican Partisan Identification (7 point scale) b se p Religiosity -- individual piety 1.646 .404 ** Religiosity -- communitarian -.687 .308 ** Evangelical Protestant .397 .252 Roman Catholic -.302 .245 Black Protestant -1.501 .462 ** Female -.529 .184 ** Non-white -.878 .341 ** Age < 40 .007 .231 Age 60+ -.589 .215 ** Education .836 .352 ** South -.097 .211 Constant 2.84 .445 ** Adjusted R-square: .20 ** p < .05 n=465

  8. Other Political Attitudes With standard controls and individual piety, communitarian style religious commitment is • Positively related to support for feminism, aid to poor, welfare spending, govt. health insurance , guaranteed jobs • Unrelated to abortion or gay rights attitudes • Positively related to Democratic vote in 2006 unless party and/or ideology enter the equation • Virtually a mirror image for individual piety

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