Religious Affiliation and Individual International-Policy Preferences in the United States

Daniels, Joseph P.

doi:10.1080/03050620500303324

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Religion has been linked directly to public foreign policy preferences. Examples include empirical relationships between people's religious affiliation and their international policy preferences (Daniels ); U.S. support of Israel resulting from American public support, itself generated by religious affinities toward Israel (Koplow ); and greater likelihood of Diaspora Jews invoking Jewish values when critiquing Israeli policy (Sucharov ).…”

Section: How Religion Influences Preferences For War or Peacementioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Religion on Interstate Armed Conflict: Government Religious Preference and First Use of Force, 1946–2002

Brown

2016

Scientific Study of Religion

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Effects of religious norms on interstate armed conflict are understudied compared to such effects on intrastate conflict. Yet religion exerts no less influence on states’ preferences and outcome of interstate interaction than other factors. Religion fosters emotion, in turn generating cognitive and motivational biases in states’ leaders. Religion acts as a political ideology that inculcates worldviews and programs political agendas. Religion accomplishes these things through scripture, clergy, and historical narrative. Through these media, religion instills standards of behavior, including for resort to (political) violence. Thus, religions influence states’ propensities to initiate interstate armed conflicts, even when belligerents’ goals are not necessarily sacralized. However, different norms are ingrained in different religions, and median war ethics of different religions range from permissive to restrictive. Therefore, over time and space, different religions are expected to have different effects on initiation of interstate armed conflicts. Regressing that outcome against the newly introduced Government Religious Preference (GRP) scores for Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism reveals that such is the case; different religions are differently associated with war and peace.

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Section: How Religion Influences Preferences For War or Peacementioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Religion on Interstate Armed Conflict: Government Religious Preference and First Use of Force, 1946–2002

Brown

2016

Scientific Study of Religion

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“…Emerging research on the usefulness of studying religious beliefs holds particular promise for the field of foreign policy, demonstrating the statistically significant effects of both religious affiliation and belief on attitudes toward topics such as communism (Wittkopf 1990;Hurwitz, Peffley and Seligson 1993;Jelen 1994) and the Middle East (Mayer 2004;Boyer 2005;Daniels 2005;Guth, Green, Kellstedt and Smidt 2005;Smidt 2005;Phillips 2006;Baumgartner, Francia and Morris 2008). As Warner and Walker (2011), Bader and Froese (2005), Guth (2006), and others have pointed out, what is missing from the current literature is a theoretically grounded explanation of the mechanisms through which religion influences foreign policy.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divine Direction: How Providential Religious Beliefs Shape Foreign Policy Attitudes

Glazier

2012

Foreign Policy Anal

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Despite recent scholarly and popular work regarding the role of religion in US foreign policy, we still know little about how religious factors affect the public's foreign policy views. This paper proposes one potential mechanism for influence—the connection of providential beliefs to foreign policy issues through a compelling religious frame—and tests the explanatory power of this approach through a nationally administered survey experiment. The “providential” orientation of respondents—the extent to which they believe in a divinely authored plan—is measured through questions that tap the nondenomination specific nature of religious beliefs. A multi‐methods approach of means comparisons, logit analyses, and exact logistical regression indicates that when a foreign policy is framed in religious terms, providentiality is a significant predictor of support, even in the face of countervailing political beliefs. These findings highlight one mechanism through which religion can influence foreign policy attitudes, thereby demonstrating the value of further investigating the role of religious beliefs in politics.

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“…For these reasons, we see ample justification to heed Wald and Wilcox's (2006) call to "rediscover" the "faith factor" in the study of American public opinion on foreign policy. While several scholars have examined or commented on the importance of religion in shaping public opinion on foreign policy issues in general (see, e.g., Hero 1973;Wittkopf 1990;Ribuffo 1998) and foreign policy in the Middle East (Mayer 2004;Boyer 2005;Daniels 2005;Guth et al 2005;Smidt 2005;Phillips 2006), our study is unique in that it relies on data from surveys taken after overall public support began to drop significantly for the Iraq War. Using data from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, we find that religion is a significant factor in predicting support for the Bush administration's increasingly unpopular Middle East policy.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Clash of Civilizations? The Influence of Religion on Public Opinion of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Baumgartner

Francia

Morris

2008

Political Research Quarterly

112

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.The authors argue in this study that religious beliefs play a significant role in predicting American public opinion on foreign policy issues in the Middle East. Their findings reveal that Evangelical Christians have remained strong sup porters of a hawkish foreign policy toward the Middle East, even as overall public support for the Iraq War declines.They also find that Evangelicals are among the strongest supporters of Israel and hold more negative views of Islam than others. These results reinforce the growing importance of the "faith factor" in public opinion and American pol itics as a whole.

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Religious Affiliation and Individual International-Policy Preferences in the United States

Cited by 13 publications

References 20 publications

The Influence of Religion on Interstate Armed Conflict: Government Religious Preference and First Use of Force, 1946–2002

The Influence of Religion on Interstate Armed Conflict: Government Religious Preference and First Use of Force, 1946–2002

Divine Direction: How Providential Religious Beliefs Shape Foreign Policy Attitudes

A Clash of Civilizations? The Influence of Religion on Public Opinion of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East

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