american politics quarterly / january 1999 layman...

AMERICAN POLITICS QUARTERLY / JANUARY 1999Layman / “CULTURE WARS”

“CULTURE WARS” IN THE

AMERICAN PARTY SYSTEM

Religious and Cultural ChangeAmong Partisan Activists Since 1972

GEOFFREY C. LAYMANVanderbilt University

This article uses surveys of the parties’ national convention delegates from 1972 to 1992 toexamine the emergence of a religious cleavage between Republican and Democratic activists.The findings indicate that the religious cleavage between the two parties has grown over time,with the Republicans becoming more traditionally religious and with the Democrats growingmore secular and religiously modern. This religious polarization has been associated with agrowing partisan polarization on “cultural” issues such as abortion, women’s rights, and homo-sexual rights. Finally, the article demonstrates that the impact of religious change within the par-ties on interparty differences on cultural issues has been even broader than a model focusing onlyon religious replacement would predict. Not only is religious replacement within the partiesoccurring, but within religious groups, Democratic activists are becoming more culturally lib-eral relative to Republican activists.

There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is acultural war . . .

—Patrick J. Buchanan at the1992 Republican National Convention

Pat Buchanan’s cultural call to arms at the 1992 Republicannational convention certainly was laced with political motivations.However, his observation echoes the argument of recent scholarshipthat a new form of religious and cultural conflict has emerged on theAmerican social and political landscape (Green, Guth, Smidt, &Kellstedt, 1996; Hunter, 1991; Wuthnow, 1989). This research con-

Author’s Note: The author wishes to thank Ted Carmines, Tom Carsey, John Geer, LymanKellstedt, and Bruce Oppenheimer for helpful comments and suggestions, as well as Rick Her-rera for providing some of the data on which the article is based.

AMERICAN POLITICS QUARTERLY, Vol. 27 No. 1, January 1999 89-121© 1999 Sage Publications, Inc.

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tends that the traditional tensions between Protestants, Catholics, andJews have given way to divisions both within and between religioustraditions. This new cleavage pits individuals who remain committedto orthodox religious beliefs and practices against individuals whohave abandoned traditional orthodoxy in favor of more modern views.These religious tensions have escalated into a full-scale “culture war”in which religious “conservatives” battle with religious “liberals” andsecularists to shape and define American cultural norms (Hunter,1991; Wuthnow, 1988, 1989).

A number of scholars demonstrate that these divisions have cometo affect party politics in the United States. Among both activists andvoters, religious conservatives tend to support the Republican party,whereas the Democratic party draws its support disproportionatelyfrom the ranks of religious liberals and secularists (Green, Guth, &Fraser, 1991; Green et al., 1996; Layman, 1997); Miller & Shanks,1996; Miller & Wattenberg, 1984; Rozell & Wilcox, 1995). Most ofthese studies, however, have examined only cross-sectional data.Thus, political scientists do not know how long the religious and cul-tural divisions in the party system have existed and whether or not theyhave grown over time. Without such information, we lack not only thecontext to judge the extent of partisan change but also the ability tomake sound predictions about the future amount of change. Further-more, a purely cross-sectional examination of this religious cleavagehinders our ability to address questions about how it has becomemanifest in the party system. For instance, how closely has the relig-ious polarization of the parties been tied to polarization on particulartypes of policy issues? Have particular candidates played a significantrole in bringing this religious division into party politics?

This article attempts to provide some answers to these questions byexamining religious and cultural change over time among the parties’activists.1 It chooses this focus because party activists are a drivingforce in the partisan change process. Activists often bring new issuesinto party politics (Carmines, 1991; Carmines & Stimson, 1989); theyexert substantial influence on the selection of party candidates and thedrafting of party platforms (Aldrich, 1995; Miller & Jennings, 1986);and they serve as “opinion leaders” in their local communities, play-ing a crucial role in shaping the images that the mass public forms ofthe parties’ policy stances (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, & McPhee, 1954;

90 AMERICAN POLITICS QUARTERLY / JANUARY 1999

Carmines & Stimson, 1989). The role of activists in effecting partisanreligious change may be particularly important. Hunter (1991, 1994)argues that the culture war is fought primarily by elites and highlycommitted activists, whereas most ordinary citizens have less well-defined attitudes toward the issues that define the conflict.

ACTIVISTS, CANDIDATES, AND THEGROWTH OF THE PARTISAN RELIGIOUS CLEAVAGE

The religious polarization of the party system should result fromreligious replacement: secularists and religious liberals disengagingfrom Republican party activity and being replaced by newly activereligious conservatives; religious conservatives disengaging fromDemocratic party activity and being replaced by newly active relig-ious liberals and secularists. Thus, in order to understand why andhow religious polarization has occurred, it is necessary to understandwhy individuals with various religious orientations become active in,remain active in, or cease to be active in party politics.

In a prominent account of party activism, John H. Aldrich (1983a,1983b, 1995) modifies the Downsian (1957) spatial model of votingbehavior to explain the decisions of individuals to engage in or refrainfrom party activity. Aldrich argues that an individual is more likely tobecome active in or remain active in a party as the distance betweenthe policy positions of that party and the individual’s own positionsgrows smaller relative to the distance between the individual’s posi-tions and those of the other party.2 Because the issues most closelyassociated with the contemporary religious cleavage are the social or“cultural” issues such as abortion, women’s rights, prayer in the publicschools, and homosexual rights (Jelen, 1991; Layman & Green,1998), change in the aggregate religious characteristics of party activ-ists should be closely related to change in the parties’ stances on cul-tural issues. According to Aldrich’s logic, a move by the Republicanparty to the right on cultural issues should draw more religious conser-vatives into the Republican party and lead more religious liberals andsecularists into Democratic party activity. A shift by the Democraticparty toward the cultural left should have the same effect on the relig-ious composition of the two parties.

Layman / “CULTURE WARS” 91

If individuals’ decisions on whether or not to participate in partyactivity are driven by their perceptions of the parties’positions on cer-tain issues, then how do potential activists form these perceptions?3

One possibility is that individuals evaluate the parties’positions on anissue through the mean positions of current activists (Aldrich, 1983a,1983b). This implies that the growth of the religious cleavage betweenRepublican and Democratic activists should follow a steady pattern.The mobilization of religious conservatives into the Republican partyshould shift the mean position of Republican activists on culturalissues to the right. This should increase the attraction of Republicanparty activity for religious conservatives and make Democratic partyactivity more appealing to secularists and religious liberals. Thischange in the religious composition of the parties should result in fur-ther polarization of the parties’mean cultural positions, which in turnshould attract even more religious traditionalists into the GOP andeven more religious liberals and secularists into the Democratic party.

Empirical evidence supports the assumption that the positions ofcurrent party activists shape individuals’ perceptions of the parties’policy stances (cf. Carmines & Stimson, 1989). However, it is likelythat the participation decisions of current and potential activists areshaped also by the stances of the parties’ leading candidates. Candi-dates are a party’s most visible activists, and survey data show thatsupport for particular candidates is the most prevalent motivation forparty activity (Miller & Jennings, 1986). The parties’ nomineesshould have the greatest impact on potential activists’ perceptions ofthe parties’positions. However, candidates who lose nomination cam-paigns also may affect these perceptions in that they often exert a sub-stantial impact on the positions taken in the parties’ platforms. More-over, even if potential activists do not see the positions of a candidatefor the nomination as the party’s positions, they may be attracted toparty activity by a desire for the party to adopt that candidate’s stances.

Because the policy stances of party candidates generally divergefrom the mean position of current activists,4 the growth of religiouspolarization between Democratic and Republican activists should notoccur at a constant rate. Instead, the rate of religious change should beaccelerated or decelerated in particular years by the cultural-issuepositions of the parties’ leading candidates. When leading Republicanand Democratic candidates take cultural positions that are more cen-


trist than the mean position of activists in their respective parties, thegrowth of partisan religious polarization should be less—and in factthe extent of polarization may decline from previous levels—than itwould be if candidates were located at the activist mean. When Demo-cratic and Republican candidates take cultural positions that are morepolarized than are the activist means in their respective parties, thegrowth of partisan religious polarization should be greater than itwould be if candidates were located at the activist mean.

DATA AND THE MEASUREMENT OF RELIGION

The analysis employs the five Convention Delegate Studies (CDS)conducted by Warren E. Miller and others from 1972 through 1992.5

In addition to their role as party activists, there are at least two reasonswhy national convention delegates may be a particularly appropriatefocus for this study. First, party reforms have made the presidentialnomination process open to infiltration by new groups of activists.Because the composition of the parties’ convention delegationsreflects the outcomes of the nominating process, newly emerging par-tisan cleavages may be evident first among convention delegates. Sec-ond, because they play a role in shaping party platforms, delegatesmay have more influence than most activists on the policy positionswith which a party is associated. In this sense, they not only mirror anongoing process of partisan change but also may be catalysts for thatchange.

In addition to providing the best time series available on partyactivists, the CDS is the only national-level longitudinal study ofactivists to consistently contain indicators of religious orientations.Each of the CDS studies contained questions about denominationalaffiliation and frequency of church or synagogue attendance.6 EachCDS from 1980 to 1992 included a question concerning religious sali-ence, or the amount of guidance provided by religion. The 1988 and1992 CDS asked respondents if they considered themselves to be Fun-damentalist Christians.

All of these religious indicators should be useful in measuring dif-ferent aspects of the contemporary religious cleavage. Religiousaffiliations play a key role in shaping political behavior, and a number


of scholars have shown substantial theological and political differ-ences between members of different denominational “traditions”(Green et al., 1996; Kellstedt & Green, 1993; Kellstedt, Green, Guth, &Smidt, 1994; Miller & Shanks, 1996). Following this research, theanalysis combines the various denominations in the CDS into eightreligious traditions: Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant,Black Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Eastern Orthodox, andsecular.7 The impact of denominational preference on political behav-ior is strongest for the most religious and active members (Kellstedt &Green, 1993; Wald, Owen, & Hill, 1988). Thus, the analysis dividessome of the religious traditions into “regular” attenders—those indi-viduals who attend church almost every week or more—and “non-regular” attenders: those who attend less often than almost everyweek.

One difficulty with the CDS data is that their denominational cod-ings include only a very small number of Evangelical denominations(see Appendix A). Thus, many Evangelical Protestants are probablyhidden in the CDS’s “other Protestant” category and, since the CDScoding includes most of the Mainline Protestant denominations, it islikely that most “other Protestants” are Evangelicals. Thus, I examinethe growth of Evangelical Protestantism in the GOP in two ways.First, I use all of the CDS surveys to examine change in the percentageof Republican delegates affiliated with particular Evangelicaldenominations. Second, using the 1988 and 1992 CDS, I broaden theEvangelical category to include not only those delegates affiliatedwith the Evangelical denominations contained in the CDS coding butalso those “other Protestants” who identify themselves as Fundamen-talist Christians (cf. Green et al., 1996). I then use these two studies toexamine differences in the percentage of various cohorts of Republi-can delegates included in this broader, and likely more accurate, cate-gory of Evangelical Protestants.8

In addition to changes in the types of religious traditions withwhich Republican and Democratic activists are affiliated, it is possiblethat partisan differences in religious commitment may be growing.The Republicans may simply be turning into a more religious partywhile the Democrats become less religious (Guth & Green, 1993;Layman, 1997). I use the church attendance and religious saliencevariables to test this hypothesis.


THE RELIGIOUS DIVISION OF PARTY ACTIVISTS

There are two religious traditions that seem to be at the forefront ofthe cultural conflict. Evangelical Protestants have very traditionalreligious and moral views, high levels of religious commitment, andvery conservative attitudes on cultural issues (Green et al., 1996;Hunter, 1983). They have provided most of the leadership of andgrassroots-level support for the Christian Right (Oldfield, 1996;Wilcox, 1992). The principal opponent of politically active Evangeli-cals has been seculars: Those individuals who affiliate with no relig-ious denomination and who tend to reject traditional religiosity (Oldfield, 1996; Wuthnow, 1989). If the parties are being polarizedalong religious and cultural lines, it should be most apparent amongthese two groups. An increasing proportion of Republican activistsshould be Evangelicals, particularly committed Evangelicals whoattend church regularly. An increasing proportion of Democratic dele-gates should be seculars.

Part A of Figure 1 shows the percentage of regularly attendingEvangelical Protestants among Republican delegates from 1972 to1992, and Part C shows the percentage of seculars among Democraticdelegates over this period. They show this for both all delegates andfirst-time delegates, a group of particular interest in that shifts in theparties’positions on cultural issues should lead to the mobilization ofnew party activists. In Part B of Figure 1, Evangelical Protestants aredefined as all members of Evangelical denominations and all “otherProtestants” who are self-identified Fundamentalists. It shows thepercentages of Republican cohorts from 1972 to 1992 who are regu-larly attending Evangelical Protestants according to this broaderdefinition.

Parts A and B of the figure clearly demonstrate the steady ascen-dance of committed Evangelicals within the Republican party after1976. The consistent nature of this pattern could be explained in largepart by a model of partisan change that did not consider the effects ofcandidates: the increase in Evangelicalism among Republican activ-ists between 1976 and 1980 made Republican activity more attractivefor other Evangelicals, and their entry into the party increased theappeal of GOP participation for even more conservative Protestants.However, the effect of Republican presidential candidates on this pat-


tern of partisan change should not be discounted. The noticeableincrease in the proportion of regularly attending Evangelicals between1976 and 1984 was surely aided by the culturally conservative rhetoricof Ronald Reagan, and the religiously and culturally conservativecampaign of Pat Robertson certainly contributed to the unusually highpercentage of Evangelical Republican delegates in 1988.

The pattern of secularism among Democratic delegates is consid-erably less consistent, clearly reflecting the influence of candidates’stances on the characteristics of a party’s activist base. The delegatesto the 1972 Democratic convention were quite secular: 21% of alldelegates and 24% of first-time delegates fell into the secular cate-gory. Undoubtedly, many secular activists were attracted by (andmany religious traditionalists were turned off by) the candidacy ofGeorge McGovern, who took liberal stances on noneconomic con-cerns such as abortion, equal rights for women, and the Vietnam Waren route to the Democratic nomination. The drop-off in secularismbetween 1972 and 1976 likely reflects the shift from McGovern toJimmy Carter as the Democratic standard-bearer. In contrast toMcGovern’s thoroughgoing liberalism, Carter was a born-againChristian from the culturally traditional South who attracted substan-tial support from Evangelical Protestants (Miller & Wattenberg, 1984;Oldfield, 1996). The influx of secularists into Democratic politics in1972 should have attracted even more secularists to Democratic activ-ity, but the strength of the Carter candidacy may have reduced thatattraction.

There was a clear growth in Democratic secularism between 1976and 1992, but it took shape in fits and starts. Reflecting the nominationof a more culturally liberal candidate, Walter Mondale, in 1984 andthe growth of religious traditionalism in the Republican party, the pro-portion of secular Democratic delegates increased noticeably between1976 and 1984. However, that proportion declined again between1984 and 1988, and the explanation again may lie in particular presi-dential candidacies. Although the party nominated Michael Dukakis,the “first truly secular” presidential candidate in American history(Wills, 1990, p. 60), in 1988, the campaigns of two of Dukakis’s chiefrivals—Jesse Jackson and Al Gore—may have attracted a more relig-ious set of activists to Democratic activity. Jackson’s 1988 campaignrelied heavily on African American churches to mobilize support and



Figure 1: The Percentage of Regularly Attending Evangelicals Among Republican Dele-gates and the Percentage of Secularists Among Democratic Delegates From1972 to 1992

SOURCE: 1972-1992 Convention Delegate Studies (Parts A and C) and 1988-1992 ConventionDelegate Studies (Part B).NOTE: The number of observations ranges from 631 to 955 for all delegates and from 484 to 784for first-timers in Part A, from 168 to 519 in Part B, and from 839 to 1,425 for all delegates andfrom 815 to 1,351 for all delegates in Part C.

therefore attracted unusually large numbers of Black Protestants toDemocratic activity (Hertzke, 1993).9 Gore’s campaign focused itsefforts on winning the support of moderate and conservative voters,especially in his native South (Hadley & Stanley, 1996). As a result, itmobilized an unusually large number of committed Mainline Protes-tants into Democratic politics.10

After 1988, the growing influence of religious and cultural conser-vatives in the Republican party and the threat that Supreme Courtdecisions such as the 1989Webster v. Reproductive Health Servicesposed to abortion rights apparently increased even further the attrac-tion of Democratic activity to seculars. In 1992, the percentage ofsecular Democratic delegates reached its highest level since 1972.

These trends among secular Democrats and Evangelical Republi-cans should have consequences for the presence of other religiousgroups in the two parties. The ascent of committed Evangelicals in theGOP should decrease the appeal of Republican activity for secularistsand the less religious members of other traditions. In contrast, themore committed members of other religious traditions—for instance,Mainline Protestants and particularly Catholics—may share someaspects of the moral traditionalism and cultural conservatism of Evan-gelicals. Their percentages should not decline as those of committedEvangelicals rise. Similarly, the post-1976 growth of secularism in theDemocratic party should decrease the attraction of Democratic activ-ity for Evangelicals and highly committed members of other tradi-tions. However, it should not lead to a decline in the proportion of thenominally religious Democratic activists who affiliate with a religioustradition but are not active in that religion.

Table 1 shows the percentage of first-time Republican and Demo-cratic delegates to national conventions from 1972 to 1992 in each ofthe eight religious traditions. The three largest traditions—MainlineProtestant, Evangelical Protestant, and Catholic—are divided intoregular and nonregular attenders. It is apparent that the parties are notclose to being full participants in a religious “war” as both are centeredin the mainstream of American religion. Even by 1992, a clear major-ity of first-time Republican delegates (60.8%) and a near majority offirst-time Democrats (47.8%) were Mainline Protestants or Catholics.

At the same time, Table 1 does provide further evidence of growingreligious differences between the parties. The strength of most of the


religious traditions in the Democratic party has not changed verymuch. However, the growth of secularism in the party since 1976 hasbeen accompanied by a change in the type of activists coming from itslargest tradition: Catholics. In 1976, there were more regularly attend-ing Catholics than less committed Catholics among first-time Demo-cratic delegates. By 1992, the situation was clearly reversed so that, ashas been consistently the case among Mainline Protestants, the major-ity of Democratic Catholics were nonregular church attenders. TheDemocratic party now appears to be a party whose core of supportcomes from secularists and the less committed members of the majorreligious traditions.

The growth of Evangelicalism in the GOP has been accompaniedby some increase in the percentage of regularly attending Catholicdelegates, particularly between 1976 and 1984. More striking, therehas been a sharp decline in the percentage of less committed MainlineProtestants, a group that represented a clear plurality of Republicanactivists through 1980. Meanwhile, the proportion of regularly attend-ing Mainline Protestants changed very little. What is clear is that theRepublican party is no longer a party of the nominally religious: upperstatus individuals who affiliate with a Mainline denomination but donot take an active role within it. It is becoming a party of the tradition-ally religious and the religiously committed, one whose core of sup-port consists of the highly active members of the Evangelical, Main-line, and Catholic traditions.11

To assess whether the changes in the religious affiliations ofRepublican and Democratic delegates have been accompanied by agrowing religious-versus-secular cleavage between the parties, Figure 2shows the percentage of all delegates and first-time delegates in bothparties from 1972 to 1992 who attended church almost every week ormore and who received a great deal of guidance from their religion.12

The figure clearly demonstrates a growing difference in the religiousparticipation of the two parties’ activists. The proportion of Republi-can activists who attend church regularly increased steadily from1976 (42.1% among first-time delegates) to 1992 (56.8% among first-time delegates). The Democratic pattern again shows peaks and val-leys corresponding to the stances of leading presidential candidates.However, there was a noticeable decline in the presence of regularchurch attenders at Democratic conventions between 1980 (38.2%


among first-time delegates) and 1992 (28.9% among first-time dele-gates). The growing partisan difference in religious salienceis due entirely to the increasing commitment of Republican activists.The percentage of Democratic delegates who find religion to behighly salient was quite low in 1972 and changed very little over this


TABLE 1

Religious Tradition and Participation of First-TimeDemocratic and Republican Convention Delegates, 1972-1992

Year

Religious Tradition andAttendance Level 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992

DemocratsSecular (%) 24.13 11.90 13.94 17.35 14.99 18.93Black Protestant (%) 6.88 4.29 5.89 6.96 7.88 7.48Jewish (%) 9.99 11.17 8.21 9.44 8.81 9.18Mormon (%) .37 1.23 .54 .76 .68 .60Eastern Orthodox (%) .22 .12 .46 .29 1.36 1.11Nonregular Mainline (%) 13.25 16.07 15.18 14.49 14.92 13.86Regular Mainline (%) 7.55 10.92 9.30 5.34 11.64 6.46Nonregular Evangelical (%) 3.26 4.05 3.87 4.10 4.29 3.74Regular Evangelical (%) 2.96 4.05 4.57 2.19 2.49 2.81Nonregular Catholic (%) 9.33 12.27 15.18 13.35 12.54 16.07Regular Catholic (%) 13.47 16.81 17.20 14.78 13.22 11.42(N) (1,351) (815) (1,291) (1,049) (885) (1,176)

RepublicansSecular (%) 4.61 4.92 4.72 2.85 4.13 4.42Black Protestant (%) 3.37 .68 .77 1.52 2.48 1.35Jewish (%) .89 2.19 2.42 2.09 2.48 2.50Mormon (%) 1.60 1.50 3.06 4.74 2.27 2.88Eastern Orthodox (%) 1.06 .68 .51 .95 .62 .58Nonregular Mainline (%) 34.75 35.02 30.10 23.91 24.17 20.58Regular Mainline (%) 22.52 20.66 19.90 18.60 20.04 19.23Nonregular Evangelical (%) 3.90 4.92 4.59 4.36 3.93 4.62Regular Evangelical (%) 6.03 6.02 6.76 9.68 12.81 12.73Nonregular Catholic (%) 5.67 6.16 7.02 8.16 5.99 7.31Regular Catholic (%) 9.57 10.26 13.01 15.37 10.32 13.65(N) (564) (731) (784) (527) (484) (520)

SOURCE: 1972-1992 Convention Delegate Studies.NOTE: Percentages do not sum to 100 because the “other Protestant and other religion” categoryis not included.

period. In contrast, the percentage of first-time Republican delegateswho received a great deal of guidance from religion increased from35.2 in 1976 to 49.0 in 1992. It appears that the Republican party is be-coming not only more closely associated than the Democratic party


Figure 2: Church Attendance and Levels of Religious Salience Among All and First-Time Democratic and Republican Delegates, 1972 to 1992

SOURCE: 1972-1992 Convention Delegate Studies.NOTE: The number of observations ranges from 1,029 to 1,812 for all Democrats, from 839 to1,091 for all Republicans, from 816 to 1,305 for first-time Democrats, and from 489 to 793 for allRepublicans.

with conservative religious traditions but also just a more religiousparty than the Democrats.

RELIGIOUS POLARIZATION AND THE POLARIZATIONOF DELEGATES’ CULTURAL ATTITUDES

This article predicts a close association between partisan religiouschange and partisan change on cultural issues. As the Republican andDemocratic parties become increasingly polarized along religiouslines, the ideological distance between the two parties on culturalissues should grow. In order to test this hypothesis, Figure 3 shows thedifferences in the orientations of Republican and Democratic conven-tion delegates from 1972 to 1992 toward two of the issues—abortionand the Equal Rights Amendment—and four of the groups—thewomen’s movement, the Moral Majority, gay rights groups, and pro-life groups—associated with the cultural conflict. The scores for eachissue and group were coded to range from the most liberal attitude tothe most conservative attitude and were standardized to have a meanof 50 and a standard deviation of 25 for the entire sample in each sur-vey. The partisan-difference measure is the mean Republican positionminus the mean Democratic position.

The figure demonstrates that differences in the cultural attitudes ofRepublican and Democratic activists grew considerably over the timeperiod of this study. Partisan polarization increased with regard toeach of these issues and groups,13 and the growth was especiallyimpressive in attitudes toward the abortion issue and antiabortionactivists. The level of partisan differences increased from 9 in 1972 to30 in 1992 on abortion and from 11 in 1972 to 25 in 1992 on attitudestoward prolife groups.14

Given the individual-level relationship between religious orienta-tions and cultural attitudes, it is tempting to say that there is an empiri-cal connection between the growing religious differences between theparties’ activists and the growing partisan differences in cultural atti-tudes. However, a bit more analysis is necessary to establish that con-nection. Since abortion is the only cultural issue or group included in


all of the CDS surveys, the remainder of the article examines the rela-tionship between religious change among party activists and changein activists’ attitudes on abortion. Although the focus on abortion isundertaken for practical reasons, the substantive importance of abor-tion to the contemporary cultural conflict is indisputable. Abortion isthe defining issue in contemporary cultural and moral politics(Hunter, 1994; Oldfield, 1996). It is the issue that is most likely toarouse passion and to stir individuals to action. It is also the issue that


Figure 3: Interparty Differences in Attitudes Toward Cultural Issues and Groups OverTime

SOURCE: 1972-1992 Convention Delegate Studies.NOTE: The partisan difference score for a particular year is the mean position of Republicandelegates in that year minus the mean position of Democratic delegates in that year. The numberof observations ranges from 326 to 1,098 for Republicans and from 831 to 1,774 for Democrats.Each issue/group is shown only for the years that it is included in the CDS, with the exception of1976.

has been most central to the cultural debate both within and betweenthe parties.

Due to the very small number of time points in this analysis, a rigor-ous time series analysis of the relationship between the parties’ relig-ious compositions and their aggregate position on abortion is impossi-ble. However, it is possible to examine this relationship graphicallyand with some very basic statistical tests. Figure 4 shows the percent-age of Republican and Democratic delegates holding certain attitudeson abortion and belonging to certain religious groups from 1972 to1992. The changes in the parties’ aggregate positions on abortionshould be associated with broader changes in the religious composi-tion of the two parties and not simply with the growing proportions ofEvangelical Republicans and secular Democrats. Thus, the first panelof the figure shows the percentage of Republican delegates from 1972to 1992 who took the most prolife attitude on abortion—abortionshould never be permitted—and who are in “traditionalist” religiouscategories: regularly attending Evangelical Protestants, regularlyattending Catholics, and Mormons. The second panel shows the per-centage of Democratic delegates from 1972 to 1992 who took themost prochoice position on abortion (see Appendix A) and who are in“modernist” religious categories: seculars, Jews, non-regularly-attendingMainlineProtestants,andnon-regularly-attendingCatholics.15

The figure demonstrates an extremely close relationship betweenthe percentage of Republican delegates holding very conservativeviews on abortion and the presence of highly committed individualswith traditional religious affiliations in the party. The relationshipbetween aggregate abortion attitudes and religious composition ismore complicated among Democratic activists. The growth of pro-choice attitudes is fairly steady, whereas the growth of religious mod-ernism follows a much more erratic pattern. Nevertheless, the figuredoes provide some indication that there is an empirical connectionbetween the growth of liberal abortion attitudes among Democraticactivists and the changing religious face of the Democratic party.

Some simple statistical tests provide some confirmation of theserelationships. Despite the tiny sample, the correlation between theabortion series and the religious series is statistically significant forRepublicans (r = .94,p < .01, one-tailed test) and approaches signifi-cance for Democrats (r = .66,p < .08, one-tailed test). Because all of


these series clearly trend, these results may be spurious. However,even when the trends are removed by taking first-differences, the cor-relations still approach significance for both Republicans (r = .76,p<.07, one-tailed test) and Democrats (r = .75,p < .07, one-tailed test).With so few cases, these statistical results are far from conclusive.


Figure 4: The Percentage of Republican Delegates Taking the Most Prolife AbortionStance and in Traditionalist Religious Categories. The Percentage of Demo-cratic Delegates Taking the Most Prochoice Abortion Stance and in ModernistReligious Categories

SOURCE: 1972-1992 Convention Delegate Studies.NOTE: All of these percentages were standardized to a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 25.

However, they and the graphical representations of the relationshipsboth point to the same conclusion: Religious trends among the parties’activists have been associated with the polarization of the parties oncultural matters.

RELIGIOUS POLARIZATION AND THE EMERGENCE OFPARTISAN DIFFERENCES WITHIN RELIGIOUS GROUPS

The analysis in the previous section points to a relatively simpleprocess of partisan polarization, directly related to religious replace-ment within the two parties. However, it is possible that intrapartyreligious replacement has an even broader impact on interparty ideo-logical conflict. Although the entry of religiously and culturally con-servative activists into the Republican party should decrease theattraction of Republican activity for many secular and nominallyreligious activists, there may be some secular and less religious indi-viduals who remain active in the GOP. However, in order for Republi-can activity to continue to appeal to these remaining activists, theyshould have, in the aggregate, more conservative cultural attitudesthan did previous groups of less religious Republican activists. Inother words, the mobilization of religious conservatives into theRepublican party may contribute to a growing cultural conservatismof Republican activists of all religious stripes. Following this samelogic, the growing secularism of the Democratic party and the con-comitant growth of cultural liberalism may lead Democratic activistsof all religious orientations to adopt, in the aggregate, more liberalstances on cultural issues.

In order to test these hypotheses, I pool data on convention dele-gates ineachyear from1972 to1992andestimate the followingequation:

Y X D D D Di k

k

K

ik j

j

J

ij t

t

T

it m

m

M

ij i= + + + += = = =

∑ ∑ ∑ ∑α β β β β1 1 1 1

t ie+ .

In this equation,Yi is the abortion attitude of each delegate in the sam-ple. Xik are six control variables—education, income, gender, age,ideological self-identification, and residence in the South—shown bypast work to be important determinants of abortion attitudes (cf. Cook,


Jelen, & Wilcox, 1992; Guth, Smidt, Kellstedt, & Green, 1993; Leege,1983).Dij are separate dummy variables for Democrats and Republi-cans in each of 10 different religious categories: regularly attendingEvangelical Protestants, non-regularly-attending Evangelical Protes-tants, regularly attending Mainline Protestants, non-regularly-attending Mainline Protestants, regularly attending Catholics, non-regularly-attending Catholics, secularists, Black Protestants, Jews,and Mormons. The comparison category includes delegates from bothparties in “other religions.”16Dit are dummy variables for each conven-tion year from 1976 through 1992. The comparison category is 1972.

There are four sets of parameters to be estimated in this model.α,the intercept term, represents the mean abortion attitude of delegatesin other religions in 1972—the comparison categories in themodel—when all of the control variables equal zero. Theβk terms rep-resent the effects of the control variables on delegates’ abortion atti-tudes. Because these variables are not interacted with convention year,their effect on abortion attitudes is assumed to be constant over time.The βj terms represent the difference, controlling for demographiccharacteristics and ideology, between the mean abortion attitude of aparticular partisan and religious group—for example, Republicanswho are regularly attending Mainline Protestants—and the meanabortion attitude of delegates in other religions in 1972. Theβt termsrepresent the difference between the mean abortion attitudes of dele-gates in other religions in a particular year and the mean abortion atti-tudes of delegates in other religions in 1972. Theβm terms are the coef-ficients on interactions between each of the dummy variables forpartisan and religious groups and each of the dummy variables forconvention years. The difference between the mean abortion attitudeof a particular partisan and religious group in a particular year and themean attitude of that group in 1972 is given by the sum of theβt termfor the particular year and theβm term for the interaction between thatyear variable and the variable for the particular group. Taken together,the coefficients on all of the interactions for a particular religiousgroup and the coefficients on all of the convention year variables indi-cate the extent to which the abortion attitudes of Republican andDemocratic activists in the same religious group have diverged overthe 1972-1992 period.


Owing to the extremely large number of variables in this model, Iwill not discuss the parameter estimates in detail but will instead focuson the model’s predictions regarding change in the abortion attitudesof Democratic and Republican activists within various religiousgroups. The estimates are presented in Appendix B, which shows thatthe large majority of variables, including almost all of the interactionsbetween the dummy variables for religious and partisan groups andthe year variables, are statistically significant.17 Figure 5 shows thepredicted abortion attitudes of Democratic and Republican activistsamong regular and nonregular attenders in each of the three majorreligious traditions—Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant,and Catholic—and among Democratic and Republican secularistsfrom 1972 to 1992. In order to compute these predicted values, all ofthe control variables were held constant at their means for the respec-tive parties’ delegates.

The figure clearly shows that the partisan differences betweenactivists within the same religious groups have grown over time. In1972, Republican activists had slightly more conservative abortionattitudes than Democratic activists. As expected, the growth of parti-san polarization within religious groups since 1972 has been sporadic,but it is nevertheless evident within each of these religious categories.In several groups, Republican activists grew more prolife in the aggre-gate. In every group, Democratic activists grew more prochoice in theaggregate. For the most part, the growth in partisan differences wasnot enormous, but it is clear that the growing partisan gap on culturalissues has not resulted simply from religious replacement within theparties.

This growing partisan polarization within religious groups may beexplained both by turnover or replacement among activists and by atti-tudinal conversion among those activists who continue to participatein party politics. Activist turnover should contribute to the growth ofpartisan cleavages within religious traditions because as the presenceof religious traditionalists in the Republican party grows and asRepublican candidates become more likely to take conservativestands on cultural issues, the types of individuals within any religioustradition for whom Republican activity is attractive increasinglyshould become those with the most conservative cultural attitudes.Thus, within a particular tradition, the individuals who remain active


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in the GOP or become active in the GOP should have more conserva-tive cultural attitudes than those individuals who disengage fromRepublican activity. Similarly, as religious and cultural liberalismbecomes more prevalent among Democratic activists and candidates,those individuals who remain active in the Democratic party orbecome active in the Democratic party should have more liberal cul-tural attitudes than those individuals who disengage from Democraticactivity. Attitudinal conversion may contribute to partisan polariza-tion within religious groups because the cultural stands of party candi-dates and of other activists may influence those held by individualactivists (Layman & Carsey, 1998). For example, a secular Republi-can activist may hold a liberal attitude on abortion. However, if sheremains active in Republican politics, she will be increasingly likelyto come into contact with Republican activists and candidates whoespouse prolife views, and this may lead her to become more conser-vative on abortion. Meanwhile, a secular Democrat who holds a pro-choice attitude and remains active in Democratic politics may becomeeven more prochoice owing to the growing social and political pres-sures within the Democratic party to hold a liberal view on abortion.18

My analysis of CDS panel data from 1980 to 1988 indicates thatboth replacement and conversion processes contributed to the growthof partisan differences on abortion within religious traditions. Withinmost traditions, the individuals who were newcomers to Republicanactivity in 1988 and the individuals who were active in Republicanpolitics in both 1980 and 1988 were more prolife than the individualswho were active in the GOP in 1980 but dropped out of Republicanpolitics before 1988. Within most traditions, Democratic newcomersin 1988 and Democrats who were active in 1980 and 1988 were moreprochoice than the Democrats who were active in 1980 but droppedout before 1988. Moreover, within most traditions, the Republicanswho were active in both 1988 and 1980 were, in the aggregate, moreconservative on abortion in 1988 than they were in 1980. The Demo-crats who remained active in both years were, in the aggregate, moreliberal on abortion in 1988 than they were in 1980.19 Because there is ahigh level of turnover among convention delegates from one electionyear to the next, it is likely that most of the aggregate change withinreligious traditions in both parties resulted from replacement. How-


ever, attitudinal conversion on abortion also played a part among bothDemocratic and Republican activists.

Regardless of the process that has caused the growth of partisancleavages on abortion within religious groups, the consequences ofthat growth are clear. Although there are significant intraparty relig-ious divisions on cultural issues (cf. Green et al., 1991), interparty cul-tural differences within religious groups are growing larger than intra-party cultural cleavages between religious groups. Taking Catholicsas an example, the differences between the abortion attitudes of regu-lar attenders and nonregular attenders within the same party wereclearly larger than the differences between Democrats and Republi-cans within the same category of church attendance in 1972. By 1992,the reverse was true. The differences between Democrats and Repub-licans in the same category of church attendance were clearly largerthan the differences between regular and nonregular church attenderswithin the same party.20

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This article has shown that the current division of the Republicanand Democratic parties along religious lines is not an entirely newphenomenon. As early as 1972, Democratic activists were considera-bly more secular than their Republican counterparts. However, thisreligious cleavage has grown. Since 1976, there has been a relativelysteady increase in the percentages of regularly attending EvangelicalProtestants, regular churchgoers, and individuals with high levels ofreligious salience among Republican activists. The ascendance ofreligious traditionalism in the GOP does not mean less religiousRepublicans have disappeared or given up the fight for party control.However, their ranks are clearly thinning. Mainline Protestants withlow levels of religious participation were once numerically dominantin the Republican party. Now, they make up a much smaller percent-age of party activists, and the GOP is a party of the committed mem-bers of the Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, and Catholic traditions.

The trends have been neither as consistent nor as impressive in theDemocratic party. I argue that religious change among a party’s activ-


ists should not occur at a constant rate, but instead should occur spo-radically in response to the cultural stands of the party’s leading candi-dates. This has clearly been the case among Democratic activists astheir aggregate religious characteristics seem to correspond to the lib-eralism of candidates’ cultural appeals. However, since 1976, therehas been a clear increase in the percentage of Democratic activistswho are secular and who do not attend religious services regularly.This trend has been accompanied by a decline in the proportion of theparty’s Catholic activists with high levels of religious participation.

The growing religious and cultural cleavage between the parties’activists has a number of important implications for contemporaryAmerican politics. Clearly, it should affect the type of support the par-ties receive from the mass electorate. Activist-level differences oftenresult in changes in the images that the mass public holds of the par-ties’policy positions (Carmines & Stimson, 1989). Thus, the expand-ing religious differences between Democratic and Republican con-vention delegates may contribute to a restructuring of the parties’mass coalitions along the lines of the contemporary religious cleav-age, a phenomenon that seems to already be well under way (cf. Greenet al., 1996; Layman, 1997).

This activist-level religious polarization also may influence theamount of support the parties receive from the American public. E. J.Dionne (1991) argues that the inability of the parties to find commonground on cultural issues is one of the reasons for the weakening ofparty ties in the United States and Americans’ general disaffectionfrom politics. While the parties and their activists move toward thecultural extremes, most Americans continue to have ambivalent atti-tudes toward these issues and find other political concerns to be morepressing (see also Hunter, 1994).

At the same time, it appears that the losses that may be due to cul-tural polarization have been suffered disproportionately by one party:the Democrats. Journalists and political scientists have focused a gooddeal of attention on the intra-GOP battles between religious conserva-tives and upper status “traditional Republicans.” However, while cul-tural conservatism has attracted a new constituency of Evangelicalactivists and voters into the GOP, the party’s support from upperincome voters has declined only slightly, if at all (Carmines & Lay-


man, 1997). Meanwhile, the Republicans have made substantialinroads among southern whites, a group attracted not only by the par-ty’s racial conservatism but also by its cultural traditionalism (Black &Black, 1987). In contrast, the Democratic party has lost a considerableamount of support not only from southern whites but also from Catho-lic and lower income voters (Carmines & Layman, 1997). The party’sracial liberalism and the growing distaste of working-class whites forlarge-scale social welfare programs certainly contributed to thisdecline. However, given the religious and cultural conservatism ofthese three groups, the influence of secularism and cultural liberalismin the Democratic party also must have helped. Cultural conservatismmay have long-term costs for the GOP, but thus far it appears to haveenhanced its competitive position.

A final consequence of the religious and cultural polarization ofparty activists may be an inability of the parties to foster solutions tocultural policy problems. Hunter (1994) argues that the political par-ties have not advanced a democratic solution to issues such as abor-tion. Instead, they have contributed to the polarized nature of thedebate by offering “the slogans of solidarity for the already commit-ted” (p. 218). The blame for this failure on the part of political leaderscannot be placed entirely on their parties’activists. However, the relig-ious polarization of party activists raises the specter of political defeatfor anyone advocating compromise solutions to cultural issues. Infact, that polarization may discourage politicians from engaging inany sort of reasoned discussion with the American public about theircultural stances. The stances of their parties’ activists are moreextreme than those of most voters, and most voters are more con-cerned about other matters. So, the strategy often adopted by candi-dates is to take ideologically extreme cultural stances during the nomi-nation campaign and then avoid these issues altogether in the spotlightof the general-election campaign.


APPENDIX ACoding of Religious Orientations and Abortion Attitudes

Religious TraditionsSecular—Agnostic, Atheist, or no religious preferenceJewishCatholicEastern Orthodox—Eastern Orthodox in 1972, Greek Orthodox in all other yearsMormonMainline Protestants—non-black members of the following denominations: Episcopal, Con-gregationalist, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist.

Evangelical Protestants—non-black members of the following denominations: SouthernBaptist, other Baptist, Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God

Black Protestants—black members of Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, or “other”Protestant denominations

Other Religion—“other” Religion and non-black members of “other” Protestant denomina-tions

Church and Synagogue Attendance1. Don’t attend religious services2. Almost never3. A few times a year4. Once or twice a month5. Almost every week

Religious Salience—Amount of Guidance Provided by Religion1. None2. Only some3. Quite a bit4. Great deal

Abortion Attitude(1972-1988)

1. Abortion should never be prohibited2. Abortion should be permitted if, due to personal reasons, the woman would have difficulty

in caring for the child.3. Abortion should be permitted only if the life and health of the woman is in danger.4. Abortion should never be permitted.

(1992)1. By law, a woman should always be able to obtain an abortion as a matter of personal

choice.2. The law should permit abortion for reasons other than rape, incest, or danger to the

woman’s life, but only after the need for the abortion has been clearly established.3. The law should permit abortion only in cases of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is in

danger.4. By law, abortion should never be permitted.


APPENDIX BDelegates’ Abortion Attitudes as a Function of Religious Tradition

and Participation and Their Interactions With Year, 1972-1992

Control Variablesa

Constant 1.35Education –.02Income –.05South .02*Gender (Female) –.22Age .01*Ideology (Conservative) .23Convention Year (Reference = 1972)a

1976 –.081980 –.03**1984 –.01*1988 .061992 –.29

Coefficients on Religious/Partisan Dummy Variablesand Their Interactions With Year

Regular Non-Regular Regular Non-Regular RegularEvangelicals Evangelicals Catholics Catholics Mainline

Dummy variables forpartisans within aparticular religiousgroup (reference =other religion)

Republican .28 –.24 .85 –.09 .14Democrat .07* –.31 .90 .11 .06

InteractionsRepublicans× 1976 .19 .25 –.02* .42 –.07Republicans× 1980 .02** .42 –.10 .38 –.05Republicans× 1984 –.02** .13 .001* .23 –.07Republicans× 1988 .15 .31 –.21 .41 –.04**Republicans× 1992 .43 .57 .04 .44 .27Democrats× 1976 .13 .45 .01** –.004** .14Democrats× 1980 .20 .21 .09 .08 .02Democrats× 1984 .33 .26 –.19 –.13 –.03*Democrats× 1988 .18 –.02* –.55 –.26 –.25**Democrats× 1992 –.17 .06** –.53 –.29 –.44


(continued)

APPENDIX B Continued

Non-Regular BlackMainline Secular Protestant Jewish Mormon

Dummy variables forpartisans within aparticular religiousgroup (reference =other religion)

Republican –.23 –.66 .78 –.20 .23Democrat –.07 –.15 .29 –.18 .46

InteractionsRepublicans× 1976 .08 .19 –1.34 –.25 .14Republicans× 1980 .12 .21 –.78 –.48 .37Republicans× 1984 .001* .33 –1.04 –.05** .28Republicans× 1988 .09 .09 –.98 –.31 .13Republicans× 1992 .22 .58 –.28 –.13 .12Democrats× 1976 –.12 –.08 –.25 –.19 .02*Democrats× 1980 –.01* –.19 .04** –.15 .21Democrats× 1984 –.15 –.13 –.16 –.23 –.02*Democrats× 1988 –.32 –.24 –.52 –.26 –.10Democrats× 1992 –.24 –.14 –.48 –.12 –.37N = 9,340AdjustedR2 = .44

SOURCE: 1972-1992 Convention Delegate Studies (pooled).NOTE: Entries are unstandardized regression coefficients. Abortion attitudes range from 1(most prochoice) to 4 (most prolife). Tests of significance are two-tailed and are based on Huberrobust standard errors.*p > .05. **p > .01.

NOTES

1. There has been research examining temporal change in the partisan ties of different relig-ious groups (cf. Layman, 1997; Miller & Shanks, 1996). However, these analyses have limitedtheir focus to the mass electorate.

2. Although activists are motivated by factors other than relative policy distances, researchshows that a sizeable and growing majority of activists are motivated primarily by policy-relatedincentives (Aldrich, 1995; Layman & Carsey, 1998).

3. By potential activists, I, like Aldrich, mean both individuals who are not currently activeand current activists. Just as nonactive individuals look to the parties’ policy positions to deter-mine whether or not to become active, individuals who are currently active look to the parties’policy positions to determine whether or not to remain active.


4. There certainly are reasons to expect the positions of party candidates and those of cur-rent activists to be similar. Being active members of the same political party, candidates and ac-tivists should hold many of the same political principles. Moreover, candidates need enthusiasticsupport from activists to win both nominations and general elections, and thus have incentives tominimize the discrepancies between their stances and those of the average party activist (Ald-rich, 1995; Chappell & Keech, 1986). On the other hand, there are also reasons to expect candi-dates’stances to diverge from the mean position of activists. Some candidates may take positionsthat are closer to the ideological center than is the activist mean in order to increase their chancesof winning the general election (Chappell & Keech, 1986). In an attempt to improve their pros-pects in a nomination campaign, other candidates may seek the support of the more ideologicallyextreme activists who may be more likely to take part in primaries and caucuses (Brams, 1978).

5. Miller was joined by Elizabeth Douvan, William J. Crotty, and Jeane Kirkpatrick for the1972 study; M. Kent Jennings and Barbara G. Farah for the 1980 study; Jennings for the 1984and 1988 studies; and Richard Herrera for the 1992 study. The 1992 Convention Delegate Stud-ies (CDS) surveyed 1,858 Democratic delegates and 995 Republican delegates to the 1992 na-tional conventions. See Miller and Jennings (1986) and Herrera (1992) for the number of obser-vations in and response rates to the 1972-1988 CDS.

6. Since there was no Convention Delegate Study (CDS) conducted in 1976, values for allof the religious items were taken from the 2,035 respondents to the 1980 CDS who said they weredelegates in 1976. The 1980 CDS was specifically designed to study both 1980 delegates and1976 delegates (Miller & Jennings, 1986). It surveyed all of the delegates to both the 1976 and1980 conventions and included roughly the same number of delegates from both years.

7. Appendix A shows the religious groups included in each of these categories, as well asthe exact coding of all of the religious items used in the analysis. Mormons are generally in-cluded in a larger family of “conservative nontraditional” religions, which also includes Jeho-vah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists (Green, Guth, Smidt, & Kellstedt, 1996). Mormons arethe only one of these groups included in the Convention Delegate Studies’denominational cod-ings. A final religious group that is used for statistical purposes includes those respondents whoidentified their affiliation as “other Protestant” or “other religion.”

8. Respondents are assigned to cohorts based on the year in which they were first delegates.Data on the 1992 cohort come from the 1992 Convention Delegate Study (CDS), and data fromthe 1972-1988 cohorts come from the 1988 CDS. Since the 1988 CDS contained a panel compo-nent, it surveyed a large number of individuals who were delegates to the conventions from 1972to 1984 even if they were not delegates in 1988. It included 461 respondents in the 1972 cohort,673 in the 1976 cohort, 833 in the 1980 cohort, and 1,093 in the 1984 cohort.

9. As Table 1 shows, the percentage of Democratic delegates who were black Protestantswas higher in 1988 than in any other year in the analysis. Most of these delegates (74.7%) sup-ported Jackson.

10. As Table 2 shows, the percentage of regularly attending Mainline Protestants amongDemocratic delegates was higher in 1988 than in any other year of the analysis. The clear plural-ity (45.5%) of these delegates supported Gore. Gore’s support base also included a smaller per-centage (3.5%) of seculars than that of any of the serious contenders—those candidates whowere the first choice of more than 10% of the Democratic delegates—for the Democratic presi-dential nomination from 1972 to 1992.

11. There has not been a Convention Delegate Study conducted for 1996 delegates. How-ever, data from polls of Republican and Democratic convention delegates in 1996 conducted byCBS News andThe New York Timesindicate that the religious polarization of party delegatescontinued through 1996. Only 13% of Democratic delegates considered themselves to be “Evan-gelical or Born-Again Christians,” as compared to 31% of Republican delegates. Meanwhile,


21% of Republican delegates considered themselves to be members of the religious right (a fig-ure up from 8% of Republican delegates identifying themselves as religious right members in re-sponse to a comparable question in the 1992 Convention Delegate Study), as opposed to a mere1% of Democratic delegates. The percentage of delegates with a favorable opinion of the relig-ious right was 55 among Republican delegates and only 4 among Democratic delegates.

12. The patterns on the guidance item are shown only from 1976 to 1992 because it was notincluded in the 1972 Convention Delegate Study.

13. The difference between the mean position of Republican delegates and the mean positionof Democratic delegates is statistically significant (p < .001) for each issue in each year.

14. According to polls conducted by CBS News andThe New York Times, the polarization ofRepublican and Democratic delegates on cultural issues continued through the 1996 conven-tions. On a question about government promotion of traditional values, 56% of 1996 Republicandelegates and only 27% of 1996 Democratic delegates said that the government should do more.On the question of prayer in the public schools, 57% of Republicans and only 20% of Democratssaid that it should be permitted. On the abortion issue, 61% of Democratic delegates and only11% of Republican delegates indicated that it should be permitted in all cases. Meanwhile, 69%of Republicans and only 16% of Democrats responded that abortion should be permitted never,or only to save the life of the mother, or only in the cases of rape, incest, or if necessary to save thelife of the mother.

15. I use the percentage of Republicans taking the most prolife attitude and the percentage ofDemocrats taking the most prochoice attitude, rather than the parties’ mean positions on abor-tion, because the wording of the two middle response options on abortion changed between 1988and 1992 (see Appendix A). Although the change should not have affected the difference be-tween the parties’ abortion means shown in Figure 3, it may have affected the absolute positionof each party on abortion. In order to ease comparison between the parties’ religious composi-tions and aggregate abortion attitudes, each of the variables (percentages) in the figure has beenstandardized to a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 25.

16. Eastern Orthodox is included along with “other religions” in the comparison category be-cause of the very small number of respondents in that tradition.

17. The use of data that are pooled from various years may present an array of statistical prob-lems (Beck & Katz, 1995; Stimson, 1985). Although including dummy variables for each yearmay reduce some of these problems, some problems such as the errors being larger in some yearsthan in others may remain. Beck and Katz (1995) note that ordinary least squares (OLS) esti-mates of the parameters in pooled models are consistent. The major problem created by the het-eroskedasticity and correlated errors inherent in such models is that the standard errors are inac-curate. In order to correct OLS standard errors for panel data—data on the same individual unitsover time—Beck and Katz suggest a variant of Huber’s (1967) and White’s (1980) formula forheteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors. The data used to estimate this model of conven-tion delegates are not panel data; they are data on different individuals drawn from differentyears. Thus, I use the original Huber/White formula to compute robust standard errors.

18. Given the highly emotional nature of the abortion issue, it is generally assumed that mostof the partisan change on it is due to replacement, rather than changes in individual attitudes (cf.Adams, 1997). However, recent research shows that there has been a good deal of conversion onabortion among both Democratic and Republican activists (Layman & Carsey, 1998) and thatconversion has contributed a great deal to activist-level partisan change on abortion (Carsey &Layman, 1999).

19. The patterns among non-regularly-attending Catholics provide a good example of thesereplacement and conversion processes. On an abortion scale ranging from 1 (most prochoice) to


4 (most prolife), the Democrats in this religious group who were active in 1980 but not 1988 had amean of 2.44. In contrast, those activists who were new to Democratic politics in 1988 had amean of 1.63. Those Democrats who were active in both 1980 and 1988 were already more pro-choice in 1980 (mean = 2.15) than their counterparts who dropped out after 1980, and theseindividuals who remained active had become even more prochoice, in the aggregate, by 1988(mean = 1.67). The Republicans who were active in 1980 but not 1988 had a mean of 1.5 on abor-tion. In contrast, newcomers to Republican politics in 1988 had a mean of 2.54. Those Republi-cans who were active in both 1980 and 1988 were already more prolife in 1980 (mean = 2.45)than their counterparts who dropped out after 1980, and they had become even more prolife, inthe aggregate, by 1988 (mean = 2.55). Owing to the small number of individuals who were con-vention delegates in both 1980 and 1988, these analyses were performed for those ConventionDelegate Study respondents who were active in presidential politics in the relevant years (cf.Miller & Jennings, 1986), rather than just among convention delegates in those years.

20. Among Catholics in 1972, the difference between the predicted abortion attitudes of Re-publicans and Democrats who were regular attenders was .47 and the difference between Repub-licans and Democrats who were not regular attenders was .31. Meanwhile, the difference be-tween Republicans who were regular attenders and Republicans who were not regular attenderswas 1.04 and the difference between Democrats who were regular attenders and Democrats whowere not regular attenders was .78. Among Catholics in 1992, the difference between the abor-tion attitudes of Republicans and Democrats who were regular attenders was 1.04 and the differ-ence between Republicans and Democrats who were not regular attenders was 1.05. Meanwhile,the difference between Republicans who were regular attenders and Republicans who were notregular attenders was .53 and the difference between Democrats who were regular attenders andDemocrats who were not regular attenders was .54.

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Geoffrey C. Layman is an assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt Univer-sity. He is the author of several articles on party politics, public opinion, and religion inpolitics.


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