Are the Rumors of War Exaggerated? Religious Orthodoxy and Moral Progressivism in America

Davis, Nancy J.; Robinson, Robert V.

doi:10.1086/230996

Cited by 212 publications

(175 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…70 If citizens organize their attitudes differently, then this mismatch has potential implications for our understanding of the psychological origins of 64 E.g., Feldman and Johnston 2014;Johnson and Tamney 2001;Malka et al 2014. 65 E.g., Davis and Robinson 1996;Lipset 1966;Stenner 2005;Svallfors 1991. 66 Effects of needs for security and certainty on political attitudes within Wave 5 were reported in Malka et al (2014) using different model specifications.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are Cultural and Economic Conservatism Positively Correlated? A Large-Scale Cross-National Test

Malka¹,

Lelkes²,

Soto³

2017

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

175

226

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The right-left dimension is ubiquitous in politics, but prior perspectives provide conflicting accounts of whether cultural and economic attitudes are typically aligned on this dimension within mass publics around the world. Using survey data from ninety-nine nations, this study finds not only that right-left attitude organization is uncommon, but that it is more common for culturally and economically right-wing attitudes to correlate negatively with each other, an attitude structure reflecting a contrast between desires for cultural and economic protection vs. freedom. This article examines where, among whom and why protection-freedom attitude organization outweighs right-left attitude organization, and discusses the implications for the psychological bases of ideology, quality of democratic representation and the rise of extreme right politics in the West.Keywords: public opinion; political ideology; political attitude constraint; political psychology; comparative politicsThe right-left ideological dimension is a fundamental feature of politics in many nations around the world. 1 This article examines the relationship between two preference dimensions that are widely recognized as central to ideological differences between the right and left: the economic dimension, which concerns redistributive social welfare preferences and views about the proper scope of government economic involvement, and the cultural dimension, which concerns views on matters such as sexual morality and immigration. 2 Within mass publics around the world, do people who hold right-wing cultural attitudes also tend to adopt right-wing economic attitudes? Do left-wing cultural attitudes typically go with left-wing economic attitudes? The established view from political science is that there do not exist psychological constraints that would make this the case for most of the people most of the time. 3 In contrast, an influential research tradition within psychology specifies that cultural and economic conservatism have common psychological origins and thus typically co-occur. 4 Despite its theoretical importance and potential implications for quality of democratic representation, the typical association between cultural and economic attitudes within mass publics around the world has not been firmly empirically established.In this article we report what is to our knowledge the largest cross-national test to date of this empirical relationship, using World Values Survey (WVS) data from 229 national samples spanning ninety-nine nations. We furthermore examine how the alignment of these two dimensions varies across people and contexts. Our findings suggest that: (1) it is not typical for

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…26 Johnston, Lavine, and Federico 2017. 27 Davis and Robinson 1996;Erikson and Tedin 2010;Lipset 1966. 28 Malka and Soto 2015.…”

Section: The Empirical Relationship Between Cultural and Economic Conmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Cultural and Economic Conservatism Positively Correlated? A Large-Scale Cross-National Test

Malka¹,

Lelkes²,

Soto³

2017

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

175

226

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The former finding both validates and helps explain why there is great utility in the quantitative measures of religious traditionalism in contemporary religion and politics scholarship especially in terms of explaining political ideology and partisanship (Layman 2001;Putnam and Campbell 2010). The latter finding provides qualitative evidentiary support to those who challenge the supremacy of the "Three Bs" perspective (Djupe and Gilbert 2009;Davis and Robinson 1996;Smidt and Penning 1991;Wilcox, Jelen, and Leege 1993). In particular, our analysis suggests that those religious traditionalists and religious modernists whose attitudes about the role of religion in society are "against type" adhere closer to their particular denominational faith statements' admonitions regarding the intersection of faith and political life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Beyond the “Three Bs”: How American Christians Approach Faith and Politics

Friesen

Wagner

2012

Politics and Religion

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ABSTRACT:While it is well known that religiosity measures inform modern political alignments and voting behavior, less is known about how people of various religious orthodoxies think about the role of religion in society. To learn more about this veritable "black box" with respect to whether and why people connect their spiritual life to the political world, we conducted several focus groups in randomly selected Christian congregations in a mid-sized Midwestern city. Our analysis offers confirmatory, amplifying, and challenging evidence with respect to the "Three Bs" (believing, behaving, and belonging) perspective on how religion affects politics. Specifically, we show that while contemporary measures of religious traditionalism accurately reflect individuals' partisan, ideological, and issue preferences, attitudes regarding the broad intersection of faith and politics are perhaps best understood via the presence (or absence) of denominational guidance on questions of the role of religion in society. We conclude by offering suggestions for future survey research seeking to explain the relationship between religion and politics.2

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“…Davis and Robinson 1996a, 1996bDiMaggio, Evans, and Bryson 1996;J. H. Evans 1997;Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope 2005;A.…”

Section: The Culture Warsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture wars and enduring American dilemmas

2010

Choice Reviews Online

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In 2008, John McCain, always known as something of a centrist or moderate Republican, picked the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. The moment he did so, the culture war returned to American politics. Although the economy was entering a tailspin and dangers were prominent around the world, once again we were discussing whether elites had lost touch with the common people by failing to appreciate religion and dismissing people's concerns with morality.The Palin selection raised a larger question: Did we ever have a culture war in the ‹rst place? In this book, Irene Taviss Thomson offers an original and important new way of answering that question. Whether or not a culture war indeed existed out there in Middle America, just about everyone who wrote on the topic agreed that elites themselves were sharply divided between liberal and conservative views of the world. And, the argument went, the raging culture war was especially apparent in the media, whatever was happening in small-town America.Rather than simply assuming the truth of this proposition, Thomson looks at the media-speci‹cally, opinion magazines. Her research challenges the idea that our opinion leaders are engaged in an implacable war with each other. Culture has historically been de‹ned as the common values that bind together a society. Thomson shows that this idea of culture remains very much alive. America remains a nation where agreement is more striking than disagreement. No matter how bitter and polarized our politics can seem, this truth should never be lost, and Thomson provides the evidence needed to back it up. Opinion leaders need to think about their own role in the culture war; Thomson has helped them do it.-alan wolfe Putting Faith in Partnerships: Welfare-to-Work in Four CitiesStephen V. Monsma The New Imperial Presidency: Renewing Presidential Power after Watergate Andrew Rudalevige Self-Financed Candidates in Congressional Elections Culture Wars and Warring about CultureAmerican culture appears to be deeply divided: those who believe there are absolute moral truths contend with those who place moral authority in individual judgment. Armed with these competing visions, "orthodox" versus "progressive" culture warriors clash on issues of abortion, homosexuality, feminism, school prayer, multiculturalism, popular culture, and university curricula. The population is increasingly polarized as a result.The problem with this image is that it is not supported by survey data. This is a description of the Left written by a well-known conservative (Bork 1989, 27).While there are doubtless persons for whom the binary logic of the culture wars is all-important, the elites represented in the pages of these mainstream media-the journalists and intellectuals, feminists and "family values" advocates alike-instead re›ect shared cultural patterns. These discussions take place within the context of enduring American dilemmas-about the role of religion in politics and society, the tension between morality and pragmatism, how much indiv...

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Are the Rumors of War Exaggerated? Religious Orthodoxy and Moral Progressivism in America

Cited by 212 publications

References 35 publications

Are Cultural and Economic Conservatism Positively Correlated? A Large-Scale Cross-National Test

Are Cultural and Economic Conservatism Positively Correlated? A Large-Scale Cross-National Test

Beyond the “Three Bs”: How American Christians Approach Faith and Politics

Culture wars and enduring American dilemmas

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