From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity

From Politics to the Pews

Chicago Studies in American Politics

A SERIES EDITED BY BENJAMIN I. PAGE, SUSAN HERBST, LAWRENCE R. JACOBS, AND ADAM J. BERINSKY

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From Politics to the Pews

How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity

Michele F. Margolis

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

© 2018 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2018

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-55564-5 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-55578-2 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-55581-2 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226555812.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Margolis, Michele F., author.

Title: From politics to the pews : how partisanship and the political environment shape religious identity / Michele F. Margolis.

Other titles: Chicago studies in American politics.

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018. | Series: Chicago studies in American politics

Identifiers: LCCN 2018004882 | ISBN 9780226555645 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226555782 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226555812 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Religion and politics—United States. | Partisanship—Political aspects. | Identity politics—United States.

Classification: LCC BL65.P7 M37 2018 | DDC 201/.720973—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004882

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For my parents, Peter and Wendy Margolis

For Adam

Contents

Acknowledgments

one / Group Identities and Politics in the United States

two / Putting Things in Context: Religious and Political Attachments over Time

three / A Life-Cycle Theory of Religion and Politics

four / Tracking Religious Trajectories over a Lifetime

five / Partisans’ Religious Responses to the Political Environment

six / The Religious and Political Consequences of Political Knowledge

seven / Faithful Partisans: A Closer Look at African Americans

eight / Generalizing the Life-Cycle Theory: A Reevaluation of the 1960 Election

nine / The Religious Sort

Appendix

Notes

References

Index

Acknowledgments

As a senior at UC Berkeley, I decided to write a thesis on how members of different religious traditions vote. I was terrified when I approached Jack Citrin to ask if he would be my thesis advisor. Convinced that he would say no, I almost didn’t ask him. But I mustered the requisite courage, and I am so glad I did. With Jack as my advisor and mentor during my senior year, I discovered a love of doing research and my fascination with religion and politics in America. My sincerest thanks go to Jack for starting me down this path.

Once in graduate school at MIT, my advisors—Adam Berinsky, Gabe Lenz, and Charles Stewart—helped me transform my general interests and vague intuitions into a research agenda. Adam’s natural skepticism and probing questions forced me to refine my arguments and think through the theoretical and empirical implications of each of my claims. I knew when I had convinced Adam of something that I had made progress. I also thank Adam for his financial generosity; much of the early data collection for this book would not have been possible without the Political Experiments Research Lab at MIT. I benefited tremendously from Gabe’s thorough and constructive reading of my work; he offered critical input on issues of research design, analysis, and framing, while simultaneously being the consummate cheerleader. Gabe’s willingness to provide feedback and support made it easy for me to forget that he was not actually living in Cambridge for a good deal of my graduate school career. Charles’s knowledge about religion proved invaluable as this book project took shape. On numerous occasions, he pointed me toward useful data sources on religion about which I would not have otherwise known. In graduate school, I had the good fortune to be part of vibrant intellectual communities in both Cambridge and Chicago, where I received thoughtful feedback and useful advice on my research. In particular, I thank Dan Altman, Steve Ansolabehere, Jon Blake, John Brehm, Andrea Campbell, Devin Caughey, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Anthony Fowler, Allison Harris, Joyce Hodel, Alisha Holland, Krista Loose, Ethan Porter, Miranda Priebe, Mike Sances, Betsy Sinclair, and Chris Warshaw.

Much of this book was written and rewritten while I was at the University of Pennsylvania, where I received continuous support, constructive criticism, and practical advice from my colleagues. I am enormously indebted to Dan Hopkins, Matt Levendusky, and Marc Meredith. By virtue of working with their office doors open, Dan, Matt, and Marc ended up being my go-to people for questions and quick feedback. Their help with everything ranging from reading parts of (or whole) chapters and giving their thoughts on a recent iteration of a graph to sharing LaTeX code and offering professional advice not only improved the quality of the book but also made the experience of writing it easier. I am also grateful to Diana Mutz for always being eager to help in any way possible and generously using her own resources to provide data for this project, John Lapinski for providing several research assistants, and Dan Gillion for his advice on the publishing process. Deep thanks also go to John DiIulio. Though John’s university obligations keep him very busy, he nevertheless found time to read and provide insightful comments on the entire manuscript. John also graciously gave me an opportunity to present my work to some of the country’s most important religious scholars and leaders and brought me on as a fellow at the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS).

I also thank Bethany Albertson, Vin Arceneaux, Jon Blake, Louis Bolce, Avery Goldstein, Julia Gray, Guy Grossman, Allison Harris, Mike Horowitz, Yue Hue, Cindy Kam, Dorothy Kronick, Shana Kushner-Gadarian, Ed Mansfield, Rogers Smith, Jessica Stanton, Dawn Teele, and Melissa Wilde for helpful conversations, feedback, and professional advice. In particular, Vin Arceneaux, Louis Bolce, Guy Grossman, Allison Harris, Dorothy Kronick, and Adam Ziegfeld read various chapters, and their comments helped refine the book’s argument and improve its readability. Another thank you goes to Adam Berinsky and Gabe Lenz, who have continued to provide guidance on the project as well as the publishing process even after I was no longer officially their student.

The book benefited tremendously from a one-day book conference in April 2016. I am deeply thankful to Ed Mansfield—the department chair when I arrived at Penn and who started the tradition of supporting junior faculty book conferences—as well as to Anne Norton, the current chair who continued this tradition. I extend a heartfelt thank you to the four external participants—Vin Arceneaux, Paul Djupe, Taeku Lee, and Bob Shapiro—who took the time to engage closely with my manuscript. Their chapter-by-chapter feedback helped me structure and frame the book and brought to light underdeveloped themes and implications stemming from my research. In addition to the external participants, I am grateful to those from the Philadelphia political science community who read my manuscript and took part in the daylong event: Nyron Crawford, Allison Harris, Dan Hopkins, Jay Jennings, Matt Levendusky, and Marc Meredith. Also, my thanks go out to Naya Blackwell for helping to organize the conference and Adam Ziegfeld for taking notes during the conference.

I further benefited from the comments of seminar participants at Harvard, Yale, and Vanderbilt, as well as the detailed feedback and probing questions I received during a presentation at a National Capital Area Political Science Association meeting. Jacob Ausubel, Erin Farrell, Nikki Lin, Kareen Movsesyan, and Veronica Podolny provided valuable research assistance. Their close readings of and thoughtful questions about the manuscript undoubtedly improved the final product, and I appreciate their willingness to help with some of the less exciting parts of book writing and editing. John Tryneski, Chuck Myers, Holly Smith, and two anonymous reviewers helped turn a book manuscript into an actual book. I am grateful for how seamless the publication process has been; one would never have known that Chuck took over for John as my editor at the University of Chicago Press between submission of the manuscript and its eventual publication. My thanks also go to the University of Chicago Press for allowing me to publish portions of chapters 3, 4, and 5 in a paper titled How Politics Affects Religion: Partisanship, Socialization, and Religiosity in America in the Journal of Politics (2018) prior to this book appearing in print.

The research for this book would not have been possible without the financial support of several institutions. While a graduate student, I received a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES 1219787) as well as an opportunity to collect data through Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences. My thanks also go to David Kinnaman for sharing data that the Barna Group had collected. Since arriving at Penn, I have received support from PRRUCS and the Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies.

The professional debts I have accrued while writing this book are nothing compared to the personal debts I have amassed. Since beginning this project, I gained a father- and mother-in-law. Richard, whose enthusiasm for my research is second only to his enthusiasm for his own son’s research, always asked with genuine interest how my work was progressing. And, whereas most people thank family and friends solely for their emotional support during the book-writing process, I am grateful to my mother-in-law, Paulette, for additionally contributing to this book with her fast and thorough copyediting. Dan and Debbie, my brother and sister-in-law, make my trips to California less productive, but far more fun. Keeping my professional deadlines and milestones in her calendar, learning and adopting political science jargon, helping me formulate game plans, and reminding me to cut myself some slack are just a few of the many things for which I am forever indebted to Rebecca Graff. Everyone needs a Becca in his or her life while writing a book. I am also grateful to my grandmother, Mema, not only for being a constant source of support and encouragement, but also for being Professor Judith Margolis, a professional role model and pioneer who paved the way, not just for me, but for many women in academia. Thanks also go to Mort Margolis (Gramps) and Rhoda Pashkowitz (Nana). They are not here to see my book in print, but they both had an indelible impact on my life.

My deepest thanks go to my parents, Peter and Wendy Margolis. My dad’s nonchalance at my successes (Of course you got a book contract, you are a rock star) and genuine disbelief at my setbacks (I don’t understand how anyone could reject your paper) provided much needed encouragement during the long and exhausting process of writing this book. My mom’s uncanny ability to know exactly what I need—a listening ear, a metaphorical kick in the rear, or a care package with gluten-free flour tortillas—has made this arduous process seem a little more manageable. I am incredibly fortunate to have parents who are both my role models and friends, and I am profoundly grateful for their love and support.

Finally, words cannot express my gratitude to my husband, Adam Ziegfeld. Not only is Adam an incredibly supportive and encouraging partner, but he has also contributed a great deal to this project, from giving feedback on half-baked ideas and taking notes at my book conference to testing surveys before they went into the field and line editing most of the manuscript. Our wonderful son Rafael arrived just as I needed to begin the revisions on my book manuscript. Adam gave me the time and space to revise the book, which meant doing the lion’s share of the childcare and doing less of his own research in the process. None of this would have been possible without him.

ONE

Group Identities and Politics in the United States

Karen’s religious community is at the center of her life.¹ She attends church each Sunday without fail and participates regularly in Bible study sessions; she takes great comfort in knowing that God is watching out for her; and it was important for her that her children be baptized. In addition to supporting Republican candidates at both the national and local levels, Karen is quite open about her conservative political views. For example, Karen shared her excitement on Facebook when a congressman introduced the Life at Conception Act (H.R. 1091), which declares that the unborn are persons under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Karen also believes that marriage should be between one man and one woman, federal aid programs—such as food stamps—create a culture of dependency, and political correctness has gone too far.²

Fran, in contrast, is not very religious. Although she continues to observe a few cultural traditions associated with her religious upbringing, she is not particularly devout and worries that organized religion does more to pull people apart than bring them together. Fran is also a strong and vocal Democrat. She supported Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 and took her young child to the polls to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016; she has donated money to progressive organizations associated with abortion rights and the protection of immigrant communities; and she is concerned that religion plays too large a role in politics. In fact, a sticker she posted near her desk at work reads: The only wall we need is between church and state.

Karen and Fran each resemble millions of Americans and are emblematic of one of the most important and enduring social cleavage[s] in the electorate (Bolce and De Maio 2014: 48). Today, the highly devout and frequent churchgoers tend to identify with and support the Republican Party, while religious nonidentifiers and infrequent attenders generally support the Democratic Party. These religious differences between Democrats and Republicans, often referred to as the God gap or religiosity gap, correspond to some of the largest electoral blocs and most stable constituencies in the American party system.

Conventional wisdom suggests that religion has produced this God gap, with religious voters sorting into the Republican Party and secular and less religious voters joining the Democratic Party’s ranks. This explanation presumes that Americans have responded to the changing relationship between religion and politics over the past five decades. For much of American history, political parties differed along denominational lines, each drawing disproportionate support from Americans belonging to different religious traditions. But beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, denominational differences between the parties increasingly gave way to new partisan coalitions based on religiosity, or level of religious involvement. Democratic and Republican elites staked out divergent positions on moral issues, used religious faith to varying degrees when reaching out to voters, and debated religion’s role in the public sphere. Politically oriented religious groups also emerged on the scene with the hopes of influencing public policy. This new political environment, according to many scholars, prompted a mass restructuring of party allegiances. Voters, for the first time, relied on how deeply felt their religious identities were and how entrenched they were in their faiths and communities when forming political preferences, thereby uniting previously politically dissimilar voters—Catholics, mainline Protestants, and evangelical Protestants—under the umbrella of religiosity. According to this explanation, Karen’s identification with the Republican Party likely reflects her religious involvement whereas Fran’s lack of religious commitment increased her likelihood of becoming a Democrat.

However, a second process—one that is not often considered—could also produce the God gap and explain why Karen is a religious Republican and Fran is a far less religious Democrat. According to this second explanation, politics drives the God gap, with partisans selecting into (or out of) organized religion based on their partisan identities. Whether people choose to identify with a religious faith and the extent to which they are involved in a given religious community are, in part, responses to their political surroundings. Instead of religiosity driving political attitudes, the shifting political landscape—in which Republicans have become associated with religious values and cultural conservatism to a greater extent than the Democrats—could have instead changed partisans’ involvement with their religious communities. This explanation, in which Karen’s Republican leanings led her to become more religious and Fran’s affiliation with the Democratic Party pushed her away from religion, changes our understanding of politics’ role in shaping social communities and group attachments. The political factors that produce contemporary electoral politics in America can also alter the makeup of the relevant social groups presumed to be the parties’ key constituencies. Which explanation accounts for the current religious-political landscape in the United States? Does religion push voters in the direction of certain parties, as is commonly assumed? Or might politics explain voters’ levels of religiosity and commitment to religion? Answering these questions is the main goal of this book.

Main Argument

The pages that follow argue against the widespread assumption that religion, particularly the strength of religious affiliation and involvement in a religious community, is itself impervious to politics. Rather, this book shows that partisan identities can profoundly shape identification with and engagement in the religious sphere.

A novel theory that draws on what we know about Americans’ religious and political socialization experiences generates predictions about when partisanship can affect religious affiliation and involvement. In brief, the distinct timings of the religious and political socialization processes create a window during which partisanship can influence decisions related to religion. Partisan identities typically crystallize in adolescence and early adulthood, which is the very time when many people have distanced themselves from religion. As young people reach adulthood, however, they must decide whether and how involved they want to be in a religious community. At this juncture, partisan identity, which has already solidified for many, can shape religious attachments. Further, because religious identification and practices are often stable after these initial decisions are made, partisanship’s impact on religious decisions can persist for decades.

Why does partisanship affect levels of religiosity? The life-cycle theory, described briefly above and in more detail in chapter 3, identifies a life stage during which partisanship and politics can influence religious attachments. However, the life-cycle theory on its own does not predict how members of a particular party will behave. Instead, the political environment in which people are situated informs specific expectations about how partisanship influences religious attachments. The 1970s saw new political issues and electoral strategies emerge that resulted in the parties becoming distinct along a religious dimension that did not previously exist. Once the parties and party elites diverged on questions related to religiosity, Americans could draw on their partisan identities when making religious choices. Elite cues provide information to voters as they transition from young adulthood into adulthood about how people like them engage with religion. Empirical tests presented throughout the book corroborate the life-cycle theory: Partisanship influences religious decision making at a certain life stage, and these partisan-driven religious choices are evident for many years to come. All told, the elite-led changes to the parties’ positions and strategies not only affected how religious people came to view the parties but also how partisans came to view religion.

Why Does It Matter If Politics Affects Religion?

This book focuses on the political origins of social groups. How do social identities develop, and why do some people more strongly identify with certain social groups—such as racial, religious, or gender groups—than others? American politics scholars often ignore these questions because they do not think that politics influences social identities or the extent to which individuals identify with certain social groups. Having assumed that group attachments take root outside the political sphere, researchers have found ample evidence that group-centered politics is alive and well in the United States, shaping how Americans engage in politics. But what if politics plays a role in the formation of these social identities? The book focuses on religious identities to answer this question. In doing so, it explores whether politics helped create the strong bonds between Americans’ religious and political attachments that are widely analyzed and discussed during each election cycle. Identifying a reciprocal relationship in which religious attachments both affect and are affected by politics changes how we think about the last forty-five years of American political history, religion’s ability to influence politics, the power of partisanship, and identity in general.

If we fail to recognize that partisanship can shape religious attachments, our understanding of recent political history is woefully incomplete. The chapters that follow offer an alternative—and, I would argue, far more complete—account of the dramatic change in the composition of American electoral coalitions over the past forty-five years, during which time a strong and enduring cleavage has developed that pits religious Republicans against more secular Democrats. Moreover, the life-cycle theory helps make sense of the decades-long time lag between changing strategies and rhetoric at the elite level and the emergence of the religiosity gap among voters. If partisanship affects the religious choices of only a subset of individuals, rather than the population as a whole, then many years should need to pass before changes at the elite level become evident in the religious and political attitudes among the broader population. Whereas researchers pinpoint the 1990s as the beginning of the God gap, change had been under way for decades.

Although the argument advanced in this book does not preclude religion from influencing politics, it nevertheless raises questions about how and when religion plays a role in the political sphere. For example, conventional wisdom is that religious voters select into the Republican Party. One implication of this is that campaigns can win support using religious appeals. Conversely, these same campaigns imbued with religious themes and rhetoric should alienate nonreligious voters. If, however, such religious appeals and campaign strategies also changed the religious makeup of the United States, then these tactics will appear far more successful in shaping political preferences than they actually are.

Moving beyond how the results reshape our understanding about religion and politics, the alternative narrative presented in this book also suggests the need to reevaluate our understanding of social group influence in politics. Research focusing on social groups takes as a starting point that being part of a group, or holding a specific identity, provides members with a place in the social world (Simon and Klandermans 2001: 320), which generates a common worldview and shared priorities among members (Abdelal et al. 2009; Campbell et al. 1960). This outlook can, in turn, shape how group members respond to events and interpret the world around them, including politics. Indeed, when political differences emerge among groups within society, many assume that these distinctive [political] patterns are produced, in one fashion or another, by influence of the group (Campbell et al. 1960: 295). Moreover, researchers have found that strong identifiers—those who are more attached to a particular group—are the most likely to behave politically like others in the group (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Campbell et al. 1960; Conover 1988, 1984; Gurin, Miller, and Gurin 1980; Shingles 1981; Tate 1994), while nominal affiliates, or members who are psychologically peripheral to the group, are the most likely to deviate from the group’s norm (Campbell et al. 1960: 309). Scholars frequently attribute any difference in political outlooks between strong and weak identifiers to the influence of the social group. If, however, we choose identities along with how strongly we associate with them, researchers must consider whether politics plays a role in that process of identity acquisition. In fact, this ability to recreate and refashion one’s identity many times over is arguably at its extreme in contemporary American society (Huddy 2001: 137). The theory and empirics from this book offer a critical first step in understanding how politics influences group identification and when an identity becomes politically consequential in the United States.

Politics’ ability to affect identification with and participation in a religious community also changes how we should think about partisanship’s power to influence, and possibly divide, Americans. Even though voters are politically unaware (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Campbell et al. 1960; Converse 1964; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996) and many Americans hesitate to call themselves strong partisans (Klar and Krupnikov 2016), partisanship cleaves the electorate by changing who belongs to and participates in the country’s largest social institution. The findings from this book demonstrate that by creating social divisions, partisanship’s impact on average citizens extends far beyond the political sphere.

This book focuses on how partisanship can influence seemingly nonpolitical decisions related to religion; however, politics’ impact on religion has important political implications as well. If partisans select into or out of religious communities, in part, based on their political outlooks, they will find themselves in more politically homogeneous social networks where they encounter less diverse political information. Rather than churches being places where people with different political viewpoints come together, religious communities may become more like echo chambers populated by like-minded partisans. Politically homogeneous social groups and an associated absence of countervailing information not only encourage the creation of durable bonds between religious and partisan identities but may also fuel further political animosity toward the opposing party. As partisans become even less likely to interact with politically dissimilar people and increasingly come to see the out-party as differing both politically and socially, it is likely that the political biases and partisan hostility that currently exist in American politics (Huddy, Mason, and Aarøe 2015; Miller and Conover 2015; Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012) will continue to grow.

Finally, the power of partisanship and the origins of social group membership also matter for democratic accountability. In a democracy, we often think that politicians respond to voters’ preferences. Voters have the power to keep politicians in office or kick them out. Voters’ power, therefore, relies on people’s ability to make political decisions consistent with their preferences. Scholars have shown that this is easier said than done (Kinder 1983; Kuklinski and Quirk 2000; Sniderman 1993). Though voters reward or punish candidates based on performance issues—such as the economy or perceptions of honesty—voters have more difficulty choosing candidates based on policy preferences. Moreover, politicians often lead on matters of public opinion; voters frequently update their attitudes to be consistent with their parties’ positions rather than changing their views of the parties to match their political attitudes (Lenz 2012). Findings such as these suggest a pessimistic view of democracy because voters cannot hold politicians accountable on the basis of policy. That said, voters may be able to reward or punish politicians based on their group interests.

By looking to other group members and leaders for guidance on how to act, being part of a group or holding a specific social identity can help voters overcome informational deficits that make it difficult for them to hold elected officials accountable. Group ties can therefore enable voters to act in their best interest politically even when they would not otherwise be able to do so on their own. The findings from this book, however, cast doubt on this optimistic claim that group membership offers a collective solution to citizen ignorance. When social identities develop in response to politics, it calls into question whether group identities enable Americans to vote in accordance with policy preferences or whether their policy preferences are being shaped alongside group membership.

Definitions

Since the book’s main focus is on the origins and consequences of religious and partisan identities, it is prudent to consider what these identities mean in this context. The sections below discuss different conceptualizations of partisan and religious identities and offer definitions and examples that will appear throughout the book.

What Does Partisan Identity Mean?

Political identities can be conceptualized in multiple ways, including party identification, political ideology, and policy positions. Although the exact wording of partisanship questions varies, most surveys elicit a respondent’s partisanship by asking something along the lines of: Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what? In contrast, political ideology questions ask whether people think of themselves as politically liberal, conservative, or moderate, and questions on policy stances