Observers are now witness to the culmination of a decades-long process of demographic and cultural realignment where the Sub-Saharan African and Latin American and Caribbean regions increasingly cement their standing as the largest population centers of global Christianity, even as established European and North American religious communities confront the dual challenge of rising secularism and below-replacement fertility rates. The root of much of this change is found in the Evangelical and Pentecostal faith traditions, which, despite their relatively recent arrival in these developing regions, have gained new adherents at a near-exponential rate, often at the expense of traditional Christian denominations including the long-dominant Catholic Church. For scholars, these rapid social shifts present the opportunity to study the causes and consequences of the realignment of these communities’ worldviews and perceptions of identity, including in terms of the (re)distribution of political power across dynamic social cleavages.
In this book, Taylor Boas offers a deeply researched, comparative, and historical-institutionalist analysis that explains why Latin American evangelicals effectively politicized their newly ascendent group identity to attain more descriptive representation in some national legislatures than in others. Although existing theories might explain the cross-national variation in evangelical legislative representation as a function of differences in local evangelical propensity to vote for coreligionists, or variation in institutional barriers to electoral participation, Boas argues that these explanations are incomplete. In short, he claims that electoral participation based on evangelical identity only comes after a decision to politicize that identity—to see politics as a space to legitimately express one's religious identity which, at least for some evangelicals, has not always been self-evident.
Drawing on three historical case studies in Brazil, Chile, and Peru, Boas argues that the roots of Latin American evangelicals’ politicization are historically grounded in their competitive relationship with the Catholic Church both during the era of disestablishment liberal reforms and during the more recent conservative reaction to socially progressive politics regarding gender and sexuality issues. In cases where the Catholic establishment attempted to regain its privileges after liberal reforms (Brazil, Peru), evangelicals mobilized early (and found theological justification) to retain their newfound rights of pluralistic religious competition; whereas, in Chile, evangelicals perceived less threat from a more accommodating Catholic Church and consequently found little reason to construct politically salient versions of their religious identities.
Later, evangelicals in Brazil, building on their previous mobilization, were better positioned than Catholics to defend social conservatives’ worldview regarding gender and sexuality issues, which has driven their subsequent political mobilization and electoral success. In Chile and Peru, by contrast, Catholic political elites were more effectively positioned to defend evangelicals’ preferred policy outcomes when gender and sexuality issues came to the forefront; consequently, evangelicals were more likely to ally with other conservative parties and candidates despite potential religious differences. What is more, Boas notes that Peruvian evangelicals confronted a significant internal cleavage over support for Alberto Fujimori's authoritarian presidency that undermined their electoral potential even when political opportunities to attain further representation later presented themselves. Consequently, evangelicals in these countries have not experienced as much success in electing their peers to legislative seats as in Brazil, even though Boas’ analysis suggests that evangelicals in these countries are equally prone to vote for their coreligionists as are Brazilians.
In making these claims, Boas draws on an impressive array of evidence. On the likelihood that evangelicals would vote for their peers and the limitations of formal institutional arguments, Boas presents findings from an original survey experiment paired with an ecological analysis of sub-national evangelical voting patterns. Boas then studies observational associations between each case country's electoral systems, party systems, and consequent evangelical legislative ballot access and seat shares, based on an original database of evangelical candidates and office holders. A rich historical narrative of the modern history of evangelicals in Latin America follows, largely woven from an extensive review of secondary sources. Building on this foundation, Boas unpacks the unique patterns of identity politicization in each country case with content analysis from official evangelical church publications, as well as three dozen elite interviews conducted between 2015 and 2019 with evangelical politicians and church leaders in Chile and Peru. Finally, in the concluding chapter, Boas expands the analysis to test the theory in new cases including Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.
Guatemala introduces the possibility that Boas’ theory has a blind spot which he does well to acknowledge: “the…theory is one of democratic representation and…it may not be applicable in contexts of electoral authoritarianism” (242). This raises the question whether the political opportunities available to evangelical groups in distinct critical junctures are indeed equivalent. Yet, throughout the analysis, the reader will find that there are numerous references that evidence Boas’ sensitivity to the role that national political regimes play in shaping the political opportunities available to evangelical identifiers. In fact, it is evident that Boas recognizes the deeper danger presented to democracy today by many evangelicals’ support for opportunistic authoritarian candidates.
Indeed, there is a bittersweet tone in Boas’ conclusions about evangelicals’ search for representation in Latin American societies. These groups, so deeply shaped by their long-term minority status and efforts to gain equal recognition and protection under the law relative to a dominant Catholic Church, now frequently use their newly acquired political leverage in efforts to foreclose the rights, freedoms, and opportunities of other less powerful, minority groups in their societies. For those who see value in upholding the ideals of inclusive, pluralistic religious equality conjoined with a neutral, secular state, Boas expresses a plaintive hope when he notes that “antidemocratic evangelicalism is hardly inevitable…pro-democratic voices in Latin American evangelicalism could potentially gain a greater foothold in the future” (248–9). Even so, the alternative, given current global trends, seems no less likely without concerted efforts by the religious- and secular-minded alike to construct persuasive substitute narratives about the kingdoms of this world.
Matthew L. Layton is an associate professor of political science at Ohio University. He studies democratic legitimacy, political representation, and citizen empowerment across Latin America and has published research in American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Latin American Politics and Society, among others.
