Religion as Political Influence: Representation, Rhetoric, and Advocacy in American Politics

Author

• Andrew G. Tate, Clemson UniversityFollow

Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Policy Studies

Committee Chair/Advisor

Katherine Amber Curtis

Committee Member

Alfred Bundrick

Committee Member

Lori Dickes

Committee Member

Laura Olson

Abstract

Religion has long been recognized as a central force in American political life, shaping patterns of representation, public opinion, and policy advocacy. At the same time, the contemporary religious landscape is characterized by declining denominational attachment, increasing religious diversity, and growth in non-denominational and unaffiliated populations. These changes raise questions about whether religion continues to influence politics through traditional mechanisms such as clear denominational alignment or whether its political effects now operate through more indirect or restructured pathways. This manuscript addresses this question through a multi-level analysis of religion’s political role, integrating three studies that examine descriptive representation, organizational political behavior, and group-level issue prioritization.

The first study evaluates the extent of religious congruence between Members of Congress and the religious composition of their congressional districts. District-level religious adherence data are compiled via the Association of Religion Data Archives 2010 and 2020 religious census’ and aggregated at the religious tradition level to identify plurality or majority traditions within each district. These patterns are then compared with publicly reported religious affiliations of Members of Congress across the 114^th and 119^th Congresses. The analysis classifies districts according to whether representatives share, do not share, or ambiguously match the dominant religious tradition of their constituents. The results indicate a modest decline in clear shared affiliation and a corresponding increase in cases where representatives report generalized or non-denominational identities. These findings suggest reduced clarity in traditional forms of descriptive religious representation and greater reliance on broader religious signaling.

The second study examines how religious organizations translate issue attention into political engagement. Organizational public communications are collected and analyzed using systematic frequency analysis to identify the relative prominence of policy issues in public messaging. Issue attention patterns are then compared with organizational advocacy behavior, including publicly reported lobbying activity, policy engagement, and efforts to influence government decision-making and resource allocation. This approach allows an assessment of whether rhetorical emphasis reflects expressive communication alone or corresponds to strategic political action. The findings show that religious organizations concentrate communication on a limited set of high-salience issues and that these patterns align closely with observable advocacy behavior in some affiliations, while others showcase significant differences in rhetorical-material advocacy relations.

The third study assesses differences in policy prioritization across religious traditions using individual-level survey data collected via the Public Religion Research Institute’s 2023 American Values Survey. A respondent–issue dataset is constructed to measure the relative level of concern individuals express across a wide range of policy domains. The resulting data are analyzed using a pooled regression model with issue fixed effects, which controls for baseline differences in overall issue salience and allows estimation of whether religious traditions exhibit systematically higher or lower relative concern across issues. Models incorporate demographic and political controls to isolate group-level differences. The analysis produces a relative concern scale that captures variation in issue emphasis across religious traditions. Results indicate that while statistically significant differences exist across groups, variation is concentrated around a small number of highly salient policy domains rather than spread evenly across the issue agenda.

Taken together, the findings from these three studies indicate that religion continues to structure political behavior across institutional, organizational, and mass levels, but in ways that differ from traditional expectations centered on clear denominational alignment. Descriptive congruence between representatives and constituents is less consistently defined, organizational political activity reflects concentrated and strategic issue engagement, and group-level differences in public priorities are structured around selective areas of heightened concern. Across levels of analysis, religious influence appears increasingly organized through issue-based alignment and strategic emphasis rather than through comprehensive identity matching.

By linking patterns of representation, organizational advocacy, and mass policy concern within a unified framework, this manuscript contributes to research on political representation, interest group behavior, and religion and politics. The results suggest that religion remains politically consequential, but its influence is increasingly expressed through focused, selective, and flexible mechanisms that reflect broader changes in the structure of American religious life and the strategic environment of contemporary policymaking.

Recommended Citation

Tate, Andrew G., "Religion as Political Influence: Representation, Rhetoric, and Advocacy in American Politics" (2026). All Dissertations. 4235.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4235