Religious Roots of War Attitudes in the United States: Insights from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf

Abstract

Existing scholarship regarding the impact of faith on foreign policy public opinion is divided on whether religious factors have any direct influence that is independent of political predispositions. I address this debate by analyzing the effect of religious background on attitudes toward the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf. Using American National Election Study data sets and a series of regression estimates, I find that the impact of religious factors—in terms of affiliation, attitudes on the Bible, and religious behavior—on perceptions toward each of the wars is rather indirect via political predispositions. The contribution of the piece lies in utilizing the Karlson, Holm, and Breen method to capture for the first time the exact scope of mediated effects for religious variables. In so doing, the study provides new insights on the patterns of interaction between religious and political factors shaping war-related attitudes.