Disciplinary Origins

Had political science drawn as heavily on classic European social theory as did sociology, it might well have paid more attention to religion as a vital force. Although they differed considerably, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim shared a strong interest in the role of religion in society and politics. Coming from polities with strong confessional parties, they took for granted the political significance of the religious factor in a way that American political scientists did not. To the extent that these classic thinkers influenced subsequent scholarship in American political science, Marx's reductionist approach to religion captured most of the interest. Consider Stuart Rice's oft-quoted characterization of elections as the democratic expression of class struggle. Perceiving class as the “real” underlying force in electoral behavior, political scientists seldom recognized the religious dimensions of mass politics so ably chronicled by other social scientists. Even when recognized, as Lijphart's comment (above) suggested, religious forces were perceived as epiphenomenal, fossilized remnants of an ancien regime.

Perhaps the religious factor was relatively neglected in the Review because it fit neither the legal-institutional framework that dominated the early years of the discipline nor its later positivist turn to behavioralism and empiricism. An extra-legal component of a liberal political order, religion was not central to the institutional realm of government except insofar as it impinged on law, thus confining early work on religion to church–state matters, The empiricist/behavioral approach similarly offered relatively limited scope for religious inquiry, perhaps because of data issues but also because political science paid attention to a narrower range of dependent variables than did sociology.

Even had they been disposed to recognize the significance of religious conflict in politics, the overwhelming commitment of American political scientists to liberal values and the democratic ethos (Crick 1967) may have deterred academic investigation. From the founders onward, institutional religion was widely perceived not as a constituent element of the democratic order but as a potential threat to it that needed to be tamed. This reflexive Madisonian orientation is perhaps most visible in the “modernization” approach in post-World War II comparative politics. Modernization theorists treated religion as part of the traditionalist order destined to be swept away (secularized) or compartmentalized (privatized) by the inexorable march of urbanism, science, and the market economy. In the realm of governance, students of political development defined modernization as “separation of the polity from religious structures, substitution of secular modes of legitimation and extension of the polity's jurisdiction into areas formerly regulated by religion” (Smith 1974, 4). By definitional fiat, religion was conceptualized as an obstacle to effective development, capable of a positive contribution only in its capacity to promote social mobilization.

Social Background

The Carnegie national surveys of college faculty in 1969, 1975, and 1984 confirm that most political scientists have little interest or involvement in religion.²

Although nearly all political scientists in these surveys reported having been raised in a faith tradition, nearly a third in 1969 and 45% in 1984 reported “none” as their current religion. The 1969 survey included enough political scientists to explore differences across faith traditions. Between 27% and 33% of those raised in a Christian or Jewish faith reported no current religion, as did 20% of those raised in an “other” faith tradition. Political scientists (and other social scientists) are significantly less likely to have a religious attachment than are faculty outside the social sciences.³

Political scientists also show low and declining levels of personal religiosity. In 1969, more than 61% attended church a few times a year or less, and most of these selected once a year or less (the survey did not have a “never” option).⁴

Moreover, in each survey, those who were the most professionally active—who attended the most professional meetings, published the most articles and books, who thought of themselves as researchers more than teachers, and who taught at top-ranked Ph.D.-granting universities–were more likely to be secular than other political scientists. In the 1969 survey, scholars who spent more time on research, who considered research to be their top priority, who published the most articles, and who worked at the most prestigious institutions were all less religious than others in the discipline. Among those who were affiliated with top- or medium quality universities or top colleges, who spent an hour or more a week on research, who made research their top priority, and who had published 11 articles or more in their career, nearly 90% attended church a few times a year or less, nearly 80% were indifferent or hostile to religion, and nearly two-thirds listed “none” as their current religion.

Thus, those who set the research agenda for the profession were almost universally uninvolved in organized religion and indifferent to it more generally. Almost certainly their colleagues, and most likely their friends and neighbors as well, were nonreligious. It is not surprising that they largely ignored the role of religion in explaining politics.

Complexity of Subject and Measurement

For scholars with little exposure to religion, its sheer complexity and the challenges of measuring it constitute a barrier to entry to the topic. Scholars have shown that it is important not merely to know how religious one is, but also how one is religious (Leege and Kellstedt 1993). And how one is religious can be conceived of and measured in many ways (Leege 1996).

Consider briefly the complexity that faces scholars seeking to incorporate religion into models of voting in the United States Early studies distinguished among Protestant, Catholics, and Jews, but the National Election Study in 2004 had 135 categories of religious affiliation, including 18 for Baptists alone. And growing numbers attend nondenominational megachurches and worship outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, which make denomination complicated. Denomination is even more complicated in settings outside of the United States, for the same faith tradition may take on radically different political configurations in different countries.

Over the years the NES has asked about religious affiliation, behavior and practice, doctrine, and identities, exposure to elite communications from televangelists or groups that pass out voter information in churches. From this, scholars have operationalized groups like “evangelicals” using denomination, doctrine, or self-identification, and drawn distinctions among theological groups with more obvious similarities than differences.

Religiosity is more complex than frequency of attendance at services; some faiths have more regular private and semipublic rituals, and in many traditions private devotionalism may be associated with different political attitudes and behaviors than public involvement in religion. Religious beliefs also matter, as doctrine helps some people form and prioritize political opinions, but the implication of the same doctrine may differ according to race, gender, region, and other factors. Doctrinal differences have been extensively studied among conservative Protestant Christians, with inconsistent terminology and differing operational definitions, but less studied among Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and others, and far less studied outside of the United States.

Individual congregations form cohesive political communities, which can have an influence beyond that of denomination and doctrine. Some churches become more political than others, even within the same faith tradition and the same community, as religious elites or communities of congregants come to see connections between their faith and politics. Some faith traditions are centered in a text, which may provide resources for religious elites to mobilize adherents; others are based on accumulated doctrine or ecstatic experience. And the meaning of each of these varies within the same tradition across nations, and across cultures within nations. To add yet more complexity to the measurement challenge, some traditions cohere primarily not around doctrine but around common sacraments that affirm predominantly communal, quasi-ethnic bonds of loyalty.

The Issue Attention Cycle in the Discipline

The Review's relative indifference to religion may also have owed something to the dynamics of the discipline's agenda. A flagship journal is likely to reflect real-world developments and headlines that intrude on the attention cycle of political scientists, driving the academic agenda and structuring grant opportunities.

For most of the postwar era, religion did not command headlines or become the basis for lucrative grant research. Federal agencies that sponsored broad-ranging programs of academic grants were leery of religion because of the church–state boundary. The inclusion of a religious preference question in the 1957 Current Population Survey occasioned a ferocious counterreaction that precluded such queries in subsequent surveys (Foster 1961). Private foundations did invest heavily in academic research to reduce intergroup tension and promote religious tolerance, but they funded mostly psychologists and sociologists. When religion briefly came to public attention in the 1960s with the issue of John Kennedy's Catholicism, most commentators read the election as evidence that religiously based electoral conflict had been put to rest.

In the late 1970s, several developments forced even the most resolutely secular of academics to recognize the importance of religion. The Islamic Revolution in Iran was a particularly telling blow to secularization theory in political science. The Shah's Iran was often cited as an exemplar of Third World modernization and Reza Shah Pahlevi himself, more so than any candidate since the arch-secularist Attaturk, seemed the prototype of the modernizing leader. Whereas few might have been surprised had a Khomeini-like figure emerged in other societies, this was altogether unexpected in Iran.

As Iran became an Islamic republic, the United States developed its own theopolitical social movement, the Christian Right. The sudden emergence of Christian conservatism as an organized political force surprised observers who were unaware of the constancy of religiously inspired political activism in American history (Lienesch 1982). Observing the prominent role of clergy in liberal campaigns for civil rights, peace, and social justice causes, scholars were prone to overlook the portents in grassroots campaigns against the Equal Rights Amendment, gay rights laws and “godless” textbooks (Crawford 1980). Hence few political scientists anticipated the emergence of a conservative Christian movement calling for a return to traditionalist Biblical values.

As if more stimulus were needed, scholars also observed the growing power of religion in political conflicts around the globe. In Bosnia, where religioethnic tensions were thought to have been successfully managed by Tito's Yugoslavian regime, ambitious politicians seized the mantle of religious nationalism as a path to power. The consequence was a bloody civil war. The officially secular Indian state was rocked by several outbreaks of religious violence that culminated in the electoral victory of a Hindu nationalist party. Various European states are now grappling with a new series of church–state issues that have arisen with the Muslim influx. In the Americas, the rise of evangelical Christianity has re-defined some political alliances while the United States has experienced the increasing salience of religion to candidate and party mobilization. With such ferment in American, comparative, and international politics, how did the discipline react?