Are Catholics Uniquely Cross-Pressured?: Policy Beliefs and Voting Behavior by Religious Tradition in Recent U.S. Elections
The Catholic Church's pro-life, pro-social justice policy agenda takes the sides of both major US political parties. This potentially cross-pressures Catholic voters' choice between those parties, but could alternatively legitimate a Catholic voter’s personal partisan preference. This pape...
| Subtitles: | " Catholics and Contemporary American Politics" |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
CEEOL
2023
|
| In: |
Politikologija religije
Year: 2023, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, Pages: 299-325 |
| Further subjects: | B
Partisanship
B Opinion B Voting B cross-pressure B Religion B Catholics |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The Catholic Church's pro-life, pro-social justice policy agenda takes the sides of both major US political parties. This potentially cross-pressures Catholic voters' choice between those parties, but could alternatively legitimate a Catholic voter’s personal partisan preference. This paper examines whether Catholic voters who share the Church's core policy positions are more or less likely than comparably cross-pressured non-Catholic voters to exhibit political behaviors associated with cross-pressures: avoiding identification with a major party, avoiding voting or a major-party vote choice, defecting from one’s party in voting, and selectively misperceiving candidate issue positions. Analyzing data from the 2016-2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies and the 1992-2016 American National Election Studies, I find little evidence that Catholics are uniquely, strongly cross-pressured. If anything, cross-pressured (and other) Catholics are more likely than comparable non-Catholics-even those in faith traditions that are more clearly aligned with a single party-to embrace partisan politics. In some cases, partisan differences between Catholics in their responsiveness to cross-pressures exceed differences between Catholics and non-Catholics. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1820-659X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Politikologija religije
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.54561/prj1702299a |