Dissertation
Do religious political organizations attract and retain supporters better than other political organizations? I hypothesize that religious organizations, and those with comprehensive secular ideologies like Marxism, demonstrate that they seek more than personal power or wealth. This convinces potential supporters that those organizations will continue to provide promised services and diligently pursue stated political goals. These organizations should more easily convince supporters to join and remain active in the organization when they frame their political appeals in terms of their religion or ideology.
The significance of this project is twofold. First, while religion is often studied as a marker of identity, this project examines how and when ideology can change the expected utility of political participation. Some studies have examined the effect of religion on mobilization through signals of commitment in violent organizations, but this study extends this scope to nonviolent and electoral politics. Second, research on religious framing in electoral politics has examined how religious identity affects the way citizens evaluate electoral candidates, but this study focuses specifically on the credibility of promises made by those candidates. The three-article dissertation studies how both religious and secular ideologies can signal commitment to political goals, at the organizational level and the individual level, in a particular moment and over time.
“Praying Together and Staying Together: Faction Survival in Self-Determination Movements” (First Dissertation Article)
Why do some organizations persist in demanding autonomy or independence for decades while others cease after only a short time? Research on civil war duration has rarely been linked with research on the duration of other strategies of contention, and little is known about the persistence of contentious actors who may or may not become later rebels. The persistence of demand making organizations is an understudied, underlying factor in the study of contentious strategies and civil war duration. I argue that the persistence of organizations’ demands is primarily a function of membership continuity, and that organizations which base their political claims in religion or religion-like ideologies are likely to have more committed members and, ultimately, persist in making demands than other organizations. I test this on a novel cross-national time series dataset of organizations within self-determination movements. I classify each organization in the dataset by whether it has a religion or religion-like ideology as the foundation of its political goals, not merely as an identity, and whether it requires public commitment among the members, such as religious study or dress codes, as membership practices. I find evidence that religious organizations and those with religion-like ideology are more likely to persist compared to nonreligious organizations. Additionally, organizations which encourage membership practices demonstrating public commitment do so as well. Thus, both religion and behavioral incentives sometimes associated with religion facilitate the persistence of demands by self-determination organizations, revealing a new mechanism linking religion and contentious action, including civil war duration.
“Mechanisms of Religious Rhetoric and Political Mobilization” (Second Dissertation Article)
Does religion serve as a commitment signal for electoral candidates and does such commitment earn votes? While research on insurgents suggests that religion can facilitate violent mobilization by normalizing costly participation, I look for evidence for a religiously framed promise changing the expected utility of political participation for voters in conventional political mobilization. I investigate the mechanisms linking religious framing, candidate commitment, and vote choice through a survey experiment with 507 university undergraduates. The experimental treatment involves a hypothetical campaign advertisement justifying a candidate’s position in religious terms or with a control lacking such terms. I find that the participants reading the advertisement based on religion are more likely to believe the candidate is strongly committed to the policy, more likely to believe that religious people will support the candidate, and if they are religious, more likely to believe the policy is important. However, I find no evidence that participants in general are more likely to support the candidate themselves or to believe that people like them will. The results suggest that religious claims can signal a political entrepreneur’s commitment to a goal, increase support of that policy among followers, and suggest to the public that followers will support the entrepreneurs, but that religious claims cannot increase support for a political entrepreneur among the public at large or create the impression that they will do so. The results show that ideological political entrepreneurs have specific, but limited, advantages in earning popular support.
“True Believers in Politics: Ideational and Solidary Rewards among the Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel” (Third Dissertation Article)
Why does the effectiveness of religious and ideological mobilization vary? With in-depth interviews among Arab citizens of Israel, I study the relative influence of the religious Islamic Movement, socialist DFPE, and nationalist Balad parties. All profess long-term, organized sets of ideas beyond politics, which have helped them gain supporters at certain times, but not at others. I argue that while religious and socialist ideologies help both parties gain committed supporters, the value of joining a sincere and committed organization can be outweighed by the costs imposed by the government among ordinary constituents. So, while religion and ideology signal commitment, the value of this signal is moderated by government policy. This research was supported by a one semester doctoral research grant from the Fulbright Commission in Israel in 2021. Under the supervision of Dr. As`ad Ghanem at the University of Haifa, I interviewed, in English and Arabic, voters, activists, and officials of the DFPE, Islamic Movement, and Balad parties to find examples of each party justifying its claims with ideology and the relevance of each for gaining support.
“Exclusive and Inclusive Religious and National Values: The Case of American Views on Israel” (Stand Alone Article)
Presented at the Midwest Political Science Conference April 2021
Why do Americans who highly value the distinctiveness of American culture sympathize with Israel, a foreign country? Highly valuing one’s own religious or national group can be associated with unilateral foreign policy preferences and less consideration of the interests of outgroups, and yet, Israel is clearly a foreign and non-Christian country which is nonetheless treated as an ingroup by Americans who believe in American exceptionalism and Christians who believe in the correctness of their religion. The high-profile relationship between American conservatives and Israel is common knowledge but contradicts the expected relationship between national identity and foreign policy preferences. This paper uses mediation analysis to study the content of identity, the religious and national values, of those Americans who sympathize with Israel. I also contrast these values with the identity of those Americans who do not sympathize with Israel. Holding exclusive religious values, those which strengthen the boundaries of a religious group against outsiders, is associated with holding national values which similarly define the boundaries of American nationality. I show that those with these values of American identity favor Israel due to its alliance with the United States, anti-Islamic sentiment, and pro-Jewish sentiment by comparing views towards Israel with views towards other Middle Eastern countries and religious groups. Those mechanisms do not exist among those with inclusive versions of national identity. This deepens knowledge on American popular opinion towards Israel, identity and foreign policy preferences, and the content of national identity.