33436886

7/28/2019 33436886

1/24

O R I G I N A L P A P E R

American Republican Religion? Disentangling the

Causal Link Between Religion and Politics in the US

Stratos Patrikios

Published online: 5 February 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract Recent research in American political behavior has examined at length

the link between evangelical Protestants and the Republican Party. These works

however do not consider the idiosyncratic nature of religiosity in the US, and insist

on treating religion as an unmoved mover with respect to political contexts. The

question posed herein is: during the participation of religious communities in par-

tisan politics, should we expect politics to eventually constrain religious behavior?

Motivated by a political social identity approach, I use American National ElectionStudy panel data and structural equation modeling techniques to explore the

untested possibility that religious and political factors are linked through reciprocal

causation. Conditional upon religious and temporal context, findings highlight the

causal impact of ideology and partisanship in shaping religious behavior.

Keywords Religious politicization Church attendance Party identification Ideology Social identity theory

Introduction

The nexus between religion and politics in violent and non-violent conflicts tends to

generate global scholarly and popular attention. American society in particular

serves as a proverbial case, where the peaceful but vocal participation of religious

With apologies to Alexis de Tocqueville.

Electronic supplementary material Theonline version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11109-008-9053-1)

contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389

DOI 10.1007/s11109-008-9053-1
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-008-9053-1http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-008-9053-1

7/28/2019 33436886

2/24

populations in the political process is now widely considered an endemic

phenomenon (Leege and Kellstedt 1993; Green et al. 2003). The relationship has

been identified as a cleavage, a concept describing the translation of objective social

divisions into enduring political conflicts, with original reference to the formation of

West European party systems (Lipset and Rokkan 1967).Given the interest and concerned tone of most secular social science on the

matter, it is surprising that research has tended to probe the role of religion in

politics relative only to the impact of stable religious variables on political

behavior. This sociological interpretation of politics expects that exogenous

religious processes (e.g. exposure to church contexts) shape political behavior

(e.g. partisanship), and explains relevant trends accordingly. Recent studies in this

direction have debated the drift of mainline Protestants away from the Republican

Party, the stability of Catholic traditional support for the Democrats, but above all

the entrance of evangelical Protestants into the Republican electoral base in the1980s and their transformation into an efficient political machine in the 1990s, as

described in Fig. 1 (e.g. Moen 1994; Wilcox 1996; Guth et al. 1997; Layman 1997,

2001; Manza and Brooks 1999; Bolzendahl and Brooks 2005).

The present study examines the relationship between evangelical Protestantism

and the Republican Party in recent decades. However, it avoids the aforementioned

sociological reductionism and its limited focus on the political impact of religious

factors, such as churches, para-church organizations, lobbies and demographics.

Instead the following discussion shifts to the effects of politicization on religious

behavior itself, defined here as church attendance. In this way, I pursue a morenuanced direction in the study of cleavages, and propose that the products of the

infusion of religion into politics are not restricted to the electoral realm, but can

potentially transform religion into a secular/political phenomenon. According to this

path, the influence of religious practice on political behaviora conventional

368 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

3/24

assumption adopted by most political scientistscan be supplemented by a reverse

effect, whereby religious practice becomes constrained by political/partisan

concerns (cf. Sartori 1969; Kriesi 1998).

Michael Hout and Claude Fischers sociological study (2002) is to my knowledge

the only published quantitative effort that attempts to explore this expectation, as aninvestigation of political pressures on individual religiosity in the context of the

recent religious politicization in the US. The investigation centers on apostasy, i.e.

the phenomenon of Christians dropping out of church. The authors argue that the

conservative religious politicization of the 1990s caused the following backlash:

ideologically liberal and moderate Christians abandoning conservative denomina-

tions. Hout and Fischer interpret part of this movement as a reaction against the

Christian Rights political agenda, and the prominent place occupied by conser-

vative Protestantism in GOP ranks (2002, pp. 181, 185).

The present article builds on Hout and Fischers effort, updating it in three ways.First, the authors provide only an indirect test of their expectation using cross-

sectional data; the models presented herein avoid assumptions of temporal

precedence by turning to panel data, and provide therefore a more rigorous test

of the hypothesis. Second, the 2002 work focuses on how personal ideological

orientation determines apostasy. In what follows, I elaborate on this idea and

develop an additional explanation rooted in partisan influences, on the basis of a

well-documented phenomenon in realignment research. This refers to the sorting-

out, i.e. the overlap between ideology and partisanship, and the polarization

experienced between the two major parties since the late 1970s. In thisdevelopment, culturally liberal Republicans abandoned the GOP and conservative

Democrats followed a similar movement away from their party (e.g. Poole and

Rosenthal 1984; Abramowitz and Saunders 1998; Levendusky 2005). Finally, my

work focuses on changes in religious practice and not on apostasy, since the low

number of apostates in the datasets is inadequate for multivariate analysis, and

relevant repeated measures are missing.

My expectation is that the politically charged American religious landscape, in

particular the close association in the public mind of evangelical Protestants with

social conservatives and the Republican Party, can lead individuals to react by

altering their religious behavior. Religious politicization, loosely defined as the

perceived affinity of certain religious populations with certain parties or ideological

camps, creates the potential to make some believers minimize their attendance at

certain churches and others to increase their church-going. This process is

summarized as an extrinsically political religion fuelled by ideology and

partisanship. The two competing expectations are specified as: (i) an attendance

effect on politics (the sociological approach) and (ii) an ideological/partisan effect

on attendance (the political religion phenomenon).

Based on social identity theory with a strong emphasis on partisanship (Greene

1999, 2002, 2004; cf. Green et al. 2002), I use panel data from the Michigan/

American National Election Study (ANES) pool, which both precede and overlap

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 369
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

4/24

cross-lagged effects models tests competing expectations. Results support the

political religion hypothesis, either ideological or partisan, and open the way for a

novel understanding of the continuing impact of the political process even on non-

political variables, and of the worldly nature of religious behavior.

Due to the absence of relevant data on religious affiliation and identification, theanalysis is based on the interplay of political factors (ideology and partisanship)

with church attendance. The argument begins with the American religious

exceptionalism thesis, and continues by reviewing a recent attempt to revitalize

the party identification concept as social identification. The former discussion

supports the use of religious variables as endogenous to the political process, while

the latter allows for the possibility of partisan and ideological effects on religious

variables. The analysis then continues with a consideration of methodological

problems, followed by an interpretation of findings and their implications for

research on electoral politics and religion.

American Religion in the Left-Hand Side

Based on an assumed equivalence, the use of religious explanations in American

political research often reflects an idealized European experience of religion as a

stable, politically exogenous phenomenon. These features are treated as adequate

reasons for the use of religious variables as stable demographics. Sociologists of

religion however have long agreed on the idiosyncratic nature of American piety,especially among native Protestants. First, the civil religion phenomenon (Bellah

1967) challenges the idea that Christian faith in the US merely reflects theological

concerns. Civil or general religion represents faith in the American way of life and

the status of the US as Gods chosen nation. This infusion of religion with secular

values provides a first step for recognizing the partly secular component in the

religiosity of American Christians.

Second, the religious market metaphor claims that the existence of a plethora of

churches in America (religious pluralism) creates the conditions that reinforce

religiosity among the American population (Finke and Stark 1992). This deregu-

lated setting implies that churches have to tailor/improve their products and even

offer less spiritual benefits, in order to increase demand. Again, it appears that the

religious package put forward by American churches, especially the less centralized

Protestant ones, has a demystified quality, one that is infused with secular benefits.

Finally, the character of the products offered by American religious institutions

goes hand in glove with the motives behind the preferences of American believers. In

a pluralistic religious market located within a heavily consumerist society, it is

reasonable to suggest that the public experience of religiosity is closer to that of

voluntary association, and not of passive socialization (Newport 1979). The idea of

religion as an active, conscious choice sounds less eccentric when we consider one

phenomenon with prominence in the relevant literature: denominational switching

370 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

5/24

This type of mobility, practiced by up to a third of Americans at some point in their

life, supports an image of religion as a self-selective, dynamic choice that cannot be

treated as permanent (Warner 1993; Loveland 2003). Overall, the American religious

exceptionalism thesis challenges the use of religious factors as stable demographics,

and instead maintains that religiosity is a volatile choice, open to secular influences.This study uses this understanding and posits that in specific circumstances, part of

these influences can take the form of ideological and partisan concerns.

A Political Explanation of American Religiosity

The theoretical justification of my argument is based on a social identity

conceptualization of party identification, which can also be extended to identifi-

cation with ideological camps. I argue that this provides an explanation of howpoliticizationeither on ideological or partisan linesinitiates a transformation of

religion. The Michigan school and its disciples have treated identification with a

party as a multifaceted concept: evaluation of partisan objects, perceptual screen for

interpreting incoming stimuli, and psychological expression of group membership

(e.g. Campbell et al. 1960; Miller and Shanks 1996). The concept has been

subsequently challenged as endogenous to policy preferences, ideological predis-

positions, evaluations of candidates and government performance (e.g. Nie et al.

1979; Page and Jones 1979; Fiorina 1981).

Recent theoretical and methodological advances however, have reinstated thetraditional view of party identification as a long-term predisposition, which affects

voters evaluations and perceptions of political reality and even their core political

predispositions, without being affected by them in the short term (Green and

Palmquist 1990; Green et al. 2002; Goren 2005). Miller and Shanks summarize this

view: one of the roles of the church, or the party, is to provide structure to the

ordinary persons understanding of the external world[and] cues for normative

assessments of the outside world (1996, p. 121).

Instead of being treated as a simple attitude towards a political object, party

identification can be conceptualized through social identity theory (SIT) as

psychological belonging to a social group (for an overview of theoretical and

measurement issues see Greene 2002, 2004). In general, the group psychological

effects identified by SIT are termed social identification and self-categorization.

These correspond to a definition of the self according to group characteristics, and

to an exaggeration of differences between own group and other groups in order to

achieve a positive self-concept, respectively (Tajfel 1981; Long and Spears 1997).

For SIT, an individual that feels closer to a group tends to internalize group

membership by seeing herself through group stereotypes and not through personal

characteristicsI am Democrat/Catholic/Hispanic/Liberal.

The cognitive process of self-categorization explains how SIT works, that is,

through intergroup social classification (Turner 1985). People assign social objects

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 371
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

6/24

distinctive than the out-group by conducting biased comparisons (stereotypes) with

members of the out-group.

According to social identity and self-categorization theory then, individuals will

(a) tend to perceive themselves less as unique units and more as group members; (b)

cement their impulse for a positive self-image on exaggerated comparisons without-group members; and (c) follow in-group standards in attitude and produce

groupy behavior (Hogg and Terry 2000, p. 121). The three points are interrelated

in the sense that self-perceived membership to the same group expects conformity

with shared in-group standards (and against out-group standards) in order to achieve

greatest possible perceived inter-group distinctiveness.

The original exposition of the party identification concept in The American Voter

already contained an emphasis on this belonging dimension of partisanship, in the

sense of an us versus them distinction, besides its function as a perceptual

screen or political attitude (Campbell et al. 1960, pp. 1335). The SIT approachtowards partisanship then expects that citizens who experience greater group

identification with fellow partisans (gauged with scales that measure feelings of

belonging to a social group) will tend to internalize in-party and out-party

stereotypes, exhibit increased engagement in partisan behavior, like rally atten-

dance, and exaggerate differences between us and them, even after controlling

for the effect of the traditional party identification variable (Greene 2004).

The above opens the way for examining the overlooked effect of party

identification on individual religious characteristics. Typically, parties raise the

salience of social-political links by sending out clear references via electionmanifestos, candidate speeches and policy proposals. Famous among many examples

is the 1992 Republican National Convention, especially the culture war speech by

Pat Buchanan, which represents a symbolic milestone in the partys effort to associate

itself with conservative family values, popular among theologically conservative

populations. This effort has not been limited to the 1990s, as evident by an inspection

of the news since 2000, i.e. since George W. Bushs election in the White House. The

President, a born-again Christian, has consistently stressed the link between

Republicanism and theologically conservative religion. For instance, in what appears

to be a conservative reading of Christian faith he hindered federal funding of pro-

choice groups abroad in 2001, while taking steps to promote funding for religious

service organizations. Bush has also openly declared his opposition to same-sex

marriage by favoring a constitutional amendment that made it illegal in 2004. It is not

surprising then that evangelical leader Jerry Falwell described Bushs reelection in

2004 and the role played by evangelicals in it as: a slam dunk as the Church of

Jesus Christ made the difference in initiating the return of this nation to moral sanity

and the Judeo-Christian ethic (quoted in Layman and Hussey 2005, p. 1).

The outcomes of such recurring cliches that directly or indirectly identify two

labels as naturally connected (Republicanevangelical Protestant or conservative-

evangelical Protestant) can be twofold. If we focus on the religious group as our

building block, as political science normally does opting for a sociological

372 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

7/24

closer to the GOP, which constitutes only one interpretation of the trend described

in Fig. 1.

Yet, members of religious groups are also attached to partisan groups, identities

that become particularly energized during election periods. If we concentrate on the

partisan in-group, self-categorization theory expects that labels associated with thein-party will guide its members towards adopting similar meanings of reality and

desirable preferences, or actions. If in-group (party) members are Republicans, and

assuming that the link between social group and party is very prominent, members

will be exposed to the stereotype (the social imagery of the party), which connects, for

instance, Republicanism with evangelical Protestantism, and Democrats with

Catholicism, or in more recent years, with secularism. In this case, religiosity

becomes an in-group (party) norm and according to SIT, group identifiers will be

more likely to follow this religious norm. In a self-selective process, Republicans will

tend to stress their Republicanism by intensifying their commitment to Evangelicalchurches; alternatively, Democrats will be under pressure to distance themselves

from this religious environment, which contradicts their partisan in-group norms.1

A similar rationale could apply to ideological camps (Lau 1989; Deaux et al.

1995). According to Hout and Fischer (2002), the conservative flavor dominating

evangelical churches since the 1970s has driven non-conservative evangelicals

away from those churches. Using SIT, the distancing of moderate/liberal believers

from evangelical churches can be interpreted as the result of groupy behavior.

Here, liberal evangelicals would be expected to follow in-group (liberal) standards

and react to the conservative turn of their churches by avoiding religious services.Conversely, conservative evangelicals would tend to adopt in-group (conservative)

standards and strengthen their links with evangelical churches by attending more

frequently. In politicized periods, the connection of evangelicalism with political

conservatism would have attendance become the norm of the ideological

(conservative) in-group, with the reverse holding for the opposite (liberal) in-

group. This process should accompany the conventionally assumed influence of

church on ideological orientation.

Measurement and Analytic Strategy

The starting point in my effort to test the hypothesized bidirectional causal link

between religiosity and political variables is a specific field in the party identification

scholarship, which explores the possibility of reciprocal causation between

partisanship and other political variables (Jackson 1975; Markus and Converse

1979; Page and Jones 1979; Layman and Carsey 2002; Goren 2005; Carsey and

Layman 2006). This motivation, coupled with the theoretical emphasis of SIT on

partisan groups, justifies the preference given by the following methodological

discussion to partisanship over ideology. The same analytic framework however isused for assessing the effect of ideology on church attendance.

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 373

7/28/2019 33436886

8/24

To evaluate the religious influence on politics and the parallel political influence

on religious behavior, I use ANES panel data. Three electoral cycles are covered:

19721976, 19921996, and 20002004.2 Following common practice (e.g. Lenski

1963) African Americans have been excluded from the analysis. This segment

appears only in low numbers in ANES samples, and also is distinctive in terms ofhistorical and demographic characteristics, and organizational autonomy within the

Protestant family. The variable that operationalizes social identification with a party

is the ANES partisanship item: a seven-point scale, with high scores showing

Republicanism. Although not a perfect measure of psychological group identifica-

tion, the Michigan item could be considered an adequate indicator of such processes

when no alternative is available (Greene 2002). The ideological self-placement

scale is selected to tap identification with the liberal and conservative camps; high

scores on the seven-point scale represent conservatism. I use the original root

question, and not the summary three-point measure, which also allocates leaners.This ensures that when examining reciprocity between ideology and attendance,

both scales have a high number of points. Due to limited item availability in the

panels, the dimension of religion examined is church attendance, a five-point scale

with high scores indicating frequent attendance.3 Table 1 contains summary

statistics for intra-group trends across waves.

With the exception of Hout and Fischer (2002), almost all studies of the

relationship between religion and politics, in the American case and beyond,

propose unidirectional causal effects from religious variables to political ones (for

instance, see contributions in Leege and Kellstedt 1993). In assuming the soleexistence of this flow of causality, these studies are content to model cross-sectional

data, drawn at a single point in time. Considering the typical conjecture in such

research, namely that religious variables represent fixed personal characteristics,

temporally prior and exogenous to the political process, analyses without a temporal

dimension seem to serve the purpose. Yet, the untested assumption of unidirectional

causation can easily be evaluated when temporal precedence is embedded in the

data, i.e. when repeated measurement of the same individuals is available across

time (Finkel 1995, pp. 223).4

2 Data used in the present study were made available by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and

Social Research. The author holds sole responsibility for their analysis and interpretation. Results from

supplementary analyses mentioned in the text are available from the author. Throughout the study, I avoid

using the 19561960 ANES panel, since the detailed measure that differentiates among Protestant

denominations and is required for sub-group analysis had not yet been introduced in 1956. Also, in the

examination of the reciprocal link between ideology and attendance, the 20002004 panel is dropped,

since there is no repeated measure of ideological self-placement in 2004.3 Note that the item may be subject to misreporting due to social desirability effects, a problem however

that cannot be corrected with ANES data (e.g. Hadaway et al. 1993).4 Establishment of causal precedence is possible with cross-sectional data, when simultaneous effects are

assumed between two variables (Finkel 1995). This however requires the use of unrealistic modeling

374 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

9/24

Still, most investigations remain innocent as to what happens to religiouscharacteristics once they are exposed to partisan politics. The causal relationship

proposed in this analysis takes this step and identifies two mutually reinforcing

effects: a religious effect on politics (the orthodox assumption in political science),

and a political effect on religion. Their combination constitutes a feedback

phenomenon. The causal link between religiosity and partisanship is specified as a

cross-lagged effects model with the following structure (see Fig. 2):

PartyIDt b1PartyIDt1 b2Attendancet1 e1t 1

Attendancet b3Attendancet1 b4PartyIDt1 e2t 2

Table 1 Descriptive statistics for 19721976, 19921996, 20002004 panels: means (standard

deviations)

Variable [scale] Catholic Mainline Evangelical

Descriptive statistics for 19721976 panela

Party ID 1972 [06] 2.18 (1.90) 3.37 (2.02) 2.84 (1.98)

Party ID 1976 [06] 2.11 (1.88) 3.29 (1.98) 2.66 (1.96)

Ideology 1972 [17] 4.18 (1.16) 4.30 (1.19) 4.62 (1.03)

Ideology 1976 [17] 4.25 (1.19) 4.51 (1.23) 4.81 (1.14)

Attendance 1972 [15] 3.73 (1.49) 3.00 (1.41) 3.41 (1.49)

Attendance 1976 [15] 3.63 (1.48) 2.94 (1.40) 3.50 (1.48)

Descriptive statistics for 19921996 panelb

Party ID 1992 [06] 2.54 (1.80) 3.97 (1.73) 3.28 (1.98)

Party ID 1996 [06] 2.59 (2.05) 4.11 (1.95) 3.49 (2.02)Ideology 1992 [17] 4.16 (1.35) 4.58 (1.30) 4.59 (1.53)

Ideology 1996 [17] 4.18 (1.35) 4.79 (1.21) 4.76 (1.33)

Attendance 1992 [15] 3.37 (1.56) 2.71 (1.51) 3.33 (1.59)

Attendance 1996 [15] 3.31 (1.55) 2.72 (1.44) 3.16 (1.59)

Descriptive statistics for 20002004 panelc

Party ID 2000 [06] 3.13 (2.06) 3.22 (2.11) 3.35 (1.97)

Party ID 2004 [06] 3.30 (2.24) 3.35 (2.25) 3.63 (2.16)

Attendance 2000 [15] 3.18 (1.56) 2.91 (1.46) 3.16 (1.63)

Attendance 2004 [15] 2.89 (1.58) 2.94 (1.51) 3.28 (1.58)a Source: 19721976 ANES panel. Note: Higher scores indicate Republicanism (6 is strong Republican),

conservatism (7 is extremely conservative) and frequent attendance (5 is every week)b

Source: 19921996 ANES panel. Note: Higher scores indicate Republicanism, conservatism and fre-

quent attendancec Source: 20002004 ANES panel. Note: Higher scores indicate Republicanism and frequent attendance.

No repeated measurement available for ideological self-placement

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 375
http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

10/24

influence of attendance at time t- 1. An equivalent logic applies to b3 regarding

church attendance as the dependent variable in Eq. 2. Coefficient b2 is the cross-

lagged effect of attendance at time t- 1 on partisanship at time t, net of the effect

of partisan stability. The equation then predicts changes in partisanship. The same

applies to b4 regarding attendance as the dependent variable. For the effect of

ideology on attendance, the partisanship variable is replaced by the ideology

measure.

The two effects underlying the politicization of religion are: first, that attendance

shapes partisanship (or ideology); second, that partisanship (or ideology) reinforces

attendance, i.e. the political religion effect. If the latter is correct, we should not

only observe b2[0 in Eq. 1, but also b4[ 0 in Eq. 2. Alternatively, if only the

sociological view that dominates electoral studies is true, we should only observeb2[ 0 in Eq. 1, and b4 = 0 in Eq. 2. As will be argued below in more detail, I

A. Unidirectional effect

Political variable

(t-1)

Attendance

(t-1)

Political variable

(t)

Attendance

(t)

a

B. Feedback effect

Political variable

(t-1)

Attendance

(t-1)

Political variable(t)

Attendance

(t)

b

Fig. 2 Model comparison: unidirectional versus feedback effects. Note: The sole causal assumption of

studies working with cross-sections is represented by coefficient a in panel A. The feedback model adds

the political effect on attendance represented by coefficient b. Errors, correlations and controls have been

excluded for simplicity

376 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

11/24

Models were estimated with AMOS 6.0 and full-information-maximum likeli-

hood (Arbuckle 2005).5 The analysis does not report coefficients from the above

causal specification (Eqs. 1 and 2) for all subgroups across all panels. An explicit

test is proposed, which directly compares alternative models. Specifically, I contrast

the fit of the feedback model (the political-religion phenomenon) to that of aunidirectional model, which postulates that the only effect taking place during

religious politicization moves from attendance to ideology/partisanship (see Fig. 2).

This constitutes a more explicit evaluation of the unidirectional hypothesis versus

the reciprocal one (Bollen 1989, pp. 2912).

The comparison is conducted through a chi-square difference test, since the

constrained model with unidirectional effects is nested within the unconstrained

model that proposes the feedback. The difference between the chi-square values of

the two nested models is itself distributed as a chi-square value with degrees of

freedom equal to the constraints imposed on the second model. For reasons ofpresentational parsimony, I only present results when the reciprocal hypothesis

(unrestricted model, where the ideological/partisan effect on attendance is freely

estimated) shows a significantly better fit against the traditional, unidirectional

expectation (restricted model, with the political effect constrained to equal 0). For

comparison, results that do not support the feedback hypothesis appear in the

Appendix (Supplementary electronic material).

The hypothesis of lagged instead of synchronous effects between the main

variables defines the recursive character of the model, and makes identification

simple. A specification with synchronous effects would suggest that the two mainfactors influence each other at a single point in time. Such models break the

condition of independent variables being uncorrelated with the residual, since the

cause is at the same time influenced by its effect (Finkel 1995, p. 32). In this case

regression estimates would be biased, therefore analysis must turn to the use of

instrumental variables (see note 4). Due to heroic assumptions and the gradual

nature of most social psychological effects, I consider such non-recursive models a

less plausible scenario. In any case, researchers that employ feedback models of

ANES data suggest that the selection of lagged over synchronous effects makes no

difference to the estimation of causal relationships (Goren 2005; Carsey and

Layman 2006).

Finally, I have specified additional elements in the cross-effects models, in

accordance with the literature. First, the error terms in Eqs. 1 and 2 are correlated.

This allows estimating whether the two dependent variables at time t share at least

one omitted independent variable (Kline 1998, p. 101). If the disturbances were left

unrelated, that would represent the less plausible assumption that the two dependent

variables do not share any common, unobserved, causes. This is especially

unwarranted, when one considers that partisanship, ideology and religiosity are

5 FIML does not exclude missing cases from analysis for respondents included in the models. Under the

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 377
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

12/24

outcomes of the same pre-adult socialization process. Standard demographic

controls were added as predictors of ideology/partisanship and religiosity at time t,

together with their inter-correlations (see notes in Tables 3 and 5).

The Impact of Context

A central element in SIT is that social identities are dynamic, i.e. their strength and

influence depends on temporal and social context (Hogg and Terry 2000). Huddys

critique of SIT (2003) emphasizes such situational influences, which result in the

variable salience of identities relative to settings. In essence, context can result in

individuals switching from one social identity to another. Consider the example of a

politician who openly stresses differences between two ethnic groups during her

campaign. Here, identification with ethnic groups is likely to become the dominantidentity among the public. In another instance, the participation of an in-group

member as a candidate in elections could also raise the visibility of the in-group and

out-group demarcation (Huddy 2003, pp. 533, 543). The point of context-dependent

identity salience guides the selection of multiple-group estimation, discrete time-

lags, and emphasizes the importance of presidential election campaigns in

highlighting the religion-politics nexus. In the following, I justify these three

features of the models.

First, cross-lagged effects were estimated separately for each major religious

subculture in the US. The classification of churches into three major religiousgroups (Catholic, mainline and evangelical Protestant) follows a standard catego-

rization scheme, which allocates denominations into broader religious families (see

Steensland et al. 2000).6 Contextual differences among the three groups make this

decision essential (cf. Layman and Green 2005). For instance, the lack of vocal

electoral participation within Roman Catholicism is one element distinguishing this

religious tradition in the US, and making the expectation of substantial effects

produced by the linking of religion with politics less plausible.

Regarding analytic discrimination between mainline and evangelical Protestant

denominations, a main element of my hypothesis is that politicization takes place to

different extents and in different periods for the two groups. Research generally agrees

that the initially higher socioeconomic standing of mainline Protestants has led to a

different timing of the political mobilization phenomenon compared with evangel-

icals, who entered the political arena at a later phase (Roof and McKinney 1987; Finke

and Stark1992; Manza and Brooks 1999). This justifies a separate estimation of the

hypothesized relationships for mainline and evangelical Protestants.

6

Steensland et al. classify nondenominational Protestants as evangelicals according to their churchattendance (frequent attendance suggests evangelicalism) (2000, p. 316). Since the present analysis is

built on the church attendance variable, adopting the above practice would have introduced a biased logic:

378 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389

7/28/2019 33436886

13/24

The phenomenon of religious behavior driven by partisan (or ideological)

concerns is hypothesized to emerge within a religious community where ideological

or partisan identities are increasingly salient. I locate this condition in the post-

1980s political era among evangelicals, who were at the forefront of electoral

politics during two periods covered by the data.7

Specifically, the mid-1990s were atime of extreme cultural polarization and salient religious and political identities.

Similarly, the early 2000s have been a period of equally prominent connections

between the GOP and conservative Protestantism, and witnessed a reborn Christian

heading the Republican ticket in an atmosphere of cultural polarization. It remains

an empirical question however whether the feedback hypothesis holds among

evangelicals for the period covered by the 19721976 data. This was a time when

evangelical Protestants were already ideologically energized by the Social Issue,

but not yet explicitly attracted by the GOP. Hence, the link between Republicanism

and evangelical Protestantism had not yet been consolidated in the public mind.After all, 1976, the Year of the Evangelical, was defined by the Democratic

candidacy of Jimmy Carter.

The stratification by religious tradition unfortunately encounters practical

obstacles, which render it susceptible to a degree of criticism. ANES panels

normally measure denominational affiliation only in the first wave, under the

obvious assumption that switching does not take placeor that the phenomenon is

irrelevant to politics. For instance in the 20002004 panel (repeated measures of

denominational affiliation not available), missing repeated measurement of

affiliation requires definition of religious groups as follows: individuals areassigned to the Catholic group, for example, if they are members of this group in the

first wave of the panel. The obvious assumption is that these individuals remain

members of the same religious community in subsequent waves. In other words,

division of the sample into religious traditions assumes stability in religious

preference across waves, an expectation challenged by the switching phenomenon.

It would have been more reassuring to define each religious group by selecting

respondents that consistently belonged to the same church across panel waves, but

this was not feasible especially for the 20002004 study. In this sense, it is a

possibility that some participants defined as Catholics or evangelicals in the

first wave may have already dropped out of religion by the following wave or

converted.

Second, the time distance between measurements is crucial to the detection of

causal effects. The problem of specifying the most plausible, if any, delay between

cause and effect does not have a straightforward solution (Asher 1983; Bollen

1989). It depends partly on the theoretical conception of the causal effects and partly

on data restrictions. The use of ANES three-wave panel data constrains my selection

of time-intervals between cause and effect, since the first and final waves are

7 The effects reported in this paper hold even with more homogenous stratifications. For instance, if

models are estimated within born-again evangelicals (measure not available in 19721976), the partisan

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 379
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

14/24

administered close to presidential elections, while the middle one is collected in a

mid-term election. One obvious strategy is to specify the effects as continuous

across time (Finkel 1995, p. 16). It seems plausible to hypothesize that the effect of

religiosity on political variables takes place evenly distributed across time, and not

during some arbitrarily defined time intervals, for instance, every two or four years.Yet, this apparently reasonable assumption expects too much on behalf of citizens.

The idea that voters actively follow political affairs, and continuously update their

views in meaningful ways loses most of its plausibility against empirical reality

(Zaller 1992).

An alternative choice is to model discrete time-lags, with the expectation that

citizens tend to reassess the link between religion and politics only in specific

temporal contexts. Election campaigns appear to be ideal as such. In Edelmans

words elections are rituals and draw attention to common social ties (1964, p. 3).

During these periods, candidate speeches, advertisements and every day discussionsbring the component parts of the political process to the forefront; voters become

actively engaged, while ideological and partisan identities obtain increased salience

(Campbell et al. 1966; Clarke and Stewart 1998). One practical implication is that it

is reasonable to suggest that the political religion phenomenon is an evaluation

activated by specific situations during specific periods, and does not take place

constantly across time.

Third, the focus on presidential elections is not only necessary for pragmatic

reasons, in particular the absence of mid-term measurement for church attendance in

the 19921996 data, but it is also supported for substantive reasons. In justifying theexclusion of the mid-term panel wave from the analysis, I argue that citizens

re-evaluate the relationship between politics and religion mainly in the abstract

context of presidential elections and not in the more specific, local context of

mid-terms. Differences between presidential and congressional electoral settings

support this decision (e.g. Campbell 1960; Davidson and Oleszek 2004). For the

above reasons, the same lag (two consecutive presidential elections) was selected for

all panels. The two-wave specification with observed indicators assumes that

indicators are perfect measures of the underlying concepts and prohibits correction

for random measurement error. The addition of a measurement model would

minimize noise in the variables, but requires either three-wave panel data (for

single indicators) or multi-item constructs (Finkel 1995). Still, even without a three-

wave specification and correction for measurement error, the subjectivehence less

reliableideological and party identification variables exert a non-vanishing

influence on religious behavior.8

8 In an earlier stage of the analysis, I used three-wave models with the 19721976 and 20002004

datasets, which employed a Wiley-Wiley specification with single-indicator latent variables. These

380 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

15/24

Results

The analysis begins with a test of Hout and Fischers thesis (2002), adjusted to ANES

panel data. This predicts changes in religious practice due to ideological concerns,

focusing on the link between political ideology and church attendance. Thepsychological groups of interest identified by SIT are Liberals versus Conservatives.

Which competing assumptionreciprocity or unidirectionality, i.e. an ideolog-

ical political religion or the sociological modelbest approximates the causal

patterns observed in the data? Instead of visually comparing the fit of the feedback

hypothesis against the fit of the unidirectional hypothesis, Table 2 summarizes

results from the v2 difference test.9 This test directly compares the feedback

hypothesis of ideologically driven attendance against the more traditional,

unidirectional expectation of religious effects on political variables. Highlighted

entries show which part of the religious population experiences the political religionphenomenon in each period. In both periods, the religious community that practices

religiosity partly as political behavior is the evangelical group. I consider this a

product of the entrance of religious populations into ideological camps, especially

the conservative ideological mobilization of evangelicals by the Social Issue since

the early 1970s. In this case, members identifying with opposing ideological groups

tend to adjust their religious exposure accordingly, with liberals avoiding

ideologically conservative churches and vice versa.

Table 3 presents in detail the reciprocal models identified above and the

coefficients connecting ideology and attendance (a seven- and five-point scale,respectively). In the 1970s, it seems that apart from the impact of lagged evangelical

attendance on changing ideological orientation, we also observe a significant

political religion effect over and above the influence of control variables and

lagged attendance. In this case, lagged ideology shapes evangelical attendance, with

the more conservative tending to increasingly attend evangelical churches and vice

versa for the more liberal (b = .162). On average, extreme conservatives (seven on

the ideology scale) increase their attendance by .97 points compared to extreme

liberals (one on the ideology scale), i.e. by almost one point on the attendance scale.

We witness a stronger occurrence of the same effect in the 1990s (b = .274),

whereby extreme conservatives increase their attendance by 1.64 scale points

compared to extreme liberals.

The discussion now turns to the posited occurrence of a partisan political religion,

i.e. the shaping of church attendance by party identification. Table 4 summarizes

results from the v2 difference test, this time using the partisanship variable in place of

ideological self-placement. The psychological groups of interest identified by SIT in

9 Goodness-of-fit is assessed with the following criteria (Arbuckle 2005): the v2 test/degrees of freedom

ratio, in which values less than 5 are desirable (or 3 for stricter evaluations); Bollens incremental fit

index (IFI), which makes adjustments for sample size and the complexity of the model, taking intoaccount degrees of freedom, should score close to 90 and above (or .95 and above for more conservative

evaluations); Bentlers comparative fit index (CFI), which again accounts for small sample sizes and

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 381

7/28/2019 33436886

16/24

Table 3 (Ideological) Political religion in recent election cycles

Evangelical (19721976) Evangelical (19921996)

Stabilities (Time 1 ? Time 2)

Ideology ? Ideology .245 (.220/.068)***a .571 (.642/.078)***a

Attendance ? Attendance .608 (.613/.051)*** .707 (.705/.069)***

Cross-lags (Time 1 ? Time 2)

Ideology ? Attendance .162 (.113/.076)** .274 (.265/.086)***

Attendance ? Ideology .092 (.119/.046)** .205 (.239/.062)***

Summary statistics

N 244 106

v2/df 91.201/47 58.047/47

(1.941, p = .000) (1.235, p = .130)

IFI, CFI, RMSEA .961, .957, .062 .985, .982, .047

Sources: 19721976, 19921996 ANES panels

Note: Maximum likelihood estimates. Parentheses contain standardized coefficients/standard errors.

Controls included for age, male dummy, education dummies (reference category is high school or less),

union member in household dummy, marital status dummies (never married is baseline), region dummies

(northeast is baseline), children in household dummy, and income. Estimates for disturbance correlations,unanalyzed relationships, and control effects are omitted for claritya Ideological stability seems to be artificially low due to the use of the root question; this decision ignores

Table 2 (Ideological) Political religion: feedback versus unidirectional effects

Model comparison

Dv2 Ddf

19721976 ANES Catholic .138 1

Mainline 2.577 1

Evangelical 4.506** 1


Mainline .305 1


Sources: 19721976, 19921996 ANES

Note: Feedback models with a better fit than unidirectional models are highlighted. The v2 difference

statistic compares nested models: a feedback model against a constrained unidirectional model, which

only suggests religious effects on politics. A significant v2 statistic indicates that the constrained model

(unidirectional effects) is highly unlikely to be valid. In regression analysis terminology, this suggests that

the effect of lagged ideology on attendance is significant. When the statistic is insignificant, the same

effect is probably a misspecification. Finally, the 20002004 panel study does not contain a repeated

measure for ideological self-placement in 2004

* p\ .10; ** p\ .05

382 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389

7/28/2019 33436886

17/24

this case are defined as Democrats versus Republicans. Highlighted entries indicate

which population experienced the political religion phenomenon in each period. Once

again, attendance seems to be influenced by political (partisan) concerns among

evangelical Protestants in the 1990s and 2000s, yet the feedback effect is not present

for this constituency in the 1970s. I attribute this to the absence of partisan polarization

during that period. That is, the 1970s were still a time when evangelical support for the

GOP was not yet salient, and the Christian Right had not emerged as a major force in

American elections. Consistently therefore with the context-dependent nature of SIT

expectations, evangelicals do not appear to experience partisan pressures on their

attendance prior to the particization of their churches.10

Table 4 (Partisan) Political religion: feedback versus unidirectional effects

Model comparison

Dv2 Ddf


Mainline 7.608** 1

Evangelical .118 1


Mainline .575 1



Mainline .053 1

Evangelical 3.719 ** 1

Sources: 19721976, 19921996, 20002004 ANES panels

Note: Feedback models with a better fit than unidirectional models are highlighted. The v2 difference

statistic compares nested models: a feedback model against a constrained unidirectional model, which

only suggests religious effects on politics. A significant v2 statistic indicates that the constrained model

(unidirectional effects) is highly unlikely to be valid. In regression analysis terminology, this suggests that

the effect of lagged partisanship on attendance is significant. When the statistic is insignificant, the same

effect is probably a misspecification

* p\ .10; ** p\ .05

10 According to the test in Table 4, a partisan religion also emerges among mainline Protestants in the

1970s, whereby partisanship appears to constrain church attendance. One explanation of this could lie with

the political mobilization of mainline churches during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, as defined by the Civil

Rights movement and the Vietnam War (e.g. Wald and Calhoun-Brown 2007). Yet, due to methodological

problems in model estimation for this subsample in the 1970s, I choose instead to emphasize the absence of

the political religion effect from the evangelical subsample, which is the focus of the present study.

Specifically, the cross-effects have different signs for mainline Protestants in the 19721976 model: lagged

partisanship has a positive effect on changing attendance, while lagged attendance has a counter-intuitive,

negative effect on changing partisanship (see Supplementary electronic material, Table C). This is a

suppressor effect, whereby two variables are positively correlated, but direct effects are negative or vice

versa. Suppression occurs for two main reasons (Smith et al. 1992). First, suppression happens when anadditional predictor is entered in the model, i.e. the true relationship between the variables is in the opposite

direction than the one indicated by their correlation. If the difference in sign can be explained theoretically,

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 383

7/28/2019 33436886

18/24

Table 5 presents the actual estimates connecting the main variables within thereciprocal models. Evangelical Protestants go through a round of intense religious

politicization in the periods covered by the 19921996 and the 20002004 panels.11

The conventionally assumed impact of lagged evangelical attendance on changing

partisanship is both substantially and statistically significant in both periods

(b = .156 and b = .247, respectively). The substantial interpretation of this result is

that in a period of increasing connections between the GOP and conservative

Protestantism, frequent exposure to evangelical churches seems to move congre-

gants closer to the Republican Party. Conversely, less frequent exposure to

evangelical churches seems to move congregants closer to the Democrats.

However, lagged partisanship also significantly affects attendance in both eras

(b = .110 and b = .079, respectively). On average in the 1990s, strong Republicans

(six on the partisanship scale) increase their attendance to evangelical churches by

.66 points compared to strong Democrats (zero on the scale). In the 20002004 case,

strong Republicans increase their attendance to evangelical churches by .47 points

compared to strong Democrats. As expected therefore, ceteris paribus, the more

Republican among evangelicals were driven towards participating more frequently

in their churches, while the more Democratic were motivated to participate less.

Results support a Republican pull behind increasing attendance in evangelical

churches (or a Democratic push away from the same churches). Importantly, this

Table 5 (Partisan) Political religion in recent election cycles

Evangelical (19921996) Evangelical (20002004)

Stabilities (Time 1 ? Time 2)

Party ID ? Party ID .784*** (.786/.064) .903*** (.817/.045)

Attendance ? Attendance .791*** (.789/.059) .738*** (.752/.049)

Cross-lags (Time 1 ? Time 2)

Party ID ? Attendance .110** (.141/.052) .079** (.096/.041)

Attendance ? Party ID .156** (.121/.072) .247*** (.187/.054)

Summary statistics

N 119 200

v2/df 65.233/47 98.046/47

(1.388, p = .040) (2.086, p = .000)

IFI, CFI, RMSEA .976, .973, .057 .960, .957, .074

Source: 19921996, 20002004 ANES panels

Note: Maximum likelihood estimates. Parentheses contain standardized coefficients/standard errors.

Controls included for age, male dummy, education dummies (reference category is high school or less),

union member in household dummy, marital status dummies (never married is baseline), region dummies

(northeast is baseline), children in household dummy, and income. Estimates for disturbance correlations,

unanalyzed relationships, and control effects are omitted for clarity

* p\ .10; ** p\ .05; *** p\ .01

384 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389
http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

19/24

phenomenon emerges within the constituency that has been at the forefront in a

polarized partisan environment.12

By and large, the causal argument and findings presented above suggest that

when the link connecting a religious group with an ideological camp or political

party becomes institutionalized in the public mind, religious behavior in that groupcan be partly shaped by a political calculus. This effect is particularly evident for the

most salient social group in both the conservative backlash to the social upheaval of

the 1960s and 1970s, and later in the Republican electoral base: evangelical

Protestants. I consider the emergence of the ideological effect before the emergence

of the partisan effect as a robust basis for this conclusion. As a new issue conflict

emerged in the political scene of the 1970s based on traditional social values,

ideological political religion was the case for evangelicals in that period (see the

effect of ideological demarcation in Table 2). Later on, as party elites responded

and adapted to this new division, partisan political religion appears to have followed(see the effect of partisan demarcation in Table 4) (cf. Carmines and Stimson 1989;

Layman 2001; Wald and Calhoun-Brown 2007).

The intense linking of a church with a political ideology or party produces an

autonomous outcome, which could eventually alter the composition of the religious

constituency. Even though available datasets can only indirectly support this

conclusion, it seems that if, for instance, Democrats reduce their attendance to

evangelical churches, and Republicans increase it, political homogeneity within

these churches may not be a mere effect of theology or demography.

Discussion

The rising voice of evangelical Protestants, mobilized by abortion and other social

issues in the 1970s, and later expressed by the GOP, is considered today an

important component of the American political system. The present analysis

contributes an alternative theoretical and empirical explanation of this phenomenon,

based on the political reinforcement of religious patterns in American politics. The

alternative proposed and tested moves beyond reductionist sociostructural accounts

of the cleavage phenomenon, which merely focus on political consequences of

religious factors.

Expanding on Hout and Fischers (2002) empirical demonstration of how

religious communities become affected by their vocal participation in political

conflicts, I provide more robust evidence of this transformation, in terms of causal

inference. Results shed light on the role of ideological and partisan group

identification in generating changes in the religious behavior of evangelical

Protestants. In a process more or less ignored by prior research, which insists on

12 To test whether interactions are significant, i.e. whether effects differ across religious communities,

I fit two models for each panel: first I allow all parameters to differ across groups. In the second case,

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 385
http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-

7/28/2019 33436886

20/24

investigating the conventional effect of social structure on politics, this analysis

suggests that ideology and partisanship may be able to construct religious

communities, by boosting movement within and perhaps eventually across these

communities.

Certainly, the results presented here are only a preliminary attempt to address anignored social psychological process. Findings are not without methodological

difficulties, since the designing teams of ANES surveys have worked under the

assumption that religion affects politics and not vice versa. More fine-tuned survey

questions coupled with contextual and other in-depth analyses should delve deeper

into the reinforcing connection between religiosity and political variables. One

suggestion in that direction would be the consistent repeated measurement of

denominational membership for the same individuals across time, which can assess

if this indicator is also subject to ideological and partisan influences. Such an

analysis could establish if changing attendance within politicized churcheseventually leads to apostasy or switching. Further research could also help

understand the effect of this phenomenon on voting choice. This step can evaluate

whether political participation and volatility in voting intentions varies between

believers who are pulled closer to church or pushed further away from it due to

political concerns.

Bearing these weaknesses in mind, what does the analysis of panel data tell us

about religious politicization? The empirical picture suggests that since the 1970s,

the ideological and partisan mobilization of evangelicals has pulled some members

closer to the church (especially conservatives and Republicans), while pushingothers away (liberals and Democrats). Worshiping in a theologically conservative

church seems to eventually functionat least in partas a symbolic expression of

conservatism and Republican partisanship, whereby, other things being equal,

conservatives and Republicans tend to attend church because they see this practice

as confirmation of ideology and partisanship and as demarcation from the out-group

(liberals and Democrats). One can only speculate at this point, but the long-term

consequence of this political religion could lead to an ideological and partisan

sorting-out within politicized churches, a process that should reinforce the trend

described by Fig. 1.

Finally, apart from offering a less simplified portrayal of religious politicization,

the political religion phenomenon has substantial implications for our understanding

of religion in modern society and the continuing importance of partisan attachments

in contemporary American politics. In relation to religion, it appears that American

piety is partly shaped by worldly components. By focusing on surface indicators,

research usually ignores this phenomenon and instead concludes that secularization

is evidently not taking place in the United States, with its high religious observance

and growing religious mobilization in recent political periods (Leege and Kellstedt

1993). Even so, this article reinforces the possibility that the basis of Christian faith

in America is exposed to secular concerns (cf. Bellah 1967).

Regarding parties, the set of empirical findings presented opens up the potential

386 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389

7/28/2019 33436886

21/24

et al. 2002; Greene 2004), but that they may affect non-political aspects of social

life as well. In the end, contradicting the proposition that parties are in decline (Nie

et al. 1979; Aldrich 1995), and that partisanship is merely shorthand for policy

preferences and short-term evaluations (Fiorina 1981), the existence of a political

religion supports a view of party identification as a major component of mass beliefsystems.

Acknowledgments Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the Joint Sessions of the European

Consortium for Political Research (Workshop: Politicizing Socio-Cultural Structures), Helsinki, May

2007, and the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Tampa, November 2007.

I am indebted to Mark Shephard, John Curtice, Robert Johns, the editors and two anonymous reviewers

for advice and comments. I also want to thank Christopher J. Carman and Wouter van der Brug for

helpful suggestions.

References

Abramowitz, A., & Saunders, K. (1998). Ideological realignment in the U.S. electorate. Journal of

Politics, 60, 634652.

Aldrich, J. H. (1995). Why parties? The origin and transformation of party politics in America. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Arbuckle, J. (2005). Amos 6.0 users guide. Chicago, IL: SmallWaters Corporation.

Asher, H. (1983). Causal modeling. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Bartels, L. M. (1999). Panel effects in the American national election studies. Political Analysis, 8, 120.

Bellah, R. (1967). Civil religion in America. Daedalus, 96, 121.

Bolzendahl, C., & Brooks, C. (2005). Polarization, secularization or differences as usual? The

denominational cleavage in U.S. social attitudes since the 1970s. Sociological Quarterly, 46, 4778.

Bollen, K. (1989). Structural equations with latent variables. New York: Wiley.

Campbell, A. (1960). Surge and decline: A study of electoral change. Public Opinion Quarterly, 24,

397418.

Campbell, A., Converse, P., Miller, W., & Stokes, D. (1960). The American voter. New York: Wiley.

Campbell, A., Converse, P., Miller, W., & Stokes, D. (1966). Elections & the political order. NY: Wiley.

Carmines, E., & Stimson, J. (1989). Issue evolution. Princeton: Princeton UP.

Carsey, T., & Layman, G. (2006). Changing sides or changing minds? Party identification and policy

preferences in the American electorate. American Journal of Political Science, 50, 464477.

Clarke, H., & Stewart, M. (1998). The decline of parties in the minds of citizens. Annual Review of

Political Science, 1, 357378.

Davidson, R., & Oleszek, W. (2004). Congress and its members (9th ed.). Washington: CQ Press.Deaux, K, Reid, A., Mizrahi, K., & Ethier K. (1995). Parameters of social identity. Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 68, 280291.

Edelman, M. (1964). The symbolic uses of politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Finke, R., & Stark, R. (1992). The churching of America, 17761990: Winners and losers in our religious

economy. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.

Finkel, S. (1995). Causal analysis with panel data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Fiorina, M. (1981). Retrospective voting in American national elections. Yale UP.

Goren, P. (2005). Party identification and core political values. American Journal of Political Science, 49,

881896.

Green, D., & Palmquist, B. (1990). Of artifacts and partisan instability. American Journal of Political

Science, 34, 872902.

Green, D., Palmquist B., & Schickler, E. (2002). Partisan hearts and minds: Political parties and thesocial identities of voters. New Haven: Yale UP.

Green J C Rozell M & Wilcox C (Eds ) (2003) The Christian right in American politics: marching

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 387

7/28/2019 33436886

22/24

Greene, S. (2002). The social-psychological measurement of partisanship. Political Behavior, 24,

171197.

Greene, S. (2004). Social identity theory and party identification. Social Science Quarterly, 85, 136153.

Guth, J. L., Green, J. C., Smidt, C., Kellstedt, L., & Poloma, M. (1997). The bully pulpit: The politics of

Protestant clergy. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.

Hadaway, K., Marler, P. L., & Chaves, M. (1993). What the polls dont show: A closer look at churchattendance. American Sociological Review, 58, 741752.

Hogg, M. A., & Terry, D. J. (2000). Social identity and self-categorization processes in organizational

contexts. Academy of Management Review, 25, 121140.

Hout, M., & Fischer, C. (2002). Why more Americans have no religious preference. American

Sociological Review, 67, 165190.

Huddy, L. (2003). Group identity and political cohesion. In D. O. Sears, L. Huddy, & R. Jervis (Eds.),

Oxford handbook of political psychology. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Jackson, J. E. (1975). Issues, party choices and presidential votes. American Journal of Political Science,

19, 161186.

Kline, R. B. (1998). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. NY: Guilford.

Kriesi, H. (1998). The transformation of cleavage politics. The 1997 Stein Rokkan Lecture. European

Journal of Political Research, 33, 165185.

Lau, R. (1989). Individual and contextual influences on group identification. Social Psychology

Quarterly, 52, 220231.

Layman, G. (1997). Religion and political behavior in the United States: The impact of beliefs,

affiliations, and commitment from 1980 to 1994. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 61, 288316.

Layman, G. (2001). The great divide: Religious and cultural conflict in American party politics . New

York: Columbia UP.

Layman, G., & Carsey, T. (2002). Party polarization and party structuring of policy attitudes: A

comparison of three NES panel studies. Political Behavior, 24, 199236.

Layman, G., & Green, J. C. (2005). Wars and rumours of wars: The contexts of cultural conflict in

American political behaviour. British Journal of Political Science, 36, 6189.

Layman, G., & Hussey, L. (2005). George W. Bush and the Evangelicals. Presented at the Conference onA Matter of Faith? Religion and the 2004 Presidential Election, University of Notre Dame.

Leege, D. C., & Kellstedt, L. A. (Eds.). (1993). Rediscovering the religious factor in American politics.

Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.

Lenski, G. (1963). The Religious Factor. NY: Doubleday.

Levendusky, M. (2005). Sorting in the U.S. mass electorate. Presented at the MPSA Annual Meeting.

Lipset, S. M., & Rokkan, S. (1967). Cleavage structures, party systems, and voter alignments: An

introduction. In S. M. Lipset, & S. Rokkan (Eds.), Party systems and voter alignments. NY: Free

Press.

Long, K. M., & Spears, R. (1997). The self-esteem hypothesis revisited: Differentiation and the

disaffected. In R. Spears, P. Oakes, N. Ellemers, & S. Haslam (Eds.), The social psychology of

stereotyping and group life. Oxford: Blackwell.

Loveland, M. T. (2003). Religious switching: Preference development, maintenance, and change. Journalfor the Scientific Study of Religion, 42, 147157.

Manza, J., & Brooks, C. (1999). Social cleavages and political change. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Markus, G, & Converse, P. (1979). A dynamic simultaneous equation model of electoral choice.

American Political Science Review, 73, 10551070.

Miller, W. E., & Shanks, J. M. (1996). The new American voter. Cambridge: Harvard UP.

Moen, M. C. (1994). From revolution to evolution: The changing nature of the Christian right. Sociology

of Religion, 55, 345357.

Newport, F. (1979). The religious switcher in the US. American Sociological Review, 44, 528552.

Nie, N., Verba, S., & Petrocik, J. (1979). The changing American voter. Cambridge: Harvard UP.

Page, B., & Jones, C. (1979). Reciprocal effects of policy preferences, party loyalties, and the vote.

American Political Science Review,

73, 10711090.Poole, K. T., & Rosenthal, H. (1984). The polarization of American politics. Journal of Politics, 46,

10611079.

388 Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389

7/28/2019 33436886

23/24

Smith, R., Ager, J., & Williams, D. (1992). Suppressor variables in multiple regression/correlation.

Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52, 1729.

Steensland, B., Park, J., Regnerus, M., Robinson, L., Wilcox, W. B., & Woodberry, R. (2000). The

measure of American religion: Toward improving the state of the art. Social Forces, 79, 291318.

Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Turner, J. C. (1985). Social categorization and the self-concept: A social cognitive theory of groupbehavior. In E. Lawler (Ed.), Advances in group processes: Theory and research Vol. 2. Greenwich,

CT: JAI Press.

Wald, K., & Calhoun-Brown, A. (2007). Religion and politics in the United States (5th ed.). Lanham,

MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Warner, R. S. (1993). Work in progress toward a new paradigm for the sociological study of religion in

the United States. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 10441093.

Wilcox, C. (1996). Onward Christian soldiers: The religious right in American politics. Boulder, CO:

Westview.

Zaller, J. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. New York: Cambridge UP.

Polit Behav (2008) 30:367389 389

7/28/2019 33436886

24/24

33436886

Documents