Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
John W. Compton

This introduction develops a theoretical framework capable of explaining both the rise of white Protestant social concern in the latter part of the nineteenth century and its sudden demise at the end of the twentieth. The theory proceeds from the premise that religious conviction, by itself, is rarely sufficient to motivate empathetic political behavior. When believers do act empathetically—for example, by championing reforms that transfer resources or political influence to less privileged groups within society—it is typically because strong religious institutions have compelled them to do so. For much of American history, the socioeconomic significance of church membership, coupled with a robust network of ecumenical institutions, endowed mainline Protestant leaders with considerable authority over the beliefs and actions of their congregations. Beginning in the late 1960s, however, the collapse of mainline Protestant authority fueled the rise of an evangelical movement whose leaders were incentivized to echo the increasingly conservative political convictions of the broader white electorate.

2021 ◽  
pp. 147892992110001
Author(s):  
Diego Garzia ◽  
Frederico Ferreira da Silva

Recent developments in Western societies have motivated a growing consideration of the role of negativity in public opinion and political behavior research. In this article, we review the scant (and largely disconnected) scientific literature on negativity and political behavior, merging contributions from social psychology, public opinion, and electoral research, with a view on developing an integrated theoretical framework for the study of negative voting in contemporary democracies. We highlight that the tendency toward negative voting is driven by three partly overlapping components, namely, (1) an instrumental–rational component characterized by retrospective performance evaluations and rationalization mechanisms, (2) an ideological component grounded on long-lasting political identities, and (3) an affective component, motivated by (negative) attitudes toward parties and candidates. By blueprinting the systematic relationships between negative voting and each of these components in turn, and suggesting multiple research paths, this article aims to stimulate future studies on negative voting in multi-party parliamentary systems to motivate a better understanding of the implications of negativity in voting behavior in contemporary democracies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 103237322110323
Author(s):  
Tonya K Flesher ◽  
Dale L Flesher

The availability of the accounting and other records of a religious communal society (the Harmony Society) provides for a study that adds to the literature on accounting in religious organizations, a need highlighted in Carmona and Ezzamel’s article in Accounting History that discusses: (1) the unique spiritual dimension of religious institutions and its impact on accounting, and (2) the ‘sacred/profane divide’ (p. 122). The Harmonists’ communal beliefs were derived from Biblical interpretations and were necessitated by the need for shared labor and resources. Harmonists’ accounting records were sophisticated but did not account for labor costs provided by members. The interplay of these beliefs and the greed of the leaders impacted the group’s accounting system and created a spiritual/profane divide. The study explores the interplay between the role of accounting and the community’s beliefs and goals.


2018 ◽  
pp. 164-184
Author(s):  
GEORGE M. FREDRICKSON

Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow

This chapter examines how Kansas experienced a long slide from being the “kernel of the country” to becoming a mere outpost far from the centers of national economic and political influence—a shift that was rooted in economic and demographic changes, but was primarily a matter of cultural redefinition. On those rare occasions in the nineteenth century when the Kansas Republican Party lost power, it regrouped and made a comeback in the next electoral cycle. The chapter first considers how the influence of Republicans and Methodists peaked in 1924, a banner year for the Kansas economy, before discussing the consolidation and further expansion of Kansas churches. It then describes the separation of church and state, along with the rise of fundamentalism and the impact of the Great Depression on Kansas churches. It also explores the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and the emergence of smaller political and religious movements in Kansas.


Author(s):  
William H. McNeill

IN THE LATTER part of the nineteenth century, east coast city dwellers in the United States had difficulty repressing a sense of their own persistent cultural inferiority vis-à-vis London and Paris. At the same time a great many old-stock Americans were dismayed by the stream of immigrants coming to these shores whose diversity called the future cohesion of the Republic into question almost as seriously as the issue of slavery had done in the decades before the Civil War. In such a climate of opinion, the unabashed provinciality of Frederick Jackson Turner's (1861-1932) paper "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered at a meeting of the newly founded American Historical Association in connection with the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1892), began within less than a decade to resound like a trumpet call, though whether it signalled advance or retreat remained profoundly ambiguous....


2020 ◽  
pp. 197-208
Author(s):  
Ismail K. White ◽  
Chryl N. Laird

This concluding chapter examines the broader implications of this research, both empirical and normative. It discusses the potential for this theoretical framework to further understanding of the political behavior of other social groupings in America. The chapter also considers the framework's applicability to understanding the political homogeneity of localized racial groupings. If the foundational mechanism of political power through unity is that identified by the framework—coracial social ties—then desegregation and the loss of black institutions are a fundamental challenge to the doing of black liberation politics. The chapter discusses what this might mean for the future of black politics. In so doing, it also engages arguments about the harms of coracial policing and weighs how to think about balancing those concerns against the reality that the political unity that has consistently enabled black political power relies on a process of social sanctioning. Finally, the chapter considers the questions future research might answer by engaging and applying this theoretical framework and charts a course for future progress.


Author(s):  
Eagle Glassheim

Although fascism has often been considered a plebeian, even radically egalitarian ideology, many of its outspoken proponents were members of the old European elite: nobles, clericalists and representatives of the haute bourgeoisie. Historians of Nazi Germany have puzzled over the affinity of German conservatives such as Paul von Hindenburg and Franz von Papen to Adolf Hitler's National Socialist version of fascism. A small but extremely wealthy noble elite struggled to maintain its long-standing social, economic and political influence in Bohemia. By the late nineteenth century, the Bohemian nobility was a self-consciously traditional social group with a decidedly modern economic relationship to agrarian and industrial capitalism. This chapter examines the response of the Bohemian aristocracy to the new state of Czechoslovakia. This restricted caste of cosmopolitan latifundist families was more German than Czech in sentiment, and further alienated by land reform. The aristocrats entertained divergent assessments of Nazism and responded in different ways to the crisis of the state by 1938.


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