Abstract
This article analyses how religious orientations and ideological preferences have coevolved in Chilean society between 1998 and 2014. On the basis of the premise that people experience religion heterogeneously, we develop four hypotheses that describe possible changes in the association between these two variables. Using data from yearly national probability surveys and multinomial regression models, we obtain two general results. First, we observe a general process of political “dealignment,” whereby the proportion of the population, religious and irreligious, that ceases to identify with ideological positions strongly increases. Second, the magnitude of this dealignment is moderated by religious denomination and frequency of church attendance. Irreligious people have ceased to identify with ideological positions at higher rates than Evangelicals and Catholics, whereas frequently attending Catholics have become more reluctant than nonattending Catholics to abandon their traditional right-wing preferences. These results imply that as Catholics have reduced their size in the population, they have also become more politically heterogeneous.
Highlights
Este artículo analiza cómo han coevolucionado las orientaciones religiosas y preferencias ideológicas en Chile entre 1998 y 2014
We carry out a multinomial regression analysis based on data from opinion surveys conducted between 1998 and 2014 to determine whether the relationship between individuals’ ideological preferences and religious denominations has varied over time and whether such variation corresponds to their level of religious observance
We have studied the variable influence of religious denomination and observance on Chileans’ ideological preferences over the past two decades
Summary
Este artículo analiza cómo han coevolucionado las orientaciones religiosas y preferencias ideológicas en Chile entre 1998 y 2014. Bargsted and De la Cerda: Ideological Preferences and Religious Cleavage (2004) found evidence that the association between religion and political preferences has remained steady in many European countries, some of which have seen processes of political realignment among both religious and secular communities. The goal of this article is to reveal how the religious cleavage has evolved in contemporary Chilean society while considering the degree of religious heterogeneity with which people experience religion. Once this last element is considered, processes of political dealignment (or even realignment) and continuity can simultaneously coexist in time and place. By focusing on religious heterogeneity, the current article tries to reconcile the existent duality in the literature regarding the possible dissolution and permanence of the religious cleavage among contemporary democratic societies
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