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theses

My dissertation, Seeking Legitimacy in the Past: Civil Religion and Ideological Conflict, focuses on the role of civil religious rhetoric in the generation of legitimacy for ideological perspectives. Civil religion refers to a subset of political culture that draws upon a generalized religious symbol system to imbue national events, artifacts, and heroes with transcendental meaning. In contrast to traditional conceptualizations, which view this articulation of the nation's identity, meaning, and purpose as serving a unifying function, I argue that civil religion is a tool which can be manipulated by political actors in ideological conflict. Employing a multi-method approach, I ask under what conditions presidents have historically relied upon this rhetoric and what are the effects of civil religious framing on public opinion. With respect to the former, I compiled a unique data set of coded presidential speeches from the modern era and examined civil religious word usage in relation to a variety of political, economic, and social factors. The results demonstrate that while civil religious rhetoric is not utilized as a means of responding to crises, boosting public support, or stimulating a political campaign, it is employed strategically as a tool of legislative conflict. More specifically, civil religious word usage is significantly affected by the partisan relationship between Congress and the White House such that it is employed to shore up the ideological base rather than build bridges with the opposition. These findings are supported by the results of two survey experiments in which the treatment groups were exposed to civil religious frames and tasked with evaluating hypothetical policies before Congress. Again, rather than moderating or unifying public opinion, civil religion serves as a mediating variable which exacerbates ideological predispositions. Substantively, this suggests that at a time when the nation is faced with political gridlock and ideological polarization, attempts to legitimize ideological perspectives with references to our founding fathers and ideas about the nation's identity, meaning, and purpose are actually counter-productive.

ETD_7613

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Flavio R. Hickel Jr.

doi:10.7282/T3765HNZ

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.