From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity.

• Author: Murat, Ulgul
• Position: Book review

By Michele F. Margolis

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018, 336 pages, $32.50, ISBN: 9780226555782 (1)

The Westphalian process and the subsequent Reformation and Enlightenment periods put a distance between religion and political science in Western thought for more than 300 years. Although religion more or less continued to affect politics, political scientists chose to ignore the subject until 9/11 which proved that turning a blind eye to God in politics means missing a critical variable when analyzing political events in domestic and international arenas. The result was, as Petito and Hatzopoulos famously stated, religion's "return from exile." (2) Since 2001, the number of books, articles and journals focusing on the relations between religion and politics have significantly increased, yet most of these publications analyze religion's effects on politics, and mainly from a security perspective.

In From Politics to the Pews, Margolis attempts to reverse this causation dynamic by taking politics as an independent variable and analyzing how politics, more specifically "individuals' partisan identities," shape "their identification with and engagement in the religious sphere." Taking religion as a "social phenomenon" instead of a given variable, Margolis argues that individuals' religious identity is socially constructed by their already-formed political identities. Relying on "life-cycle theory," Margolis points out in chapter three that individuals' partisan identities are shaped and solidified in adolescence and early adulthood when they put a distance between themselves and religion for any number of reasons, including new roles and responsibilities, the wish to be independent from parents, and the practice of inappropriate behaviors opposite to religious values. In these "impressionable years," on the other hand, long-term political outlooks and partisan identities are constructed as a result of a political socialization process that comes from the home and broader political environment. Yet, Margolis shows, a person cannot remain outside of religion forever. When individuals form families and have children in school, they may make religious choices for themselves and their children as they seek a community and support. Once adults return to religion in this period, their religious identity typically remains constant for the rest of their life.

Why is it important that partisan identities are shaped before religious ones? Because...