Paul A. Djupe

Religious Institutions and Political Participation in America

Previous research on religious institutions and political participation finds that churches can increase participation among their members through the development of civic skills and the distinct political histories of religious traditions. This paper examines the various ways religious institutions promote the political participation of their members. We utilize the 1990 Citizen Participation Study to test seven hypotheses about the connections between religious institutions and political participation. We find, contrary to previous work, that church-gained civic skills and religious tradition do not directly affect political participation among those currently active in religious institutions. Rather, churches bring their parishioners more effectively into the political process through the recruitment of members to politics and when members come to see their church activity as having political consequences.

The Resourceful Believer: Generating Civic Skills in Church

We investigate the conditions under which members practice politically relevant civic skills in church, generating a base of resourceful citizens equipped for political activity. Previous research has considered congregations to be black boxes, with sometimes unspecified and almost always untested processes operating to encourage civic skill development. In contrast, we conceptualize churches as diverse organizations and find evidence that the social homogeneity of church-based small groups allows for greater individual skill development. Moreover, members direct their energies toward the church and skill development when they are socially isolated from their communities. We also test the efficacy of clergy to promote skill development, finding mixed evidence. Overall, we find considerable support justifying the decision to open the black box and investigate the varied ways in which churches promote the acquisition of civic skills.

The Political Voice of Clergy

Whether clergy are influencing opinions, setting agendas, mobilizing, or empowering parishioners, the primary mechanism is public speech. Using a national sample of 2,400 ELCA (Lutheran) and Episcopal Church clergy, surveyed in the late summer and fall of 1998, we explore the nature, frequency, and determinants of clergy public speech. We find that clergy public speech is relatively pervasive and conveys a significant amount of normative judgments about the workings of the policy process. In assessing its determinants, we find that clergy public speech is a product of personal motivation situated in an environment conducive to action, which includes the pressures exerted by the congregation, national political cues, and community. Specifically, we find that clergy speak out publicly on political issues when mobilized, but also as a way to represent their congregations in the public sphere and to motivate members to add their distinctive voices to public debate.

When Primary Campaigns Go Negative: The Determinants of Campaign Negativity

Standard investigations of both campaign negativity and primary elections focus on either the electoral institutions or the primary voters. In this article, we begin to explore the factors affecting the content of the information environment voters face by examining the effects of timing and electoral context on which primary races are likely to become negative and when. Using a content analysis of newspaper coverage of every contested Senate primary in 1998, and binary time-series cross-sectional methods, we demonstrate that negativity is an interdependent function of the timing of the race, the status of the Senate seat, and the number and quality of the challengers in the primary.

God Talk Religious Cues and Electoral Support

It was revealed in 2006 that Republican candidates employ a type of religious code in their political speeches. Their intention is to cue the support of religiously conservative voters without alienating other voters who may not share the same social issue agenda. The authors assess the efficacy of this GOP Code on the support of voters in specific religious traditions in an experimental setting. As expected, the code proves to be an effective cue for white evangelical Protestants but has no effect on mainline Protestants and Catholics. The form and function of the code expands our understanding of religious influence and broadens the spectrum of cues the electorate uses.

Religious Brand Loyalty and Political Loyalties

Numerous works have detailed the breakdown of brand loyalty within society over the last forty years and its results. Whether examining political loyalties, religious loyalties, or loyalties to brands such as Lucky Strike cigarettes, each study has noted a lowering of traditional barriers to switching brands and the creation of a nation of individualist choosers (Friedman 1990). Here I attempt to suggest some connections between religious and political loyalties. Using the 1993 General Social Survey. I operationalize religious loyalty in four ways and suggest three mechanisms through which religious loyalty is connected to political loyalty: psychological ties, social ties, and social circumstances. I find significant effects of different conceptions of religious loyalty encouraging party loyalties, steadfast voting, and loyalty to one partys presidential candidates across two elections.

Clergy Deliberation on Gay Rights and Homosexuality

In examining the increasingly popular concept of deliberative democracy, social scientists most often look to “cross-cutting” elements within discussion networks. Studies of deliberation in networks, however, preclude a number of other sources of deliberative discourse, and ignore the important role that some theorists claim for elites, like clergy, in fostering debate in group settings. To this effect we ask: Do clergy model the deliberative process on potentially divisive issues such as gay rights? We employ an original survey instrument administered to clergy in Columbus, Ohio, just after the 2004 election to understand the quantity and diversity of clergy discussion. We find that discussion diversity increases under conditions of congregational disunity, which, somewhat paradoxically, has no effect on the quantity of issue discussion.

Veni, Vidi, Disseri: Churches and the Promise of Democratic Deliberation

As the most popular voluntary association in the United States, churches are sometimes touted as saviors of democracy. However, those who espouse deliberative models of democracy rarely see churches as nurturing the decision-making abilities of attenders. Thus, the authors examine the extent to which church small group sessions fulfill the conditions for deliberation as set forth by political theorists. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the authors find that churches offer authentic opportunities through small group involvements and, accordingly, tentatively declare the existence of a religious civility, with churches acting in the service of democratic capacity.

Name generation in interpersonal political network data: Results from a series of experiments

Abstract We present results from three large scale survey experiments focused on the manipulation of political name generators. Using syntax that is widely employed outside of political science, we generate interpersonal political network data by varying the roles of alters, the time horizons of relationships, and the specific political nature of social exchanges. Across varying samples and electoral environments, we look for differences in these conditions on a wide range of common interpersonal network items, assess latency data on these treatments, and employ more detailed information on named discussants than most existing political ego-centric studies. We evaluate how well the now standard “compound” political name generator captures interpersonal political networks, finding that it does quite well save a few items of significant political importance. We discuss the implications of this research agenda for theories of social influence and the study of disagreement in democratic politics.

Interpersonal Networks and Democratic Politics

1 1 Interpersonal Networks and Democratic Politics Some of the most fundamental concerns about democratic politics involve information – who has access to it, how do they get it, and of what quality and type is it? The answer to each of these questions invariably involves other people, and it is for this reason that modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of social networks. Fully understanding democratic politics requires us to wrestle with the choices and constraints that individuals face as they navigate the political world and acquire political information. By “choice” we are referring to the decisions that individuals make about what environments to inhabit – what neighborhood to live in, what church to join, and what people to befriend. Individuals frequently make those choices for reasons unrelated to politics and then live within the “constraints,” or range of available information defined by those choices. The distribution of politics in socially-defined contexts – geographical or otherwise – then limits subsequent political decisions; for example, the neighborhood may be politically homogenous but dissimilar to the individual, and the trusted friend might be ignorant of politics. In this essay, we consider the choices individuals make and the constraints that follow as we discuss what social network research has taught us about 1) how citizens form reasoned opinions and attitudes, and 2) acquire the resources and motives necessary to participate in public life. We then move beyond the state of the literature to suggest ways to further integrate a networks approach into the study of political behavior. We note the advantages of a more developed networks approach, including linking disparate research traditions, linking different levels of politics, and ultimately, clarifying what “choice” really means in a democratic society. The Informed Citizen Combining social and psychological perspectives, the scholars of the “Columbia School” viewed social groups as independent bases of political information and pitted interpersonal