What effect does religion have on democratic attitudes? Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom and Gizem Arikan outline the results of three studies they have conducted into the relationship between religion and democracy. They note that while religious belief can undermine democracy by generating more conservative values, religious social behaviour enhances support for democracy by fostering greater trust in institutions and engagement in politics

Arikan, Gizem

Ben-Nun Bloom, Pazit

LSE Research Online

Credit: Rich Tea (CC BY 2.0)21/05/2013Religion can both hurt and enhance democratic attitudes.blogs.lse.ac.uk /europpblog/2013/05/21/religion-can-both-hurt-and-enhance-democratic-attitudes/What effect does religion have on democratic attitudes? Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom and Gizem Arikan outlinethe results of three studies they have conducted into the relationship between religion anddemocracy. They note that while religious belief can undermine democracy by generating moreconservative values, religious social behaviour enhances support for democracy by fosteringgreater trust in institutions and engagement in politics.Does religiosity hinder or enhance democratic attitudes? Results from the current literature aremixed. Starting with Adorno et al.’s (1950) theory of the authoritarian personality, which suggesteda psychoanalytical connection between tendencies toward religious and undemocratic attitudes,many scholars have argued that religion has the effect of challenging democratic values andsocialisation. Much of this literature has contrasted religion and democracy as systems of belief andhas focused on the challenge religious extremism and loyalties pose for democratic institutions,showing that religiosity is associated with political intolerance and other non-democratic norms.Additionally, democratic values are argued to stress universality, striving for global implementationof civil rights for every person, whereas the religious public typically considers itself as superior toother groups, and usually entitled to more rights than others.However, at the same time religiosity was found to havea positive impact on democratic norms and values.Evidence shows that churches hold great potential fordeliberative democracy, as religious activity leads to thedevelopment of civic skills and civic norms, andprovides organisational and philosophical bases for awide range of social movements. In fact, churchattendance is found to increase electoral turnout, partymembership, protest activism, and support fordemocracy. Accordingly, empirical and theoreticalscholars alike increasingly note the “politicalambivalence of religion”; that is, the fact that it can beeither a source of undemocratic values or a contributorto the development of democratic skills.These contradictory findings can be reconciled whenconsidering the multifaceted nature of religiosity. Theliterature views religion as involving three dimensions –belief, behaviour, and belonging. The belief componentencompasses an understanding of the divine andhumanity’s relationship to it, and may refer to belief inGod, heaven, hell, life after death, or tendencies ofpeople to characterise themselves as religious. Thebehaviour component consists of two factors: the socialpractice of religion, involving participation in organisedreligious communities and attendance at places ofworship, and private practice such as prayer. Belongingconsists of denominational affiliation, that is,identification with a particular organised denomination and/or a religious movement, and private practice, such as1/3prayer or the reading of sacred texts. The belonging component includes identification with a specific denominationand trends within a denomination.Accordingly, our research argues that religious beliefs, such as the belief in God, heaven, and life after death, andsocial religious activities, such as attendance at places of worship and participation in organised religiouscommunities, often have contrasting effects on democratic attitudes and norms. First, religious belief is positivelyassociated with conservative-traditional values and negatively associated with openness to change values acrossreligions and contexts. In contrast democratisation is positively related to openness to change, emphasisingindependent thought, universalism, natural rights, and equality, but negatively related to values such as conformity,tradition, and security. This makes for an inherent and systematic value conflict between the religious anddemocratic values systems. At the same time, social involvement in places of worship leads to the development ofcivic skills and norms as well as political efficacy, positively affects electoral turnout, party membership, protestactivism, and involvement in other civic organisations, and thus holds great potential for deliberative democracy.Further, the religious social institution makes for an active minority group which benefits from the democraticframework, consequently mobilising overall support for a democratic regime.Indeed, using heteroskedastic maximum likelihood models and data from the fourth wave of the World ValuesSurvey for forty-five democratic countries, we start by showing that as a belief system, religiosity generates abstractopposition to democracy, while increasing ambivalence towards democratic principles; however, the social-behavioural aspect of religiosity leads to greater endorsement of the democratic system and generates strongersupport for democracy. Theoretically, this work argues that different mediating mechanisms underlie the differentialeffects that the two dimensions of religiosity have on attitudes towards democracy. While religious belief isassociated with traditional values and an emphasis on material and physical security that generates opposition todemocracy, religious social behaviour improves social capital in the form of institutional trust and politicalengagement, which have positive effects on support for democracy.In a second study, we used multilevel path analysis models and data from fifty-four countries from Waves 4 and 5 ofthe World Values Survey to directly test the mechanisms hypothesised to underlie the differential effects of religiousbelief and behaviour on abstract support for democracy. Consistent with the expectations in our earlier article, wefind that the negative effect of religious belief on democratic attitudes is to a large extent mediated by personalvalues, and the effect of social religious behaviour is mediated by the generation of social capital in the form ofpolitical involvement and trust in institutions. These results are robust across a variety of religious traditions andcontextual effects, and thus make a convincing case that the psychological mechanisms underlying the effects ofreligious belief and social religious behaviour on democratic attitudes extend above and beyond a specific politicalcontext.Still, while these two studies confirm that religiosity affects democratic support through values, involvement, andtrust in democratic institutions, it could be argued that democratic norms and attitudes increase the likelihood ofpolitical participation via places of worship, and not the other way around. Therefore, an experimental test will helpimprove our understanding of the nature of the relationship between the two dimensions of religiosity and democraticattitudes, and establish their causal effect.To test the causal effect of religious belief and religious social behaviour on abstract support for democracy, our thirdstudy builds on an experimental priming framework. A priming framework suggests that a subject’s exposure tocertain cues increases the accessibility of related objects in their memory, consciously or unconsciously. Thus, evenrelatively subtle religious cues can activate religious beliefs or values and experiences, which, in turn, can affectpolitical cognition. Using a comparative experiment among Turkish Muslims and Israeli Jews, we find that primingreligious belief led to a lower degree of abstract support for democracy among respondents, while a religious socialbehaviour prime led to an increase in abstract support for democracy when compared to the no-prime group.Together, these three studies confirm that different dimensions of religiosity have differential causal effects viadifferent psychological mechanisms on democratic attitudes. While religious belief undermines democracy by2/3leading to more conservative values, social religious behaviour boosts democratic attitudes by fostering trust ininstitutions and engagement in politics. Our findings therefore suggest that it is not religious belief and religiousbehaviour in and of themselves that affect democratic attitudes, but the values and behaviours they teach to thereligious individual. This is an optimistic finding in the sense that it leaves room for interventions, and particularly foreducating people about democratic norms and for attenuating the value conflict underlying the non-democraticproclivities often reported for the devout.For a longer discussion of the topic covered in this article see:Ben-Nun Bloom, Pazit and Arikan, Gizem. (2013). Religion and Democratic Attitudes: A Cross-National Test of the Mediating Mechanisms. British Journal of Political Science. 43(2):375-397.Ben-Nun Bloom, Pazit and Arikan, Gizem. (2012). The Differential Effect of Religious Beliefand Religious Social Behavior on Opinion and Ambivalence in Democratic Attitudes. PoliticalBehavior 34(2):249-276.Ben-Nun Bloom, Pazit and Arikan, Gizem. (Forthcoming). Priming Religious Belief andReligious Social Behavior Affects Support for Democracy. International Journal of PublicOpinion Research.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/161CLeI _________________________________About the authorPazit Ben-Nun Bloom – Hebrew University of JerusalemPazit Ben-Nun Bloom is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at TheHebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her research examines the role of morality, religiosity, andvalues in political behaviour. Her broad research interests are in political psychology, comparativepolitical behaviour and political methodology.–Gizem Arikan  – Yasar UniversityGizem Arikan is Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations at Yasar University,Izmir, Turkey. Her research focuses on the effect of political culture and values on public opinion andpolicy. She also conducts research on religiosity and attitudes toward democracy.3/3

Religion can both hurt and enhance democratic attitudes.

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