Date of Completion
5-2-2024
Degree Type
Honors Thesis - Campus Access
Discipline
Political Science (POLS)
First Advisor
Dr. Nathan Chan
Second Advisor
Dr. Richard Fox
Abstract
The relationship between religiosity and political participation is a core topic of interest in American Politics. However, political scientists have not as fully explored how attendance of religious services impacts political participation across the twenty-first century across the four major racial/ethnic groups in the U.S. This research examines how church attendance is associated with political participation across time from 2008 to 2020 disaggregating across African Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, and White Americans. I develop and test three hypotheses about the impact of the church on political participation over time depending on specific social and political contexts: The Church Demobilization, Stability, and Mobilization Hypothesis. Then, I conduct logistic regressions to analyze this relationship using four waves of the Cooperative Election Study (CES) between 2008 and 2020. I find support for my Church Mobilization Hypothesis, as church attendance’s impact on voter turnout increased substantially for Whites, Blacks, and Asian Americans - especially in 2020. Churches were even more politicized given events surrounding racial justice movements and mobilized their congregants to the ballot box, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. I also find that the impact of the church over time depends on the specific mode of political action assessed. The study concludes by emphasizing the need to understand how context conditions impact church attendance on political participation and further unpack how race structures this relationship over time.
Recommended Citation
McGough, Zoe, "From Bible to Ballot Box: Church Attendance and Political Participation 2008-2020" (2024). Honors Thesis. 516.
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/honors-thesis/516
