Given religious leaders' frequent opportunities to communicate to a large and receptive audience, political messages delivered during religious services have the potential to make a considerable impact on American politicswith particular significance for political education and mobilization. Social scientists routinely conclude that such messages are indeed disseminated, a claim we test in this study. Is it in fact true that church-and temple-going Americans regularly receive political messages from their ministers, priests, and rabbis during worship services? If so, what forms do these pronouncements take? How intense are they? Is this communication limited to messages from the service leader or does it come from other parts of the service, either informal or ritualistic? Existing empirical assessments of this topic depend heavily on survey research, asking congregants (or, less often, members of the clergy) about the frequency and content of political messages. Although such studies are certainly valuable, we approach religious political communications in a more immediate way: by observing them directly. Our conclusions are based on two waves of attendance at weekly services during 1998-1999, varying by religious tradition and denomination, region, and other dimensions. We find that "political" messages, broadly defined, are indeed delivered quite often. However, content analysis of these messages reveals that they typically address matters of social justice and rarely other types of political activity or belief, such as specific public policies or civic involvement (including voting). Political references during services only very occasionally constituted calls to direct political action on the part of the worshiper. Ultimately, our findings suggest that political content does occur relatively frequently during U.S. religious services, supporting the accounts of other social scientists. Our analysis offers new insight as to the content and nature of the political messages Americans are exposed to during religious services.

The ambiguous nature of electronic government (e-government) has resulted in hype and confusion, with little systematic consideration of the expectations and limitations of taking government online. This paper seeks to examine the role of e-government in the United States as an evolving process that manifests itself in three distinct sectors: government-to-government, government-to-business, and government-to-citizen. Using this typology as an organizing principle, we show how information technology has the potential to enhance government accessibility and citizen participation. We also show how the move toward a market-focused conceptualization of government information and service delivery raises the potential for blurring citizen and consumer roles, possibly at the cost of a robust, informed, and engaged citizenry.

A common conclusion is that beginning in the late 1960s the policy stands of Democrats on civil rights and civil liberties issues alienated the white working class. Race is presumed to have driven a wedge between the white and non-white working class, and diminished class voting in American politics. The New Deal coalition has eroded, the South has moved into the Republican column, and class conflict is presumed to have steadily declined since the 1950s. These arguments, however, leave us unable to explain how the Democratic party managed to survive for over forty years as the majority party in Congress, even while it was losing the South. The party survived by steadily increasing its support outside the South. The focus of this analysis is whom the Democrats attracted over time, and what the evidence indicates about the presumed alienation of the white, working class. The conventional wisdom is largely based on analyses that assess class voting using self-identified class. We argue that measure does not capture the economic situation of the respondent. This analysis relies on the relative income situation of voters, which reflects the relative level of resources people have to live their lives. The focus is the relationship between relative income position and support for the Democratic party among non-Southern whites from 1952-1996. The results indicate a steady increase in support for the Democratic party among the less affluent since the 1950s. Differences in voting by income position are not decreasing, but, in fact, have been increasing since the 1970s.

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