“In Search of General Theory”

Most sub-fields of research in political science are today at an intellectual plateau well short of general theory. Many have been at that plateau since about 1980. Several reasons might account for this situation, including the challenge of constructing general theory. I argue, however, that some of our must common educational and research practices also retard theoretical progress. I describe those practices and their unfortunate consequences, but also explicate a series of research strategies that would help advance our theoretical work. As a foundation for the preceding arguments, I characterize the theory building ambitions of the discipline, our progress toward general theory, and how advances toward such theory can be mapped for any science

Church Engagement, Religious Values, and Mass-Elite Policy Agenda Agreement in Local Communities

We provide evidence on two prominent but heretofore untested expectations about the relevance of religion for the democratic process: (1) that greater engagement in churches or comparable religious institutions and their organizational life enhances representational processes; and (2) D o religious values and engagement in religious institutions influence the success of democratic representation in America? Existing research hints at answers to this provocative question but does not address it systematically. Certainly, the roles of religious faith and religious organizations in political life have been discussed at length in recent times. Yet most of that discussion has centered on the so-called "culture war" wherein policy issues with moral implications have helped mobilize, in particular, people of conservative religious faith; the prominence of religious leaders, organizations, and activists in recent elections; and the association of religious values with electoral and policy choices by many members of the mass public (see, among many others, In the large body of scholarship on civic, religious, and political engagement more generally, however, there exist two quite different-and heretofore untestedexpectations about the effects of engagement in religious organizations (generally called church engagement, but Kim Quaile Hill is professor of political science, Texas A&M University, 4348 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4348 ([email protected]). Tetsuya Matsubayashi is assistant professor of political science, University of North Texas, 125 Wooten Hall, P.O. Box 305340, Denton, TX 76203-5340 ([email protected]). An earlier version of this article was presented at the 20 th World Congress of the International Political Science Association, July 10, 2006, Fukuoka, Japan. We thank Patricia Hurley, Lyman Kellstedt, and the editor and reviewers for this journal for valuable comments on earlier versions of this article. Some of the data analyzed here were provided by Susan Hansen, John Petrocik, and Sidney Verba. Other data are from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. encompassing participation in churches, synagogues, and all similar institutions), first, and religious values, second, on democratic representation. These expectations should be of particular importance for our understanding of American politics. It is widely observed that involvement in religious organizations is the overwhelmingly most common form of civic engagement in America. Indeed, America may be unique among Western democratic nations in this respect. Yet no systematic research has investigated the representational consequences of religious engagement and values. We offer the first empirical assessment of these two alternative expectations about how church engagement and religious values might influence representation. We explain the rationales behind these two alternative expectations about religion and representation, extract testable hypotheses from each of them, and then construct de novo and validate a general theoretical model in which we test these hypotheses. Because adequate data are not available for a contemporary test of these expectations, we provide a test with historical data that offers a benchmark assessment which can inform future research on comparable processes today. Yet we also provide contemporary empirical evidence that suggests our key benchmark findings ar