Social Movements and Party Politics: The Case of the Christian Right

Abstract

This paper explores the uneasy relationship between social movements and major political parties by considering the case of the Christian Right and the Republican Party in the 1994 elections. We look at four states where the movement was active in party politics and where Republican electoral fortunes varied from failure to success. We found that the degree of intraparty division generated by the Christian Right seemed to hurt Republicans at the polls, but the level of movement activity in itself apparently helped the Republicans. Most factors associated with support for the Christian Right did not help account for electoral outcomes across the states. Instead, the accessibility of the political party nomination processes to the movement best accounted for the election results: greater party openness was associated with poor results and more limited access with greater success for the GOP.

Faith and Politics: The Influence of Religious Beliefs on Political Participation*

“…2 Other measures of religious behavior include church mobilization and church-learned organizational skills. Churches were an instigating force for both political and social movements such as the civil rights movement (Beyerlein and Hipp, 2006) and, more recently, Christian conservatism (Green, Rozell, and Wilcox, 2001). Clergy and religious leaders can send messages politically mobilizing church members (Guth et al, 2003) and organizational skills learned in the church can extend to subsequent political participation (Greenberg, 2000;Jones-Correa and Leal, 2001).…”

Civic Engagement and Religious Activities: Examining the Influence of Religious Tradition and Participation

“…Churches were an instigating force for both civic engagement and social movements such as Civil Rights (Beyerlein and Hipp 2006;Calhoun-Brown 1996;Greenberg 2000;Williams 2002) and, more recently, Christian conservatism (Green et al 2001;Guth et al 2003;Hoover et al 2002;Hopson and Smith 1999). Clergy and religious leaders can send messages to civically mobilize church members (Brewer et al 2003;Janoski et al 1998;Wuthnow 1988) and organizational skills learned in the church can extend to subsequent civic engagement (Jones-Correa and Leal 2001;Uslaner 2002;Verba et al 1995;Wilson and Musick 1999).…”

A Matter of Context: Christian Right Influence in U.S. State Republican Politics

“…A wealth of scholarly work exists on the Christian Right and its functioning in American politics (Bruce, Kivisto, Swatos, 1995;Green, Rozell, and Wilcox, 2001;Green and Guth, 1991;Liebman and Wuthnow, 1983;Lienesch 1993;Martin 1996;Smidt and Penning, 1997;Smith 2000;Urofsky and May, 1996). A number of attempts have been made to measure the Christian Right's influence in American politics both nationally (Green, Guth, and Hill 1993) and at the state level (Conger and Green 2002;Persinos 1994;Conger 2009).…”