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Cambridge University Press
The following review appeared in the February 2016 issue of CHOICE. The review is for your internal use only. Please review our Permission and Reprints Guidelines or email ChoiceHelp@ala.org.
Social & Behavioral Sciences
Political Science - U.S. Politics
Claassen (Kent State) questions the commonly held belief that the Republican Party has been co-opted by the religious right concurrent with the Democratic Party's being overrun by secularists. The common theory is that disproportionate mobilization of fundamentalists and secularists as activists in the Republican and Democratic Parties has resulted in an ideological transformation of the parties. The fear underlying this theory is that, to the degree that groups are disproportionately represented, the parties have become undemocratic. Although many studies support the observation of an increasing religious divide, Claassen is the first to question whether the change is due to disproportionate mobilization. Rather, through careful analysis of survey data since the 1960s, he finds that the change in the activist pool is a response to underlying changes in party demographics. The data support a representation-based approach to partisan change, with political and social forces influencing the party base, subsequently changing the nature of the activist pool and, through it, party policies. Students of religion and politics will be well advised to address the issues his fine monograph raises.
--T. Marchant-Shapiro, Southern Connecticut State University