Religious and Political Identities

Christian Interest Groups in A Religiously Changing United Kingdom: Issues, Strategies, Influence

“…A number of studies have identified the most important religious interest groups in the US, especially those active in Washington DC (Hertzke 1988; Hofrenning 1995; Knutson 2011; Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 2012). In the UK, while scholars have analyzed key individual organizations or policy episodes (e.g., Steven 2011), and their grassroots supporters (Hatcher 2017), the most comprehensive effort to map the sector and its priorities focused on a specific subset: socially conservative “Christian Right” campaign groups (Kettell 2016a). Thus far, however, there has been no comparable academic analysis of the UK Christian interest group sector as a whole.…”

“…Closely connected to the type of organization is their issue agendas—that is, the policy issues on which they attempt influence. Much of the existing research into UK Christian interest groups has focused on traditional “moral” issues such as embryology and same-sex marriage (Kettell 2010, 2019)—yet among the grassroots, even the UK's evangelical constituency has much wider concerns (Hatcher 2017). While there has been some consideration of more mainstream issues (Kettell 2013a), the extent to which these are prioritized by the sector as a whole is less clear.…”