Stanford University

Elections

Political Parties Are Essential Democratic Institutions

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In April 2023, New America, the Center for Ballot Freedom, Protect Democracy, Lyceum Labs, and Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law convened a conference at Stanford University on the future of political parties in the United States. The conference, titled “More Parties, Better Parties,” focused on the idea that U.S. democracy would benefit from stronger and more representative parties and that essential to that vision was opportunity for more parties beyond the current party duopoly to emerge. The essays in this collection, derived from papers prepared for the conference, trace the following argument: Parties are essential institutions in a democracy; there is an unjustified hostility to parties in much American political discourse; and fluid and overlapping coalitions of a multiparty system can improve governance and confidence. We then look at the promise of fusion voting, a practice once widespread and now prohibited in most states, which could allow new parties to gain a foothold by cross-endorsing candidates from established parties.

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Essay within "The Realistic Promise of Multiparty Democracy in the United States," a political reform report from New America.

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New America
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Didi Kuo

Mona Tajali

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CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2023-25
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Mona Tajali is a scholar of gender and politics, specializing in women's political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Her research includes analysis of feminist mobilization against patriarchal structures as well as the experiences of institutionalization of women's rights in semi-democratic and non-democratic contexts. She is the author of Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and co-author of Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both published as open access. She is also the co-editor of Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), the first compilation analyzing several national constitutions of the Muslim world through a gender lens.

A firm believer in engaging across the academic-practitioner divide, Tajali has been a long-term collaborator with transnational solidarity network and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), and, since 2019, has served as a member of its executive board. She is published in both academic and popular outlets, among them the Middle East Journal, Politics & Gender, The Conversation, and The Washington Post. Tajali is a former associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.

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The Global Democracy Champions Summit: Preparing for the 2024 Mega Election Year

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Keseb The Global Democracy Champions Summit: Preparing for the 2024 Mega Election Year

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is excited to announce that we are co-sponsoring the 2023 Global Democracy Champions Summit hosted by Keseb. This year’s Summit, themed “Preparing for the 2024 Mega Election Year,” will feature 15+ sessions and speakers from 12+ countries. The Summit will confront the pressing challenges facing democracy and highlight innovative solutions in an era where freedoms have declined and inclusivity has become a wedge issue. With a focus on countering authoritarianism and building an inclusive and resilient 21st-century democracy, Keseb and the Summit’s five sponsors have united to create a space for transnational dialogue and knowledge exchange. 

The virtual Summit will take place from October 24th to October 26th, 2023. Registration is free and open to all.

Bringing together democracy entrepreneurs, activists, academics, journalists, philanthropists, and policymakers, each day of the Summit focuses on a specific theme: 

October 24 | Countering authoritarianism and safeguarding civil liberties
 

  • Larry Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute, will set the stage for the event by discussing the upcoming 2024 mega election year during the Opening Keynote address at 7:00 am PT.
     

October 25 | Protecting our information ecosystems
 

October 26 | Building towards a pluralistic democracy
 

  • Didi Kuo, Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, moderates a discussion titled "Lessons from coalitions to challenge anti-pluralistic campaigns" on exploring diverse strategies and tactics employed in Brazil, France, and Nigeria to build cross-group coalitions capable of effectively challenging anti-pluralistic candidates and campaigns at 7:00 am PT.
     

The 2023 Summit is co-sponsored by The Center for Analysis of Liberty and Authoritarianism (LAUT), the Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University, The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town, and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. 

Didi Kuo

Virtual

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Larry Diamond

Didi Kuo

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

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Conferences

America in One Room: Democratic Reform

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America in One Room: Democratic Reform

What would Americans really think if they could discuss the issues in depth in moderated small group discussions with fellow citizens, if they had access to vetted and balanced briefing materials, and if they could get their questions answered by panels of competing experts representing different points of view? While many commentators think that our political differences are intractable, particularly on issues of how to conduct our elections or how to change our democracy, the results detailed below show many significant changes toward bipartisan agreement, even on the most contentious issues.

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The Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab, in collaboration with Helena and various partners, has conducted a national Deliberative Poll® to determine what Americans would really think about possible reforms to our democracy and our electoral processes if they had a chance to weigh the options under good conditions. This project received crucial support from Porticus, the Skoll Foundation, the Thiry-O’Leary Foundation, and other donors.

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New National Deliberative Poll Shows Bipartisan Support for Polarizing Issues Affecting American Democracy

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Nora Sulots
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What would Americans really think about possible reforms to our democracy and electoral processes if they had a chance to weigh the options under good conditions? Researchers James Fishkin, Alice Siu, and Larry Diamond of the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab (DDL), in collaboration with Helena and various partners, have just conducted a national Deliberative Poll® to find out.

America in One Room: Democratic Reform is the third installment of America in One Room (A1R), a Deliberative Polling® project designed to explore Americans’ perspectives on some of our country’s most contentious issues, including voter access, non-partisan election administration, protection against election interference, Supreme Court reform, and more. With the 2024 election on the horizon, the findings from this comprehensive deliberative poll have the potential to reshape the discourse surrounding these important topics.

In a joint press release, DDL shared that poll results showed increased movement toward bipartisan support on a set of previously polarizing issues that are already beginning to drive political debates and candidate platforms as we head into Election 2024.

Before deliberations, participants across party lines reported feeling dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in the U.S., with 65% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans, and 72% of participants overall reporting dissatisfaction. However, deliberating together about potential reforms reduced discontent, with the overall percentage of dissatisfaction dropping 18 points to 54%, and party dissatisfaction dropping 11 points for Democrats and 31 points for Republicans.

Across specific democratic reform topics, there were often strong party differences before deliberation. Discourse resulted in significant depolarization and increased cross-party support on several key issues, including voting rights and ballot access.

Below, Fishkin, the director of DDL; Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at FSI; and Siu, a senior research scholar and the associate director of DDL, reflect on their findings and what the results indicate about the path forward in strengthening American democracy.


What were your biggest takeaways from this iteration of America in One Room (A1R)? Were you surprised by any of the results?


Jim Fishkin: In normal times, the issues of how we register to vote, how and when we cast our ballots, and how we can avoid partisan interference in the elections would not be big issues. But we live in a period of fierce partisan division about our elections, and I was gratified to see this affirmation of basic American values about the non-partisan guardrails of democracy. The movement by Republicans on issues like voting rights for felons was large and surprising. The willingness of Democrats to embrace audits with random samples of ballots and paper records of the votes confirmed by the voter (initially Republican positions) also showed the capacity of dialogue to move opinion.

Larry Diamond: One of the biggest takeaways was the consistent majority support for Ranked Choice Voting in all of its different potential applications. After deliberating, majorities of our sample consistently supported the use of RCV for all kinds of elections — local, state, and national, and in both primaries and in general elections. While Republicans were more wary of this reform, up to 45% of Republicans supported some use of it, for example, in local elections, and 43% of Republicans liked the "final four" or "final five" version, as in Alaska, where there is a single non-partisan primary and then the top four finishers contest in a general election using RCV. I was also struck by the openness to some other electoral reform proposals and the strong gains in support for these (including proportional representation) after deliberation. I was not surprised by how far apart Democrats and Republicans remained on the Electoral College — there is an obvious divergence in partisan interest there.

Alice Siu: We can never predict what participants' opinions will be after deliberation. What surprised me the most was the increase in satisfaction with democracy after deliberation. Prior to deliberation, only 27% of participants expressed satisfaction with the current way democracy is working in the US. After deliberation, this percentage increased to 54%. Furthermore, when looking at satisfaction levels by political parties, we found that Republicans' satisfaction increased from 18 to 50% and Democrats increased from 34 to 46%. We have to keep in mind that participants deliberated together for 12 hours over the course of a weekend or a few weekday evenings. Together after engaging in thoughtful and structured deliberation, they developed a greater satisfaction with democracy, just showing that what our society needs are opportunities to talk and listen to each other.

We live in a period of fierce partisan division about our elections, and I was gratified to see this affirmation of basic American values about the non-partisan guardrails of democracy.
James S. Fishkin
Director, Deliberative Democracy Lab

What does this poll show about the American public and our political and civic discourse that the headlines miss?


Diamond: Over and over (this is now our third "America in One Room"), we find that ordinary Americans are hungry for thoughtful and civil discussions with their fellow citizens about the issues we face. And it is possible to have these discussions if you set good conditions and ensure that everyone has access to the same body of balanced and objective information, with a fair presentation of the pro and con arguments for each proposal. Americans do narrow their differences when they can deliberate in this way. But more than that — and quite stunning to us — they also became more hopeful about American democracy. The percentage of Americans who say they are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the US increased from 27% before deliberation to 45% after. And satisfaction among Republicans doubled — from 24% to 50%.

Siu: Headlines often lead with how polarized our society is, but what they fail to tell us is that if people had the opportunity to engage with diverse others, people are capable of having respectful conversations. In fact, after deliberation, agreement with the statement 'I respect their point of view though it is different from mine' increased from 57 to 75%. Among Democrats, this percentage increased from 49 to 73%, and among Republicans, this increased from 73 to 84%. The headlines amplify the perceived polarization in our society, but what it misses is how deliberation can bring our society together in a respectful way.

Fishkin: Dialogue across differences can activate the fundamental values of our democracy and show the way for constructive solutions. The increased support for ranked choice voting and for non-partisan redistricting commissions was particularly noteworthy.

Ordinary Americans are hungry for thoughtful and civil discussions with their fellow citizens about the issues we face. And it is possible to have these discussions if you set good conditions and ensure everyone has access to the same body of balanced and objective information.
Larry Diamond
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy, FSI

What implications might this installment of A1R have for the 2024 U.S. presidential election and democratic reform initiatives on the ballot?


Fishkin: This project identifies practical reforms that have a claim on the values and concerns of the American public if they focus on the issues. I think it can be invoked for non-partisan redistricting commissions, for ranked-choice voting in various contexts, for ethics reform of the Supreme Court, and a host of other issues.

Diamond: It may not have much impact on the 2024 presidential election, but it will give momentum to reformers who are working to expand voting rights, ensure a more transparent non-partisan administration of elections, and institute Ranked Choice Voting and related electoral reforms. I think our results show that people can be persuaded, even across party lines, and it points to certain types of reforms that are more broadly appealing than others. As we analyze the transcripts of the discussions, we will also learn what kinds of arguments resonated with voters and which did not.

Siu: One of the striking results from this installment of A1R is people's concerns about voting accessibility. From restoring voting rights to citizens with felony convictions to strengthening federal standards for election machines and requirements for reporting security incidents, we hope that policymakers see the priorities that registered voters have for ensuring that our elections are fair and transparent.

We must all understand that for our society and for any society around the world, listening to each other, whether we agree or disagree, is really not an option.
Alice Siu
Associate Director, Deliberative Democracy Lab

How can this research be used to help reduce polarization moving forward and create meaningful change in our public dialogues?


Siu: This installment of A1R, along with the previous A1R Deliberative Polls, have shown that deliberation can, in fact, reduce political and affective polarization. We must all understand that for our society and for any society around the world, listening to each other, whether we agree or disagree, is really not an option. 

Diamond: We now have a second major demonstration in the US of the dramatic utility of the Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, developed by Stanford Professor Ashish Goel and his Crowdsourced Democracy Team. This was the second "America in One Room" to deploy this platform very successfully. When people can deliberate online, it cuts costs dramatically, and yet still, it brings about reductions in polarization and constructive changes in public opinion on many issues. Now the challenge is to figure out how we can scale up deliberation to much larger numbers of Americans and apply the tool to a wider range of issues in jurisdictions across the US as well as globally. International demand for the framework and tools of the Deliberative Democracy Lab keeps growing.

Fishkin: With our technology, we have hopes of spreading this kind of dialogue. I was struck that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all supported fostering deliberation on contentious topics.

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Climate change activists march down a street carrying banners and signs.
Q&As

Together For Our Planet: Americans are More Aligned on Taking Action on Climate Change than Expected

New data from the Center for Deliberative Democracy suggests that when given the opportunity to discuss climate change in a substantive way, the majority of Americans are open to taking proactive measures to address the global climate crisis.
Together For Our Planet: Americans are More Aligned on Taking Action on Climate Change than Expected
Larry Diamond and James Fishkin
News

Could deliberative democracy depolarize America? Stanford scholars think so

Deliberative democracy — informed and moderated discussion that transcends partisan identities —can lead to a depolarized and more democratic society, according to Stanford research.
Could deliberative democracy depolarize America? Stanford scholars think so
America in One Room
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Stanford students help bridge political divides

In a 2019 Sophomore College course, students traveled to Dallas, Texas, where they helped staff a landmark experiment that brought together more than 500 registered voters who represent the political, cultural and demographic diversity of America in one room.
Stanford students help bridge political divides
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A voter casts their ballot in the Kentucky Primary Elections at Central High School on May 16, 2023 in Louisville, Kentucky.
A voter casts their ballot in the Kentucky Primary Elections at Central High School on May 16, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky.
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"America in One Room: Democratic Reform" polled participants before and after deliberation to gauge their opinions on democratic reform initiatives, including voter access and voting protections, non-partisan election administration, protecting against election interference, Supreme Court reform, and more. The results show many significant changes toward bipartisan agreement, even on the most contentious issues.

Trust Nobody: How Voters React to Conspiracy Theories

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How does exposure to conspiracy theories affect voters’ political attitudes? Using an online experiment among US subjects, we show that exposure to conspiracy theories decreases voters’ trust in the domestic informational environment. Subjects were exposed to conspiracy theories that are entirely unrelated to American domestic politics, which further underscores such narratives’ danger. However, we fail to reject the null hypothesis that voters do not weigh unrelated conspiracies in their evaluation of politicians’ performance and domestic political institutions. Overall, our findings illustrate that an informational environment permeated by conspiracy theories could impede the functioning of democracy by eroding trust in information providers and undermining the credibility of political information.

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Journal of Experimental Political Science
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Ahmed Ezzeldin Mohamed
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Melissa Severino de Oliveira

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CDDRL Honors Student, 2023-24
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Major: Political Science
Minor: Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Hometown: Manaus, Brazil
Thesis Advisor: Beatriz Magaloni & Soledad Prillaman

Tentative Thesis Title: From Dilma to Bolsonaro: Does gender policy matter to Brazilian female voters?

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After my undergraduate studies, I will be coterming in Latin American Studies. Upon finishing my master's, I intend to go back to Brazil and work in the government, both in public policy implementation and in representative politics directly. I particularly want to work with gender policy.

A fun fact about yourself: My home city, Manaus, is located in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, and it is one of the few places where you can have a real açaí bowl.

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National Deliberative Poll® in South Korea Shows Wide Support for Electoral Reform

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Nora Sulots
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The National Assembly of South Korea has just convened a nationally broadcast Deliberative Poll® to consult the public about changes in its electoral system. The Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) televised the proceedings live May 6 and 13, 2023 and reported on its initial results. Hankook Research, which has extensive experience with Deliberative Polling® in Korea, conducted the project in coordination with Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab (DDL), housed at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. At the conclusion of the deliberations, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Kim Jin-Pyo, announced on television that “this [poll] provides an excellent guideline for the ruling party and others to negotiate and decide the rules. The reform should be finalized by the end of the second quarter of this year.” Professor James Fishkin, director of DDL, provided advice on the project and joined the broadcast to explain Deliberative Polling®.

Background


The need to reform the parliamentary election system has received unanimous approval across political parties. During the 2022 presidential election, all candidates pledged to change the parliamentary electoral reform. To change the current system, the 21st National Assembly, elected in 2020, formed the Special Committee for Electoral Reform (Special Committee). Last April, the Special Committee came up with three agendas to be discussed in a Whole House Committee Meeting (Whole House Meeting) where 100 legislators can speak at length. However, the Whole House Meeting could not arrive at an agreed conclusion. On the last day of the three-day-long Whole House Meeting, the Special Committee announced that it designated the consortium comprised of Hankook Research and Seoul National University’s Institute for Social Development as the organizers of the Deliberative Polling to gather informed public opinion.

About the Deliberative Poll


Hankook Research recruited a national stratified random sample of the country’s voters to deliberate on parts of two weekends. 469 participants completed the deliberations. The sample was stratified by region, gender, age, and opinions on the issue (measured in a separate survey).

The participants answered some key questions in time for the concluding broadcast and then followed by completing a more detailed questionnaire. The National Assembly has members selected both from single-member districts and by proportional representation. Support for changing the election rules rose from 77% to 84% with deliberation. Support for small single-member districts (rather than multi-member districts) rose from 43% to 56%. Support for raising the proportion of the members selected by Proportional Representation (PR) went from 27% to 70%, a surprising 43-point gain. These results were presented on the broadcast, and more details about the deliberations and the results will be released soon.

Learn More


A playlist of highlights from the broadcast can be viewed below:

For more information on this project, please contact Chun-Seok Kim or Jung-Seok Park of Hankook Research, or Professor James Fishkin of Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab. 

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2023 Nobel Prize Summit
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Deliberative Democracy Lab to Demonstrate Deliberative Polling® Method at the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit

On May 25, CDDRL’s Deliberative Democracy Lab (DDL), in partnership with the Nobel Prize Summit, will run an exercise in large-scale group deliberation on the subject of online misinformation and polarization and what to do about it. This demonstration will help develop the capacity to democratically vet policy proposals concerning the information landscape.
Deliberative Democracy Lab to Demonstrate Deliberative Polling® Method at the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit
California Considers
News

California 100 Announces Results of New "California Considers" Deliberative Poll® Examining Long-Term Policy Solutions for California

Conducted in partnership with CDDRL's Deliberative Democracy Lab and the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, key findings show strong support for the state to provide universal mental healthcare, institute a strengthened high school civics course, develop a “one-stop-shop” for easier access to government programs, reform for the state’s CEQA law, and increase its support for K-12 education, among others.
California 100 Announces Results of New "California Considers" Deliberative Poll® Examining Long-Term Policy Solutions for California
Climate change activists march down a street carrying banners and signs.
Q&As

Together For Our Planet: Americans are More Aligned on Taking Action on Climate Change than Expected

New data from the Center for Deliberative Democracy suggests that when given the opportunity to discuss climate change in a substantive way, the majority of Americans are open to taking proactive measures to address the global climate crisis.
Together For Our Planet: Americans are More Aligned on Taking Action on Climate Change than Expected
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Broadcast of South Korean national Deliberative Poll on Electoral Reform
KBS Announcer Lee Kwang-yong (center left) and Speaker of the National Assembly Kim Jin-pyo (center right) announce the results of the national Deliberative Poll® during a live television broadcast.
Korea Broadcasting System (KBS)
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Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab assisted with a nationally broadcast Deliberative Poll® in South Korea to explore support for changing the country’s election laws. The project was conducted for the National Assembly by Hankook Research.

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The Decline of Religion and Its Rise in Electoral Politics: Religious Belief, Religious Practice, and the Strength of Religious Voting Cleavages

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Economic development has been linked to a declining importance of religion. But alongside secularization, there has been an increased salience of religion in electoral politics. These seemingly contradictory trends can be understood by distinguishing between two dimensions of religiosity: religious belief and church attendance. We show that religious voting cleavages are strongest in democracies where there is religious cohesion, which means belief and practice go hand in hand. Voting cleavages require group members to have distinctive policy preferences and be politically engaged. Strong religious beliefs are associated with distinctive policy preferences (but not with political engagement), and church attendance is associated with political engagement. Thus, religious cohesion provides the key ingredients for a religious political cleavage. But what explains variation in religious cohesion in democracies? We find that religious cohesion increases with economic security. Thus, economic security can promote secularization, but also facilitate the religious cohesion associated with strong religious voting cleavages.

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Comparative Political Studies
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Ahmed Ezzeldin Mohamed
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