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6 - Church Influence on Citizens’ Policy Views and Partisanship

from Part III - How Congregants Respond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2019

Amy Erica Smith
Affiliation:
Iowa State University
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Summary

This chapter examines citizens’ policy views. Religious cleavages are pronounced and expanding on two issues: same-sex marriage and abortion. There is also a new, though yet small, religious gap in partisanship. By contrast, there is little difference across religious groups in attitudes toward most other policy issues. Congregants’ views on issues such as abortion mirror those of their own religious leaders, likely due both to selection and socialization. On the one hand, conservative citizens seek out conservative congregations. On the other hand, clergy influence those congregants who arrive in the pews. Many citizens are skeptical of mixing religion and politics, and resist clergy influence, but evangelicals and frequent church attenders are more readily influenced. Ultimately, the partial and asymmetric nature of clergy influence shapes Brazil’s culture wars. The fact that clergy influence a fairly narrow band of policy views may limit the scope of the culture wars at the citizen level. Nonetheless, the fact that the citizens who are most readily influenced tend to be conservatives, and ones within conservative congregations, polarizes Brazilian politics.
Type
Chapter
Information
Religion and Brazilian Democracy
Mobilizing the People of God
, pp. 99 - 112
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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