Religious Groups as a Force in Party Politics

Abstract

This paper delineates the position of American religious groups in modern party politics. We first outline two different models of religious politics, the ethnoreligious and the religious restructuring model. We then use a number of data sets to reconstruct the contribution that religious groups have made to party coalitions from the New Deal era to the present, considering both theoretical perspectives. We test the influence of religious factors against other factors on party identification, including region, social class and gender during the 1960s, the 1980s and the contemporary era. Finally, we explore the role that religious influences play in the contemporary ideological polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties.