Creating Political Habitus: Religion Versus Nonreligion*

In: Social science quarterly, Volume 100, Issue 4, p. 1369-1386

Abstract

ObjectiveExisting literature suggests that religious organizations provide institutional resources and civic skills that facilitate collective action. This study expands this effort by investigating the role of specific religious practices on forms of political engagement and comparing them with secular equivalents.MethodsData used are from Wave IV of the Baylor Religion Survey (n = 1,572) Pearson correlations to explore bivariate relationships and then we present binary logistic regression models for predicting protest engagement.ResultsResults indicate participation in community‐based religious activities, such as prayer groups or Bible studies, is a robust predictor of traditional means of political participation such as participating in a voter registration drive. The religiously unaffiliated are more likely to engage in protest and other distinct political activities.ConclusionWe argue that these divergent processes of political socialization generate two opposite forms of "political habitus" in U.S. culture, and contribute significantly to a historically polarized electorate. These findings also provide an inferential technique for predicting mobilization and/or political engagement style based on religious markers.