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Investigates whether cultural tensions in the US are reflected in public opinion in the form of a single liberal-conservative continuum, drawing on 1988 General Social Survey data. A two-dimensional model of political division discerns two types of liberalism & conservatism: economic-justice & personal-moral. Analysis reveals that public opinion roughly corresponds to these political divisions. Although a deepened polarization in US culture has been cited, these divisions are not described well by an us-vs-them scenario. Rather, individuals seem to be pulled by cross-cutting pressures that may cause them to change their opinion depending on the issue under consideration, eg, religious identity & race. It is conceded that elites may be more polarized than the general public; however, this polarization is likely produced by social processes & organizations to which elites are exposed rather than any deep-seated polarization in the US electorate. 1 Table, 4 Figures, 23 References. D. M. Ryfe

Does modernization lead to the decline of religion? This question lies at the centre of a key debate in the sociology of religion. During the past decade American scholars, using primarily American data, have dominated this debate and have made a strong case that the answer to this question is no. Recently, however, a new crop of European scholars, working with new sources of European data, have uncovered evidence that points toward an affirmitive answer. This volume pays special attention to these trends and developments to provide the reader with a more well-rounded understand

Does religion justify violent acts against wives, or does it reduce approval of this type of intimate partner violence? We examine whether personal religiosity raises or lowers the acceptability of wife‐beating. In addition, we investigate how the relationship between personal religiosity and attitudes toward wife‐beating differs depending on the overall normative context of the country where a person lives. Using multilevel modeling with data from the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (2005–2008), we find that greater individual‐level religiosity reduces the acceptability of wife‐beating. More importantly, cross‐level interactions show that these reductions are greatest in countries where there is a general lack of normative restraint as measured by the "anomie" scale. These observations suggest that religiosity may influence an individual's norms the most in countries where secular controls are absent or weak.