Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy

This book examines the evolution of the Catholic vote in the United States and the role of Catholic voters in the 2020 national elections more specifically. There is a paucity of academic books on Catholic voters, even though Catholics comprise nearly one-quarter of the US national popular vote and commonly are called the “swing vote.” Scholars of religion and politics tend to focus heavily on the evangelical right, thus overlooking the powerful influence of Catholic voters who, by the accounts in this volume, were critical to the presidential election of President Joe Biden. To understand the intersection of religion, politics, and election outcomes in the US requires an analysis of the role played by Catholics. Among key topics covered in this volume are whether Biden’s Catholic identity was key to his achieving a larger percentage of the Catholic vote than achieved by Hillary Clinton in 2016; the role of the Catholic bishops in US elections; the critically important role of the Catholic Latino vote in US elections; the conservative Catholic and evangelical alliance in US politics; and the distinctive politics of social justice Catholics and socially conservative Catholics. 

This book seeks to understand white conservative Christians’ support for Donald Trump, using their own words. Drawing on the triangular relationship between the 45^th president, and his voters, and religious organizations, this work investigates the creation of the tale of Trump as the protector and enhancer of Christian values. The first part of the book discusses in detail the white conservative Christian constituency in the United States, and the development of feelings of displacement and resentment fostered by intergroup threat and nationalism. The central part focuses on the actor known as the “Religious Right,” through the rhetoric of one of their most representative organizations in the twenty-first century. The final part focuses on the character of Donald Trump and his peculiar relationship with religious discourse. The book demonstrates that while such discourse is expected of Trump as a Republican candidate, his approach to it is characterized by detachment andsloganized exploitation of Christian symbols. Ultimately, the book highlights the cultural tools that are crucial in the reproduction of structures of inequality and the ways they have been used by conservative politicians and groups to accumulate power.

This first study of faith-based development NGOs’ (FBOs) political roles focuses on how U.S. FBOs in international development educate and mobilize their constituencies. Most pursue cautious reformist agendas, but FBOs have sometimes played important roles in social movements. Nelson unpacks those political roles by examining the prominence of advocacy in the organizations, the issues they address and avoid, their transnational relationships, and their relationships with religious and secular social movements. The agencies that educate and mobilize U.S. constituencies most actively are associated with small Christian sects or with non-Christian minority faiths with historic commitments to activism or service. Specialized advocacy NGOs play important roles, and emerging movements on immigration and climate may represent fresh political energy. The book examines faith-based responses to the crises of climate change, COVID-19, and racial injustice, and argues that these will shape thefuture of religion as a moral and political force in America, and of NGOs in international development.

This book provides the only comprehensive analysis of concordats, the international treaties of the Apostolic See in Rome. Identifying the 167 treaties between the papacy and civil commonwealths from 1865 to 2022 at the intersection of canon, comparative, and international law, Royce indicates an overall relationship between the dominance or inferiority of Roman Catholic canon law within the contracting party and the respective ecclesiological or ideational norms of its concordat. Successive case chapters analyzing the concordats with fascist Europe, the German Länder, Latin American countries, France and Austria, the states of the Second Vatican Council, and Third World states illustrate that the norms of concordats with polities of long-standing, entrenched, continuous, or otherwise dominant Roman Catholic canon law concern the Church as an institution, whereas those with polities of new, precarious, inconstant, or otherwise inferior canon law status concern the Church as anadherent to values. This contractual law of the Apostolic See most closely aligns with the tenets of the English School of international theory. As a result, this book posits significant theoretical, legal, and empirical advances in existing knowledge of the international relations and law of the Catholic Church.

This book analyzes the contemporary politics of the Hajj in countries of Africa, the Near East, and Southeast Asia. States must organize the mobility of approximately two million pilgrims every year. States also manage the flow of vast amounts of financial resources related to the Hajj, as well as the transmission of religious and political ideas about how the world ought to be governed. The contributions in this volume investigate how states attempt to manage the Hajj and the power relations they develop with pilgrims, religious leaders, and entrepreneurs of various types. They also examine the Hajj organization from the viewpoint of pilgrims: how they make sense of the bureaucratic apparatus they encounter, how they navigate the constraints imposed upon them, and how they seize opportunities to fulfill their religious, economic, and social aspirations. The Politics of the Hajj from a Comparative Perspective closely analyzes political interactions between states, pilgrims, religious actors and entrepreneurs, and the extent to which they have evolved over time.

This book examines the evolution of the Catholic vote in the US and the role of Catholic voters in the 2024 national elections. There is a paucity of academic books on Catholic voters, even though they comprise nearly one-quarter of the US national popular vote (known as the “swing vote”). Understanding the intersection of religion, politics, and election outcomes in the US requires an analysis of the role played by Catholics. Catholic voters had a powerful influence on the re-election of Donald Trump and this volume untangles how the swing vote swung Right in 2024.The key topics are whether Trump’s Catholic outreach and commitment to social issues were key to his achieving a majority of the Catholic vote; the role of the Catholic bishops in US elections; the important role of the Catholic Latino vote in US elections; the conservative Catholic and evangelical alliance in US politics; and the distinctive politics of social justice Catholics and socially conservative Catholics.