Wars and Rumours of Wars: The Contexts of Cultural Conflict in American Political Behaviour

Abstract

A heated scholarly debate rages over the ‘culture wars thesis’ in American politics. Drawing on the literature on mass opinion constraint and its sources, we propose a resolution to this debate: the culture wars influence mass political behaviour in special religious, policy and political contexts where logical, psychological, social and electoral sources of opinion constraint are in effect. Using data pooled from the 1992, 1996 and 2000 American National Election Studies, we find strong support for our argument. We conclude that the cultural wars are waged by limited religious troops on narrow policy fronts under special political leadership, and a broader cultural conflagration is largely a rumour.

Religion and Coalition Politics

“…First, we suggest that in addition to the importance of differences in orthodoxy and commitment (Broughton & Napel, 2000;Gryzmala-Busse, 2001;Layman & Green, 2005), the type of religious divide (denomination vs. family) matters. It is important that we do not discount the significance of orthodoxy.…”

“…In summarizing the effect of religion from a number of case studies of European electoral behavior, Broughton and Napel (2000, p. 203) point out that in empirical analysis of European electorates, "religious effects on voting, even if weakening over time and affecting fewer people than in the past, remain apparent after various statistical controls for other variables have been carried out." Similarly, in the United States, religion remains an important determinant of voters' political views (Layman & Green, 2005), and legislators take constituency religion into account when voting on issues (Rosenson, Oldmixon, & Wald, 2009). Cross-regional studies suggest the same.…”

“…The electoral literature, by and large, supports the notion that although industrialized and postindustrialized countries may have undergone considerable political secularization, religion is still a very important determinant of people's electoral behavior (Broughton & Napel, 2000;Layman & Green, 2005;Norris & Inglehart, 2004). The literature on coalitions also suggests that religion is an important policy issue for coalition formation (GryzmalaBusse, 2001).…”

“…Furthermore, the coalition literature provides little guidance as to how minority religious distance translates into policy distance. For this reason, we examine the power-sharing literature and the literature on American and European electoral politics (Broughton & Napel, 2000;Hartzell & Hoddie, 2003;Higham, 1955Higham, /2008Layman & Green, 2005;Lijphart, 1977) where the idea of whether and how religious distance translates into policy distance is discussed in more detail.…”

Culture wars and enduring American dilemmas

“…And contrary to the culture wars thesis, such factors as race and religious denomination still make a difference. Thus, more religiously committed black Protestants are still more likely than their less devout counterparts to align themselves with the Democratic Party and with liberal political views (Layman and Green 2006). It would appear, then, that the culture war thesis does not apply to the majority of Americans.…”