Moral traditionalism versus progressiveness and secular authoritarianism versus libertarianism are often understood as central to the same “new” cultural cleavage in politics. Despite the often-found sizable correlations between these two cultural value divides, the present paper theorizes that this relationship is not a cross-contextual constant, but rather a specific feature of secularized contexts where moral traditionalism is relatively marginal. We test this theory by means of a two-stage statistical analysis of the data from the four waves of the European Values Study (1981–2008) for 17 Western European countries. Our findings confirm that the two value divides are most strongly connected in the most secularized contexts because the latter are least morally traditionalist. While the two cultural divides hence tend to be distinct in more religious Western-European countries, they tend to coalesce into one single “new” cultural divide in more secular ones.

Interstate conflicts involving religion are commonly argued to be more severe and more protracted than other forms of conflict. Although various arguments have sought to explain religion's apparent contributions to global violence, few consider the foreign policy goals over which religious actors actually fight. This article does so by examining whether religiously-exclusive states tend to militarize interstate territorial disputes (MIDs) over issues of strategic material or identity salience. Insofar as religiously-exclusive states seek to “defend the faith” against internal and external challengers, identity-salient disputes should be a particularly attractive target for militarization. We however find the opposite. Although religiously-exclusive states do initiate territorial MIDs more frequently than their secular counterparts, they are significantly more likely to do so owing to disputed territories' strategic rather than symbolic value. These results challenge accepted wisdom regarding religion's influence on international conflict and suggest critical new avenues for research.

In the United States, religious elites routinely use prayer to set and communicate political agendas, shape the opinions of Christian publics, and mobilize political activism. Among political prayers distributed to believers, imprecation is rare. In this paper, I examine a set of cases of imprecatory political prayers publicized since the turn of millennium that have undeniable U.S. political subtexts and objects. Using the work of James Scott and Jan-Werner Müller, I argue that most political prayers of imprecation can fruitfully be read as manifestations of right-wing populism. These prayers reveal a hidden transcript of rage aimed not only at mainstream political arrangements and political elites but also at the comparatively polite discourse characteristic of mainstream U.S. Christian traditions, including much Christian conservatism.

Scholars engaged in debates about the use of public reason often view religious arguments as being out of bounds. Yet the real-world impact of religious discourse remains under-explored. This study contributes to research in this area with an empirical test looking at the impact of religious arguments on a particular policy debate. A survey experiment explored the effects of religious and secular cues with varied policy directions on the issue of assisted dying. The findings showed that secular arguments were considerably more likely to elicit a positive response, and that, while religious arguments were not a conversation stopper, they produced significant distortions in political perceptions among participants, though not necessarily along the identity lines critical to the public reason debate.

The political preferences of Britain's Jewish community, as well as the factors which underpin them, have been historically under-researched. This paper addresses this both empirically and conceptually. The study complements emerging evidence by showing that British Jews overwhelmingly support the Conservatives, but also employs longitudinal data for the first time to show that this association has strengthened sharply over recent election cycles. These findings highlight how existing theories of the effects of religious belonging on voting struggle to explain religious groups with volatile partisan preferences, such as British Jews. The paper therefore makes the case that the mechanism of party support should be understood differently in such cases. To this end, the findings presented here are consistent with the notion that security for Jews acts as a group utility heuristic, which leads voters to reward parties on the basis of how they are judged in prioritising security for Jews.

Scholars have long recognized the impact of Hebrew prophecy on the rhetoric of the American Founding era, but they have assumed it is all of one type, the American Jeremiad, a clarion call for political action. In fact, biblical rhetoric during this era mirrors three types of Old Testament prophecy formulated at three distinct moments in ancient Biblical history: before, during, and after the Babylonian Exile of 587 BCE. I refer to these as repentance, Jeremiad, and disappointment. I interpret sermons by three leading Protestant ministers in order to demonstrate that all three types of Hebraic prophecy were prevalent during this era, but only one of them, the Jeremiad, seeks to inspire political action; second, the Jeremiad was prominent only during the Revolutionary War. Before the war, and after the ratification of the Constitution, the two quietistic modes of prophecy, repentance, and disappointment, are more prevalent. I conclude by speculating about what the American founders might think of the contemporary rhetorical landscape, where the Jeremiad has become dominant, drowning out more moderate forms of biblical discourse.

While the study of religion in political science has reemerged as a growing field of inquiry in the last few decades, most research still focuses on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What religion is and how it is measured has largely been conceptualized through the lens of these Abrahamic faiths. This article, by contrast, examines Hinduism, the world's oldest and third most populous religion. I randomly assigned closed-ended or open-ended surveys about Hindu religiosity across and within two demographically similar villages in the north Indian state of Bihar. A comparison of survey responses from a sample of 100 respondents suggests that many Hindus: (a) do not recognize basic analytical categories scholars use in the social scientific study of religion; (b) do not differentiate between ostensibly religious and secular categories; and (c) recognize features of everyday life, such as attire or obedience to rules about purity and auspiciousness, as religious in ways that may be different from most Western religious communities. This article productively challenges how political scientists think about what religion is and how to measure it, tasks that must precede explaining how it affects political behavior.

Research consistently emphasizes the importance of religious institutions for influencing political action among Asian Americans. The social capital literature offers two theoretical explanations for why churches increase political activity: bridging capital between different groups and bonding capital among similar groups. The latter argues that individuals who attend racially homogeneous churches are more participatory. This paper expands on these accounts by examining another aspect of bonding. That is, how does similarity in political views among church members affect Asian Americans' political participation? Results from the 2016 Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey show that Asian Americans who attend politically homogeneous churches are more likely to vote and participate in conventional activities. The effects of racial homogeneity are limited once taking political homogeneity into consideration. These findings provide evidence that political homophily within religious organizations may facilitate the bonding of social capital between racial/ethnic minorities, and this homophily is indeed salient to democratic participation.