Secularism and Politics

Author(s):  
Jeremiah J. Castle ◽  
Patrick L. Schoettmer

An increasingly important area within the subfield of religion and politics is the study of secularism, an ideology that seeks to limit the influence of religion in public and private life. Secularism can refer to conditions at the societal level (public secularism) or at the individual level (private secularism). In addition, it can take the form of simply an absence of religion (passive secularism), or it can include an affirmative acceptance of secular ideals (active secularism). Comparative studies highlight the complex ways in which secularism both influences and is influenced by politics. In Western Europe, the long-standing practice of established and/or preferred religions has led to a lack of vitality in the religious marketplace, resulting in high levels of private secularism. In Russia and other Eastern European nations, the end of communism and political motivations are leading to both decreasing public and private secularism. In the Middle East, secularization throughout the 20th century seems to have led to a fundamentalist backlash. Similarly, in the United States, the increasing association between religion and political conservatism seems to be driving increasing levels of private secularism. Together, these lessons suggest that both political factors and local context are key to understanding the relationship between secularism and politics.

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-210
Author(s):  
Michael Leo Owens

Charge: As Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird note, collectively more than 80% of African Americans self-identify as Democrats according to surveys, and no Republican presidential candidate has won more than 13% of the Black vote since 1968. This is true despite the fact that at the individual level many African Americans are increasingly politically moderate and even conservative. Against this backdrop, what explains the enduring nature of African American support for the Democratic Party? In Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, White and Laird answer this question by developing the concept of “racialized social constraint,” a unifying behavioral norm meant to empower African Americans as a group and developed through a shared history of struggle against oppression and for freedom and equality. White and Laird consider the historical development of this norm, how it is enforced, and its efficacy both in creating party loyalty and as a path to Black political power in the United States. On the cusp of perhaps the most consequential presidential election in American history, one for which African American turnout was crucial, we asked a range of leading political scientists to assess the relative strengths, weaknesses, and ramifications of this argument.


Author(s):  
Md. Razib Alam ◽  
Bonwoo Koo ◽  
Brian Paul Cozzarin

Abstract Our objective is to study Canada’s patenting activity over time in aggregate terms by destination country, by assignee and destination country, and by diversification by country of destination. We collect bibliographic patent data from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We identify 19,957 matched Canada–US patents, 34,032 Canada-only patents, and 43,656 US-only patents from 1980 to 2014. Telecommunications dominates in terms of International Patent Classification technologies for US-only and Canada–US patents. At the firm level, the greatest number of matched Canada–US patents were granted in the field of telecommunications, at the university level in pharmaceuticals, at the government level in control and instrumentation technology, and at the individual level in civil engineering. We use entropy to quantify technological diversification and find that diversification indices decline over time for Canada and the USA; however, all US indices decline at a faster rate.


2021 ◽  
pp. 232949652110216
Author(s):  
Neeraj Rajasekar ◽  
Evan Stewart ◽  
Joseph Gerteis

The meanings and definition of “diversity” can change across different applications and contexts, but many such meanings have implications for racial difference and racial ideology in the United States. We provide a nationally representative analysis of how everyday Americans assess “diversity” in their own communities. We test how county-level racial, religious, economic, and political heterogeneity predict the view that one lives in a highly diverse locale; we also test how individual-level factors predict such a view. Among the four indicators of local difference, racial difference is most strongly and consistently associated with Americans’ assessments of local diversity. Individual-level factors do not weaken this relationship; rather, local context and individual-level factors conjointly predict assessments of local diversity. Despite the flexible, hyperinclusive nature of diversity discourse, local racial difference is salient in Americans’ assessments of “diversity” in their communities, and this pattern is not simply a product of individual-level factors. Our findings illustrate another dimension of the flexible-yet-racialized nature of diversity discourse in the United States. We also show that Americans are particularly aware of racial difference in their locale, which has implications for social and ideological responses to changing communities and a changing nation.


1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN R. HIBBING

This is an analysis of the effects of economic factors on voting behavior in the United Kingdom. Aggregate- and individual-level data are used. When the results are compared to findings generated by the United States case, some intriguing differences appear. To mention just two examples, unemployment and inflation seem to be much more important in the United Kingdom than in the United States, and changes in real per capita income are positively related to election results in the United States and negatively related in the United Kingdom. More generally, while the aggregate results are strong and the individual-level results weak in the United States, in the United Kingdom the situation is practically reversed.


2020 ◽  
pp. 109980042096888
Author(s):  
Rosa M. Gonzalez-Guarda ◽  
Allison M. Stafford ◽  
Gabriela A. Nagy ◽  
Deanna R. Befus ◽  
Jamie L. Conklin

The health of Latinx immigrants decays over time and across generations. Acculturation stress influences decays in behavioral and mental health in this population, but the effect on physical health outcomes is less understood. This systematic review synthesizes findings from 22 studies that examined the influence of acculturation stress on physical health outcomes among Latinx populations in the United States. The Society-to-Cell Resilience Framework was used to synthesize findings according to individual, physiological, and cellular levels. There is mounting evidence identifying acculturation stress as an important social contributor to negative physical health outcomes, especially at the individual level. More research is needed to identify the physiological and cellular mechanisms involved. Interventions are also needed to address the damaging effects of acculturation stress on a variety of physical health conditions in this population.


2020 ◽  
pp. 073112142092190
Author(s):  
Patrick A. Denice

Much prior research has examined the individual-level, major-specific, and institutional correlates of college students’ choice of major, as well as the variation in labor market outcomes associated with this important choice. Extant accounts, however, largely overlook the process by which individuals change their major throughout college. This study provides a comprehensive description of major switching, and considers its relevance to concerns about stratification in postsecondary education. Drawing on survey and transcript data from students at three large universities in the United States, I find that switching is widespread, and that many students change their majors multiple times. Students appear to change majors in an effort to better fit their interests and abilities, as students seek out majors that are generally less competitive and easier. Major change further contributes to gender segregation, particularly as women leave science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields after initially selecting these at lower rates than men.


Author(s):  
Michael Root

Racial categories are used in the biomedical sciences both at the population and individual level. At the population level, race is used in fields like epidemiology, to describe and explain variations in the rate or risk of morbidity and mortality within the United States, and at the individual level, race is used in the hospital and clinic, in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Both uses are controversial and raise questions about the nature and importance of racial categories, such as which uses benefit individuals and which benefit groups.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle E. Walker

Recent electoral research has claimed that individuals in the United States are self–segregating along political lines. In this paper, I use the Twin Cities, Minnesota, metropolitan area as a case study to test for the presence of political segregation through statistical and spatial analyses of electoral data from 1992 to 2012. I find that while segregation by partisan voting at the individual level is comparatively low, it has increased during the study period, and there exists substantial spatial clustering in voting patterns at aggregate levels. These distinct electoral divides between central city and exurb suggest spatial sorting of the electorate in the metropolitan area.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Verboord ◽  
Amanda Brandellero

This study offers a cross-national multilayered analysis of music flows between 1960 and 2010. Advancing on previous empirical studies of cultural globalization, it attends to the global and country level, while adding the individual level of music flows. Concretely, the authors analyze the international composition of pop charts in nine countries by (a) mapping trends, (b) comparing countries, and (c) conducting multivariate analyses. The results show that pop charts increasingly contain foreign music, with the exception of the United States. Explanatory analyses of foreign success confirm that limited cultural distance results in greater flow as found in film and television studies, while revealing additional positive impacts of centrality of production (e.g., artists from more “central” countries in music production are more likely to chart abroad) and the “star power” of artists. Both the innovative methodological approach and findings of this article offer promising research avenues for globalization, media industry, and celebrity studies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Alter ◽  
Myron P. Gutmann ◽  
Susan Hautaniemi Leonard ◽  
Emily R. Merchant

Understanding the complexity of the historical demographic transition—the secular change from high to low levels of mortality and fertility in Western Europe and the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—has long been a major goal of historical demography. Recent developments in individual-level life-course databases and longitudinal statistical models have allowed scholars to test ever-more complex hypotheses about the causal factors in demographic change and to develop an increasingly fine-grained image of demographic behavior before, during, and after the transition. Such studies are critical for identifying variation, both between and within societies, obscured by secular trends that appear uniform at the macro-level, and for distinguishing the contingent elements of demographic change from the universal elements. The six articles presented in this special issue bring new substantive and methodological insights to the field of historical demography—revealing the responsiveness of pre-transition fertility to changing contexts, tracking the transmission of new fertility practices, exploring the unevenness of mortality and fertility decline, and documenting the changing role of social institutions in family formation.


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