Understanding the effects of religious attendance on political participation among ethnic minorities of different religions

In the United States, active church membership among ethnic and racial minorities has been linked to higher political participation. In Europe, the influence of religious attendance on political mobilisation of ethnic minorities has so far been little explored, despite the heated public debate about the public role of religion and particularly Islam. This study uses the 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Study to theorise the relationship between religious attendance and political participation of ethnic minorities in a European context and extend existing theories to non‐Christian minority religions. The article shows that despite a significantly different context in which religion's place in political life is more contentious, regular religious attendance increases political participation rates of ethnic minorities. Some possible explanatory mechanisms are tested and an important distinction is introduced between those mechanisms that mediate, and those that moderate the impact of religion. The study finds that British minority churches and places of worships vary in how willing and effective they are in politically motivating their worshippers, and concludes that this relates to the political salience of certain religions within the United Kingdom context.     

The Influence of Religious–Political Sophistication on U.S. Public Opinion

Scholarly accounts of elite–mass communication often suggest that political sophistication is a necessary condition for adopting the attitudes of partisan elites. Some have also suggested that political knowledge promotes religious–political issue constraint among religious identifiers. This paper contributes to the political sophistication literature by piloting and testing a new measure, religious–political sophistication (RPS), assessing knowledge of church teaching on particular political issues. Using original measures launched on the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, I show that for evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics, RPS (in conjunction with frequent church attendance) depresses support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Moreover, I argue that assessing RPS this way is not fatally contaminated by unsophisticated respondents interpolating that their clergy must share their political positions. Results suggest religion-and-politics scholars should adopt RPS measures to gain a greater understanding of the unique sources of political communication upon which religious identifiers draw.     

The Sacred Kingdom and the Royal Wedding of 2011

Despite secularisation and increased religious diversity the UK state and the monarchy are religiously legitimated institutions which have their origins in protestant/catholic divisions over three hundred years ago but which remain strong enough to survive in the current era. The Church of England acts not only as the established church of England but as a church for the UK with respect to events such as the coronation and the royal wedding of 2011. Ecumenical and interfaith initiatives have been attempted by the government and the monarchy and were evident in attendance at the wedding but it demonstrated the ritual supremacy of the state church and the inevitable difficulties of seeking to achieve formal representation for religious diversity in the state. Attempts at more formally inclusive religious involvement in state institutions conflict with other goals such as gender equity and suggest that secular state institutions might be fairer to all religions, denominations and those with no beliefs.     

After the fall: the impact of government regulation on church attendance in Eastern Europe, 1990–2004

Previous literature modeling the demand for religion has identified socioeconomic factors, religious human capital and religious market structure as being the fundamental determinants of the level of participation in religious services and practices. Building on the existing literature, this study analyzes the effect of government regulation and intervention on religious activity. Using religion-related data as well as demographic and economic data from 22 Eastern European countries after the fall of Communism, the existence of any form of religious restrictions is found to reduce church attendance rates.     

Vaccine or catalyst? Christian religion and populism in Europe: A rejoinder to Inglehart's “Religion's sudden decline”

The strength and direction of the association between Christian religion and support for radical right-wing parties is strongly debated. On the one hand, there is work that shows that in Western European countries with a strong Christian democratic party, the relationship between church attendance and voting for populist radical right (PRR) parties is negative (Marcinkiewicz and Dassonneville 2022). Such findings contradict with the conclusions reached by Inglehart (2021), who reported that adherence to religious norms correlates positively with support for PRR parties. In this research note we shed light on the reasons for these contrasting conclusions, by systematically assessing the role of empirical choices in terms of the operationalizations of the dependent and the key independent variables, and how heterogeneity is dealt with.     

Church Engagement, Religious Values, and Mass-Elite Policy Agenda Agreement in Local Communities

We provide evidence on two prominent but heretofore untested expectations about the relevance of religion for the democratic process: (1) that greater engagement in churches or comparable religious institutions and their organizational life enhances representational processes; and (2) that religious values in a community have greater influence on the latter processes, with more liberal religious values expected to enhance the responsiveness of community leaders to general public preferences. Using data on local communities in the United States in the late 1960s, we find strong support for the expected relevance of religious liberalism for representation, but none for the expected effect of church engagement. We provide evidence, too, that our findings about religious values are generalizable to present-day politics.     

Rockets,Astronauts, and Shrines: Representations of Spaceflight in Sacred Visual Art and Architecture

This article examines the relationship between space exploration and sacred visual art, demonstrating that religious iconography and church architecture evolved by assimilating humankind's entry into the physical heavens as a living parable. This is proven by the presence of space exploration imagery within places of worship—from a church building inspired by a payload fairing to inclusion of space exploration milestones as historical landmarks, from astronauts being chosen as depictions of Christian virtues to lunar material being included in church windows, and from a space shuttle being painted on a Christian Orthodox church wall to a space hotel being represented on a Buddhist temple. The incidences of space themes in religious visual arts, as well as the fervor of reception, vary nonetheless among denominations.     

The puzzle transformed: Explaining declining turnout

This analysis of the decline in aggregate voting turnout in the United States between the 1950s and the 1980s attributes the decline to changes in the generational composition of the electorate. In particular, the post-New Deal generation (first presidential vote in 1968 or later), which continues to grow in size, votes at a rate well below that of older generations. A minor part of the generational differences in turnout can be attributed to generational differences in party identification and social connectedness (as measured by such indicators as home ownership and church attendance). The larger portion of generational turnout differences cannot be directly explained with variables contained in the National Election Studies. The generational differences in turnout arenot reflected in preelection participation (informal campaigning, doing party work, etc.) and they cannot be accounted for by a declining sense of political efficacy or citizen duty or by lessened interest in campaigns and election outcomes.     

Religion and Political Action in Postcommunist Europe

Patterns of political identification in postcommunist Europe are still weakly formed. The churches, however, command high levels of confidence, in sharp contrast to political parties. Representative surveys in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine in late 1997 and early 1998 indicate high levels of confidence in the churches in three of these nations, but not in the Czech Republic for reasons that appear connected to its forced conversion to Catholicism. The religious, as in other countries, are disproportionately female, but attenders in postcommunist Europe are not more likely to be elderly or resident in the countryside. There was little difference between church attenders and national populations in attitudes to the market, NATO membership, or the current government; there were rather larger differences between the countries, with Bulgarians the most favourable to the market, NATO and pro-market parties, and Ukrainians the least favourable. A multiple regression analysis found that church attendance of itself had little effect on attitudes or party preferences in either the Czech Republic or Slovakia; it did, however, increase support for the market, for joining NATO and for pro-market parties in Bulgaria and Ukraine. The relatively modest effects of overt religiosity are likely to be helpful to the formation of a democratic political culture, although account must also be taken of a strong association between the Muslim minorities in these countries and the political parties that seek to represent their interests.     

Religious Pluralism and Democratic Inclusion: The American Recipe for Peace

There is no simple formula for religious peace in the United States, such as “separation of church andstate.” Instead, the US Constitution establishes two opposing principles -- religious freedom and civicinclusion -- that must be continually rebalanced. The legal result is a “serpentine wall” between church andstate that creates zones of cooperation as well as separation. Moreover, the relatively peaceful coexistence ofdiverse religious communities within the United States is due, not simply to the principles of the FirstAmendment, but also to the de-spatialized and de-ritualized character of American religion, and to the absence of explicitly confessional parties in the American polity.     

Social space in the English medieval parish church

A theoretical approach to the organisation of social space is advanced with the aim to develop an understanding of the architectural space of the later medieval parish church in England, based on social practice. Refusing the general assumption of liturgical uniformity, the mass is taken as the template of religious practice most fundamental to such an understanding in the local context. Through religious practice the parish church became the locale for the constitution and reproduction of the Christian community. Social identities were necessaily constructed within that framework and as a result, it will be argued here, the church building must be seen to represent a domain of secular action within the field defined by the Christian liturgy.     

Spaceflight and the Separation of Church and State

Instances of religious expression by astronauts aboard NASA spacecraft present a unique encounter between American space policy and legal jurisprudence. The agency must adjudicate between its reticence to restrict astronauts' religious action with its responsibility to protect the constitutional separation between church and state. Though NASA won a suit filed by an atheist activist in 1969, it has not always taken proper consideration of the dangers of astronauts' religious expression. As it seeks a sustained human presence in outer space, NASA should form a policy regarding its responsibility to provide religious accommodation for current and future astronauts.     

Church-State Separation and Church Property Restitution in the Czech Republic

This article aims to present the recent change in the church-state relations in the Czech Republic. The change consists of restitution of church property taken away by the communist regime and the financial separation of churches and religious societies from the state. The article briefly overviews the church-state relations in Czechoslovakia before 1989 especially with regard to the issues of property and finance. The focus is on the legislation of 2012 and the contracts between the state and churches and religious societies that both resolved the restitution of church property taken by the communist regime and initiated the process that will lead to a complete financial separation of churches from the state.     

Are Charitable Giving and Religious Attendance Complements or Substitutes? The Role of Measurement Error

Government policies sometimes cause unintended consequences for other potentially desirable behaviors. One such policy is the charitable tax deduction, which encourages charitable giving by allowing individuals to deduct giving from taxable income. Whether charitable giving and other desirable behaviors are complements or substitutes affect the welfare benefit of the deduction—complements increase the benefit, while substitutes decrease the benefit. This paper focuses on the effect of the deduction on one behavior in particular: religious attendance. Using data from the Independent Sector Survey of Giving and Volunteering, I estimate a tax price elasticity for religious attendance of ?0.4, which implies that charitable giving and religious attendance are complements. I resolve the difference between my estimate and a recent estimate by W. S. Gruber (2004) that implies charitable giving and religious attendance are substitutes. While Gruber imputes itemization status, an important factor in calculating tax incentives, I use survey‐reported itemization status. This imputation creates a large amount of non‐classical measurement error. I show that the measurement error is responsible for the disparate results: If I also impute itemization status, I obtain similar results as Gruber.     

Dysfunctional institutions? Toward a New Agenda in Governance Studies

There is a wide‐spread perception among academics and commentators that institutional dysfunction has become increasingly common in important social, political, and economics arenas. Opinion polls show a decline in trust and confidence in major actors and institutions, including inter‐governmental organizations, governments, firms, NGOs, and religious organizations. For some, the core of the problem is that the hitherto well‐functioning states have become less effective in aggregating and acting upon citizens' preferences. Many policy initiatives of the 1990s – deregulation, privatization, new public management, private regulation, regional integration, civil society, and so on – seemed to have failed to meet expectations. This symposium seeks to identify important theoretical and empirical questions about institutional failure, such as why do institutions fail, why are they not self‐correcting, what might be a clear evaluative yardstick and analytic approach by which to measure performance, and to what extent contemporary theories of institutional evolution and design are useful in examining institutional restructuring and institutional renewal? Symposium essays by leading social science scholars offer important insights to inform future work on institutional performance and outline an agenda for institutional renewal and change.     

Churches as Societal Veto Players: Religious Influence in Actor-Centred Theories of Policy-Making

The article argues that the study of western democracies benefits from a conceptualisation of Christian churches as societal veto players characterised by three features: their power, which depends on their potential for mobilisation; their preferences, which can be deduced from churches' official statements and which are often outside the political spectrum; and their coherence, which determines the size of their indifference curve. Conceptualised as societal veto players, churches can be included in actor-centred theories of policy-making. Particular attention should be paid to veto points, church–state relations and religious parties, as these are the features of the political system that affect churches' behaviours. A comparative study of churches' roles in stem-cell policies illustrates the use of the concept. The study shows that the Catholic Church is a ‘stronger’ veto player than protestant churches, but that this stronger role can have paradoxical effects on the resulting policies and the policy process.     

John Locke and the Limits of Religious Liberty: Marriage License Refusal,Religious Freedom Laws,Vaccine Refusal,Contraception Mandate Exemptions,and Ultrasound Requirements

Nearly two hundred fifty years into its existence, the American polity faces a conundrum over a core founding principle: religious liberty. Multiple debates have emerged over the extent and limits of religious liberty, including arguments over how far any one person’s religious liberty extends into the public sphere as well as into the private lives of other citizens. Highly influential on James Madison’s crafting of the First Amendment, John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration outlines a strong conception of both religious toleration and of religious liberty. In the “Letter,” Locke’s reasoning is sympathetic to the concerns and convictions of believers while remaining cognizant of the calamities to which religious differences can give rise. Further, he provides a robust explication of the mutually exclusive domains of ecclesiastical and civil authorities, now known more colloquially as the division of church and state. In the following article, I illustrate how the principles put forth by Locke offer guidance in adjudicating religious liberty claims in the cases of Kim Davis, religious freedom laws, vaccine refusal, contraception mandate exemptions, and ultrasound requirements.     

Jürgen Habermas on public reason and religion: do religious citizens suffer an asymmetrical cognitive burden,and should they be compensated?

In his recent writings, Jürgen Habermas asks how the liberal constitutional principle of separation between church and state, religion and politics, should be understood. The problem, he holds, is that a liberal state guarantees equal freedom for religious communities to practise their faith, while at the same time shielding the political bodies that take collectively binding decisions from religious influences. This means that religious citizens are asked to justify their political statements independently of their religious views, resulting in a burden that secular citizens do not experience. To compensate, Habermas demands from secular citizens that they open their minds to the possible truth content of religion, enter into dialog and contribute to the translation of religious reasons into generally acceptable reasons. This article focuses on Habermas’s assumption that religious citizens suffer an asymmetrical cognitive burden that should be compensated, and his claim that his approach to religion in the public sphere is less restrictive than that of John Rawls.     

The political economy of churches in Denmark, 1300–2015

This paper reports new time-series for the numbers and sizes of churches in Denmark over a 715-year period. Per capita, the new series are termed church densities. A pattern emerges in the series that corresponds to the main development in the economy: until 1750, the economy was in the traditional steady state, where church densities were high and did not decline substantially. Modern development set in after 1750. Since then, church densities have declined more than five times. Moreover, capacity utilization of church rooms has declined, which means that the reduction in the demand for churches must have been even larger. We argue that this large decline is caused by a fall in religiosity that is caused by economic development as measured by the rise in incomes. In parallel with similar transitions in other sectors, e.g., the Agricultural Transition, it is termed the Religious Transition.