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Ideology and the Crisis of Capitalism

Thomas A. Hirschl, Daniel B. Ahlquist,
and Leland L. Glenna


Assail me not with noble policy
For I care not at all for platitude
And surrender such tedious detail
To greater minds than mine and nimbler tongues
Singular in their purpose and resolve
And presuming to speak for everyman

            Steve Earle (2004) “Warrior”

Ideological training and education are not typically classified as labor, mental or otherwise. Yet many social scientists and numerous observers consider ideological knowledge and conformity to be an essential component of social and political stability. As Steve Earle’s “Warrior” suggests, one characteristic of ideology is its universalizing ambition, and ideology can be broadly defined as the belief set that shapes social behavior and social understanding (cf. Marx and Engels 1976). But who performs the labor of ideological reproduction, and does this occur within specific institutional auspices? In this paper we address these questions by expanding upon the social science insight that educational institutions are primary sites for the reproduction and transmission of social ideology (Durkheim, 1956; Perrucci & Wysong, 2007; Watkins, 2001). For ideology to be politically useful it must be widely disseminated, and in this paper we identify the degree that formal education plays such a role.

We believe this question is timely because of the transitional character of society in the early twenty-first Century. It is our contention that the current ideological and political context is in transition due to fundamental change in the character of social production. Revolutionary technologies such as biotechnology, digital computers, the Internet, and robotics are labor replacing and diminish the net ability of labor to find paid employment (Aronowitz & DiFazio 1994; Davis, Hirschl & Stack, 1997). This change is fundamental because capital is motivated by the law of maximum profit, and in this technological context profit maximization exacerbates structural unemployment, both nationally in the U.S., and worldwide. We further contend that the development of this fundamental contradiction is evident within the U.S. in terms of the following indicators and patterns over the past three decades:  1) job security has weakened (Fligstein & Shin, 2004; Uchitelle, 2006), 2) more Americans are without health care (Quadagno, 2005; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2005), 3) income volatility and downward mobility has increased (Hacker, 2006), 4) the social safety net has been seriously eroded (Hays, 2003; Zuberi, 2006), 5) men’s earnings have stagnated (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2005), and 6) income and wealth inequality have widened (Smeeding, 2005). To the degree that our interpretation is correct, then contradictions within the material realm of society are creating the context for significant ideological and political instability, and we would anticipate attempts by elites to strengthen and broaden mechanisms of ideological cohesion.

We suspect that such a process of ideological fortification is well underway and this paper represents our effort to partially identify the character of this process. Our paper presents an empirical analysis of ideological voting in U.S. Presidential elections during the post-Reagan period which we will argue in later paragraphs embodies a new incarnation of political ideology. We explore the degree that educational institutions are implicated in the dissemination of ideology by examining voting differences by educational attainment. Education is never purely technical, and presupposes ideological assumptions regarding the individual’s relationship to society, the nature and purpose of individual incentives, the duties and rights of citizenship, and of who ultimately benefits from economic production. Educational institutions are thus characterized by manifold functions that include ideological education, skill development, and socialization (Durkheim, 1956).

Two recently completed studies suggest that race and class ideology in the United States are disseminated within educational institutions. First, Perrucci and Wysong (2007) found that concepts relevant to class analysis are largely forbidden within popular media outlets and within politics. This practice has withstood the material force of increasing class differentiation in American society, and is enforced by well educated professionals who manage the relevant media organizations, foundations, and political bodies. In relating the role of education to this institutionalized practice, Perrucci and Wysong (2007) observe that “the longer students are in school the greater is their exposure to the dominant ideology” (p. 217). Thus higher education attunes individuals to dominant ideological constructions that exclude class analysis.

Watkins’ (2001) institutional analysis of the period 1865 – 1954 provides a foundational understanding of the evolution and promulgation of racial ideology in American society. He finds that the separate and unequal status of African Americans during this period was consolidated by newly created educational institutions that emphasized technical training for semi-skilled manual labor. Initially described as “nation building” (Watkins, 2001, p.43) at the Hampton Institute, these practices diffused to Tuskegee and to the Second Morrill Act of 1890. The project was joined by corporate philanthropists eager to placate lingering sectional conflict within an apparently progressive effort to uplift the race that had born the yoke of slavery. Echoing earlier commentary by W.E.B. DuBois, Watkins argues that the development of this educational system institutionalized the ideology of race in American society. This analysis, as well as Perrucci and Wysong’s (2007) analysis, suggest that education is a key institution for ideological dissemination and reproduction.

In recent years colleges and universities – and their faculty – have been accused of pushing a “liberal” agenda and silencing alternative (conservative) views on campuses. This claim of an epidemic of “liberal bias” in higher education – of “the Left’s near monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information, which long allowed liberal opinion makers to sweep aside ideas and beliefs they disagreed with” (Bauerlein, 2006, p. B6) – put forth by conservatives such as David Horowitz and others have received significant attention by the media, states, and colleges and universities, themselves. Numerous studies – both systematic and otherwise – have been conducted on this alleged “liberal bias” in higher education. For example, Zipp and Fenwick (2006; see also Gross and Simmons, 2006) found that, while more university faculty lean left than right politically – the ratio of approximately 2.3:1 (p. 305), is far less extreme than the 10:1 ratio suggested by Horowitz and Lehrer (2002). In comparison to liberal leaning faculty members, conservative faculty members were found to be “more interested in shaping values, and less supportive of academic freedom” (p. 320).  These interpretations and their motivations are consistent with our view that ideological realignment is occurring throughout society, and perhaps even more so on campuses. In this paper we endeavor to clarify the empirical lines of connection between ideology, educational attainment, and political partisanship.

With growing economic inequality in the United States, the motivation for elites to manage the political ideology of the voting public becomes more apparent. Because higher education is a potential site for ideological training of the professional classes that administer society’s ideological institutions, it could become a focal point of new political ideology formation. Many conservatives claim that universities are dominated by liberals, and there is evidence that these claims are often wildly overstated. More importantly, we are unaware of any empirical studies that measure the political ideology of college graduates in comparison to the rest of the population. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the political ideology formation of college students versus other levels of educational attainment by analyzing factors that influence their voting choices.

Ideology, Religion and Markets

In this section, we briefly summarize the evolution of the social science of ideology, and outline its interrelationships with religious and economic worldviews. Ideology is a long-standing subject of social science inquiry.

In one of the early studies of ideology, Marx and Engels (1976) propose that elites manipulate belief systems to justify their power and unequal access to material resources (see also Marx 1991). Mannheim (1959) expanded Marx and Engels’ theory by examining how competing groups develop ideological positions within the context of political disputes and how those ideologies influence collective action. Following Mannheim, social scientists have considered how ideologies are historically and socially constructed from objective and subjective components (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Swedberg, 2005), and how ideology affects social action during periods of social crisis and transformation (Moaddel, 1992; Swidler, 1986).

Early social science studies noted an association between ideology and religious beliefs. Weber (1998) explored the role of Protestant asceticism in generating the profit ethic that fostered the rise of capitalism. And Marx (1977, p. 163) asserted that capitalist ideology tends to be “a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” Thus both Weber and Marx found that ideology in capitalist society is imbued with religious concepts.

Following this classical thread, Polanyi (2001, p. 143) uses the term “Liberal Creed” in reference to the belief in self-regulating markets that serve as a political ideology to justify laissez faire economic policies. For Polanyi, there exists in a market society a constant tension, a push-and-pull, between those who seek increased market freedom and those who seek to establish protections from the ravages of unrestrained markets. Polanyi called this tension the “double movement” (Polanyi, 2001). Somers and Block (2005) apply Polanyi’s framework to a comparative study of policy debates that led to a decline in support for public assistance in the United States in the 1990s, and in nineteenth century Britain. They describe appeals to a “religious-like certitude” in self-regulating markets, which they call “market fundamentalism,” in those policy debates (Somers and Block, 2005, p. 261; see also Smelser, 1995). 

A connection between belief in self-regulating markets and religious ideology has been noted in the context of U.S. politics. Apostolidis (2000) examined how James Dobson used his “Focus on the Family” radio program to exploit common religious and economic conceptual frames by using the language of “culture war” to explain political-economic structural changes. Kintz (1997) describes how Republican politicians and operatives have sought to position themselves “between Jesus and the market” to appeal to Catholics and Protestant biblical literalists, groups that during earlier periods had supported the Democratic Party. In their study of the changing political partisanship among Northern whites, Carmines and Stanley (1992, p. 213) argue that “ideological orientations now override social group ties in the formation of [political] partisanship.” The conceptual overlap between Christian ideology and market ideology has a political counterpart in the campaign and election of Ronald Reagan to the Presidency in 1980.

The Reagan Revival

American Presidential elections are noteworthy for a number of reasons: they elect the highest national official and include rituals that incorporate and perpetuate quasi-religious symbols and nationalistic narratives (Bellah, 1970; Kramnick & Moore, 2005; Leege et al., 2002, p. 39; Wimberly, 1980). The President is in a unique position to shape national ideology, and President Reagan used the office to give voice to two ideological camps. First, well before assuming office, Reagan was ideologically aligned with free market economists including Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. This alignment was not the same as the traditional pro-business stance of the Republican Party, but rather developed into market fundamentalism that advocated radical free market policies across an array of policy arenas (Krugman, 1994). Second, Reagan’s campaign was closely identified with a coalition of Christian fundamentalists, including Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” (Phillips, 2006).  This grouping was outside the traditional Republican Party base (cf. Danforth, 2005), and brought new voters and energy to the Party.

Many market-oriented ideologues of this period advocated a return to the free market ideas of Adam Smith’s (1925) Wealth of Nations, while biblical literalists advocated social policies derived from a literal reading of the Bible (cf. Falwell, 2007). This literalist approach to social action is familiar to United States politics, where Protestantism, a tradition that justifies belief and action with reference to scripture (Riesebrodt, 1993; Williams, 1996, p. 888), is the majority religious tradition.

There are several narratives about the origins of a Republican alliance with religious conservatives, all of which concur that the alliance was cemented by the 1980 Presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan (Layman, 2001; Leege et al., 2002; Phillips, 2006). Geoffrey Layman (2001) claims the alliance began in 1972 as a conservative reaction against the liberal Presidential campaign of George McGovern, but Republican insider Kevin Phillips (2006, p. 201-4; see also Leege et al., 2002, p. 77-8) dates the alliance to the 1964 defeat of Barry Goldwater’s Presidential bid. Phillips (2006) recounts how he and other strategists endeavored to build a more robust conservative base by attracting Democratic whites disaffected by their Party’s support of civil rights:

Four decades ago, although (my book) The Emerging Republican Majority said little about southern fundamentalists and evangelicals, the new GOP coalition seemed certain to enjoy a major infusion of conservative northern Catholics and southern Protestants.  This troubled me not at all.  During the 1970s and part of the 1980s, I agreed with the predominating Republican argument that “secular” liberals, by badly misjudging the depth and importance of religion in the United States, had given conservatives a powerful and legitimate electoral opportunity (p. xiii).

Phillips (2006, p. xiv) now laments his role in constructing a strategy that transformed the Republican Party into what he calls “America’s first religious party.”

The ideological and policy division between pro-market policies versus social protection from markets is long-standing in American politics. Beginning with President Roosevelt’s Administration, and particularly the New Deal, in the 1930s, the Democratic Party became identified with social protection, while the Republican Party became associated with pro-market policies. However, since the Reagan Administration, the policy balance between these two positions has shifted, and during the 1990s Democratic President Bill Clinton signed a welfare bill that destroyed a significant institution of social protection: the entitlement of poor families to cash income (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2007). Market logic was used to justify this policy decision (Somers & Block, 2005).

In following pages, we present an empirical analysis of ideological voting over the period 1980 to 2000. Our analysis identifies how religion and economic beliefs motivate party choice among voters compared across education attainment levels. We advocate for neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, but rather note the extent to which ideology ties voters to one of the two major parties. We present a descriptive analysis that is related to a forthcoming paper that includes multivariate tests of related findings (Hirschl, Booth & Glenna, 2007). This analysis gives us confidence that our descriptive presentation reflects robust empirical relationships.

Data and Analysis

We analyze data from the General Social Survey (GSS) (Davis, Smith & Marsden, 2005), a nationally representative sample of adults age 18 and over that includes questions about choice for President, as well as a number of questions about religious and economic attitudes. Our analysis includes only those who voted for President, a group that is disproportionately composed of college educated who are more likely to vote compared to individuals with less schooling, e.g., high school drop outs and/or high school graduates.  Beginning with the 1980 Presidential election, the GSS began asking the following question about Biblical beliefs:

Which of these statements comes closest to describing your feelings about the Bible? 

a. The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.

b. The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally, word for word.

c. The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by men.

It is not necessary that a respondent actually has read the Bible, or possesses interpretive knowledge of it. Rather, the variable measures whether the individual possesses “feelings” that the Bible is the “literal” word of God. Such a belief, in the context of American political and social rituals, places the individual in a leveraged position vis-à-vis the political program of the Republican Party during the study period.

In addition to biblical belief, we divide the sample into the following three categories: Protestants, Catholics, and “rest of the sample,” which includes members of other faiths (Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.), and those who express no religious affiliation. Sample size permits us to focus on the majority Protestant tradition and the second largest religion Catholics; small sample size prevents us from examining the other religious affiliations and secularists.

We measure market belief with two GSS questions (Davis, Smith & Marsden, 2005, pp. 148 & 363). The first is based on whether the federal government should create policies to “reduce the income differences between rich and poor.” Respondents are asked to rate their responses on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the strongest anti-intervention attitude (i.e. that the government should not create such policies) and 4 being a middle position. The second question asks respondents whether the government “is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and private businesses.” In this case, respondents are asked to rate their responses on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most extreme anti-interventionist position (i.e. that the government is doing too much) and three being a middle position. We believe that both of these questions tap into the same attitude eschewing government intervention in favor of the market. The combined measure divides the sample into those who are pro-free market, versus those who favor social protection from market forces.

Because the link between religion and politics in the United States is racially contingent (Greeley & Hout, 2006), we present separate tables for whites and blacks, the two racial groups available in sufficient sample size within the GSS. Race is a fundamental dividing line within US politics, and in recent history the Democratic Party’s support of the civil rights movement attracted African American voters while providing leverage for the Republican Party to woo disaffected whites away from their Democratic affiliation.  Republican strategist Kevin Phillips (2006) identifies these whites in terms of “northern Catholics and southern Protestants” (p. xiii).

The variables in this paper are religious beliefs, religious tradition, market beliefs, political partisanship, income as a proxy for social class, and race.  We have omitted gender to facilitate the empirical presentation, because including gender demands a more nuanced multivariate framework. In a related paper (Hirschl, Booth & Glenna, 2007), we found that white women favor the Democratic Party across all income levels, biblical belief categories, and education levels. This pattern is consistent with the fact that women voters have demonstrated a marked pattern of consistently voting to the “left” of their male counterparts (Inglehart & Norris, 2000). In terms of Presidential elections, this translates to higher numbers of women than men voting for Democratic candidates, while the opposite is true for Republican candidates. Kaufmann and Petrocik (1999; see also Kaufmann, 2002) argue that this “gender gap” in voting behavior is more reflective of differing “social welfare opinions” than religious, economic or other political differences.  Interestingly, Kaufmann and Petrocik point to the Reagan years as the genesis of the political gender gap, while Manza and Brooks (1998) point to the increase in women’s participation in the labor force, particularly in social service-related jobs, as the root of the political gender gap.

Tables 1 and 2 display the sample numbers and base 2 log odds for each of the subgroups. We use odds ratios because these tell us how likely it is that a person in a given category is likely to vote for one of the two major parties. The odds ratio thus directly measures the degree that a given social category is partisan.  However a problem with the odds ratio is that it is asymmetrically distributed about 1 making visual inspection awkward. In base 2 log odds, values of 1 and -1 represent 2:1 preferences for the Republicans and Democrats respectively; values of 2 and -2 represent 4:1 preferences, and so on.  The raw odds value can be reclaimed from the log odds via the inverse relation, odds = 2logodds (for example, 99/332 = 2-1.75). We followed the standard practice of adding ½ to each count when computing the empirical log odds displayed in Tables 1 and 2 so that the log odds is defined even if the numerator or denominator is zero.

Table 1 shows that the strongest Republican partisans are white college-educated Protestants who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. They vote for Republican Party Presidential candidates over Democratic Party candidates by the odds 2.50 to 1. The odds ratios for white Protestants exhibit a gradient of increasing Republican partisanship from left to right – that is, from non-literal to literal interpretations of the Bible – across all education levels, but particularly among the college-educated. This suggests that, among white Protestants, there is a positive relationship between education, biblical belief, and Republican political partisanship.

Democratic partisanship is more diffuse among whites and is more or less concentrated in two areas: 1) those who believe the Bible is fables and who fall into the “rest of sample” category, and 2) biblical literalist, high school drop-out Catholics. We believe that the first group represents educated members of the middle class who favor the liberal and pro-civil rights image of the Democratic Party. We speculate that this group may represent a disproportionate percentage of faculty in higher education.  The second group, we believe, represents working class Catholics who interpret the Bible in terms of social justice and are thus favorably disposed toward the social justice image of the Democratic Party.

Early in the 20th Century, biblical literalist Protestants and Catholics were strong supporters of the Roosevelt administration, and many rationalized their support in terms of the social gospel (Riesebrodt, 1993). This ideological rationale for Democratic Party support remains for Catholics at lower education levels, but not for Catholics with higher education who favor the Republican Party.  Protestants, on the other hand, favor the Republican Party at all education levels.

Table 2 illustrates the strong Democratic partisanship of African-Americans that is not contingent on religion, biblical belief, or education. African-American support for the Democratic Party increased with the election of Franklin Roosevelt to the Presidency in 1933, and continued to grow during the New Deal era, peaking during the 1960s and the American Civil Rights Movement. Comparing Tables 1 and 2, we see distinct racial patterns of partisanship where white partisanship is contingent on education, religion, and biblical belief, while African-Americans uniformly favor the Democratic Party, regardless of education, religion, or biblical belief.

The bottom rows of Tables 1 and 2 show the biblical beliefs of whites and blacks who voted over this time period:  28 percent of whites versus 56 percent of blacks believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. This composition underlines the reality that religion is a strong factor in the world view of the American people, and that African Americans are even more literalist than whites. Thus it is logical to anticipate that politicians will utilize religion as an ideological lever for attracting voters, especially where there is wide leeway between “faith based” political pronouncements and the policy options desirable to elected officials.  However, we note that religious ideological appeals are effective for attracting white Presidential voters, but not for blacks who vote Democratic regardless of biblical belief.

Figure 1 displays the political partisanship of college-educated whites by religion, biblical belief, and income. We subdivide the white, college educated subsample by income to test Perrucci and Wysong’s (2007) proposition that college-educated professionals are divided along class lines according to high income earners versus low income earners. To the extent that Perrucci and Wysong’s proposition is correct, then, we would anticipate that income correlates with different patterns of political partisanship. Figure 1 lends some support to this proposition for Catholics and “rest of sample,” who are on opposite sides of the partisan divide within different levels of biblical belief. This is not the case for college educated Protestants who have the same partisan preferences across income levels.  Thus among non-Protestant college graduates, income level is associated with a partisan divide in support for the two major political parties.

Fiugure 1

Figure 2 provides the partisan implications of market belief by education for whites and blacks. The figure illustrates that, as is the case with religious belief, African-American partisanship depends not upon market ideology, but it does for whites whose voting patterns are linked to beliefs about markets. The ideological divide is relatively narrow for individuals who did not finish high school (“LT 12” years of education), increases among high school graduates and those with some college (12-15), and is substantial among college graduates (GE 16). Thus we observe a market ideology pattern similar to the religious pattern where the college-educated tend to be the most ideologically motivated voters.

Figure 2

When looking at market beliefs, it is perhaps unsurprising that, among whites, those who adhere to free market ideology are significantly more likely to vote for Republican Presidential candidates. Figure 2 illustrates this pattern, as well as a marked gradient in which, as education levels increase, white voters become increasingly polarized around free market ideology. African-American voters, conversely, are solidly Democratic in their political partisanship, regardless of market beliefs. Thus the partisan implications of economic world views are racially contingent, as are religious world views.

Concluding Comments

Our objective in this paper is analysis of the role of education in reproducing and disseminating social ideology. Ideological reproduction is not generally considered to be (mental) labor, yet is an important element in the stability and change of society. We argue that ideological labor is partially located within educational institutions, and assess this argument with Presidential voting data by education level.

In an earlier monograph (Davis, Hirschl & Stack 1997) we identified a fundamental contradiction between capitalist property relations that are geared to maximize profit and the deployment of labor-replacing technology.  Here we explore ideological and political consequences that may be related to this contradiction and find some support for our perspective. We find that during and after the 1980 election of President Reagan there was a tendency for Presidential votes to be ideologically motivated. Unfortunately we have no comparable data for the pre-Reagan years, and it is plausible that voting was ideological during this period as well. Our analysis does not posit cause and effect, i.e., economic crisis does not “cause” ideological voting. Rather, we contend that ideological voting has greater significance given instability in the economy. We suspect that economic instability is fueling heightened ideological tension (e.g., “culture wars”) and partisan political polarization.

Our empirical analysis measures the degree to which religious ideology and market ideology influence the political behavior of American voters, particularly the college-educated.  We examined Presidential voting over the period 1980 to 2000 that began with the election of Ronald Reagan, who attempted to establish a new ideological climate by aligning conservative Christians and radical free marketers with the Republican Party. This period also includes the presidencies of George H. W. Bush, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a pro-market Democrat whose policies significantly weakened the country’s social safety net.  Finally, the study period includes the 2000 election of George W. Bush.

Our analysis suggests that white, college-educated Americans, more so than their non-college-educated counterparts, are divided along ideological lines that are directly linked to partisan politics. College-educated, Protestant whites who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God vote strongly Republican. College-educated secularists and members of other, non-Christian faiths, vote strongly Democratic. Catholics are fragmented along the lines of education, income and biblical beliefs. Our finding that the college-educated are the most ideologically polarized segment of Americans is in line with Perrucci and Wysong’s (2007) observation regarding a link between formal education and the dominant ideology.  It is among the college educated that ideological beliefs are most strongly tied to political partisanship.

The connection between biblical literalism and white Republican partisanship among the college-educated has all the elements of a fundamentalist Christian political ideology. By itself, the belief that the Bible is the literal word of God is not a political ideology. But when a literalist belief is joined to political partisanship of a major political party, it becomes a political ideology about how society should be governed. We interpret the ideology in terms of well educated white Protestants expressing a moral rationale to justify their relatively privileged social position, and thus for the moral right to allocate resources to themselves.

A second finding of our analysis is that American Presidential politics is thoroughly racialized. White support for the Republican Party is fractured by religious tradition, biblical authority, education, and income, while African-American support for the Democratic Party is strong across each of these categories, and in no way resembles the fractured pattern of white religious partisanship. Thus, we find that the effect of religion and market ideology on politics is contingent on race. In interpreting this finding, we note that many social scientists regard race as the sharpest division in the American stratification order. Race is both a significant divide in the stratification order and a significant contingency in the effect of ideology on politics. Religious fundamentalism fails to transcend race because American politics is racialized.

We observe a similar pattern of partisanship in relation to belief about markets. College-educated whites who believe that free markets should guide social policy favor the Republican Party, whereas college educated whites who favor social protection from markets vote for the Democratic Party. To the extent that future Democratic Presidents pursue pro-market policies, then this ideology may lose its partisan power. However, this does not appear to be the case during the period of study, and we find evidence that low-income college graduates are more likely than high-income college graduates to favor the Democrats, suggesting that material position (social class) is linked to political partisanship.

This paper explores the connection between ideology and education because we believe that ideological labor is performed within educational institutions. Ideological education is a necessary element of education, and therefore the quality of education depends, at least in part, upon a critical examination of ideology. However, our society is divided along ideological lines, and the college-educated are the most ideologically divided segment within society. College campuses are thus inevitably swept up in ideological discourse. We submit that the ability to process this discourse effectively is central to the educational process and that campus faculty and staff are well advised to seek out a theoretical understanding of ideology that is firmly grounded in social reality. In doing so, it should be kept in mind that ideology is both a way of understanding and acting upon the world, as well as an avenue for partisan manipulation of society. Thus effective ideological education depends upon a theoretical analysis of ideology itself, as well as an examination of how ideology determines social and political behavior.

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Table 1:  Presidential Voter Choice among Whites by Religion, Education, and Biblical Belief, 1980-2000

 

 

 

 

 

_______ Data_______

 

Base 2 Log Odds

______(Rep/Dem)_____

 

Years of

Poll.

Belief about the Bible:

 

Belief about the Bible:

Religion

Education

Party

Fables

Inspired

Literal

 

Fables

Inspired

Literal

 

 

Protestant

GE 16

Rep

114

658

289

 

0.01

0.77

2.50

 

 

Dem

113

387

51

 

 

 

 

 

12 to 15

Rep

138

1088

894

 

0.20

0.87

1.18

 

 

Dem

120

594

394

 

 

 

 

 

LT 12

Rep

22

137

288

 

0.35

0.64

1.50

 

 

Dem

28

88

102

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catholic

GE 16

Rep

59

343

31

 

0.00

0.63

0.78

 

 

Dem

59

222

18

 

 

 

 

 

12 to 15

Rep

102

538

127

 

-0.63

-0.09

-0.17

 

 

Dem

66

506

143

 

 

 

 

 

LT 12

Rep

29

62

48

 

-0.05

-0.51

-1.09

 

 

Dem

28

88

102

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rest of

GE 16

Rep

99

59

11

 

-1.75

-1.14

0.29

Sample

 

Dem

332

130

9

 

 

 

 

 

12 to 15

Rep

74

122

34

 

-1.25

-0.16

0.39

 

 

Dem

176

136

26

 

 

 

 

 

LT 12

Rep

18

13

7

 

-0.22

-0.39

-0.78

   

Dem

21

17

12

       
                   

 Total (percent) 

 

 
17%
55%
28%

 

 

 

 

Source:  General Social Survey (Davis, Smith, and Marsden 2005).

 

Table 2:  Presidential Voter Choice among Blacks by Religion, Education, and Biblical Belief, 1980 - 2000

 

 

 

__________Data________

 

Base 2 Log Odds _______(Rep/Dem)_____

 

Years of

Poll.

Belief about the Bible:

 

Belief about the Bible:

Religion

Education

Party

Fables

Inspired

Literal

 

Fables

Inspired

Literal

 

Protestant

GE 16

Rep

3

13

7

 

-2.94

-2.71

-3.50

 

 

Dem

23

85

79

 

 

 

 

 

12 to 15

Rep

6

21

40

 

-3.22

-3.33

-3.48

 

 

Dem

56

211

445

 

 

 

 

 

LT 12

Rep

4

5

30

 

-2.09

-3.81

-3.05

 

 

Dem

17

70

249

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catholic

GE 16

Rep

1

14

7

 

-4.70

-2.81

-3.62

 

 

Dem

26

98

86

 

 

 

 

 

12 to 15

Rep

0

6

3

 

-4.32

-1.81

-2.81

 

 

Dem

10

21

21

 

 

 

 

 

LT 12

Rep

0

3

0

 

-1.00

-0.42

-4.70

 

 

Dem

1

4

13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rest of

GE 16

Rep

1

1

4

 

-4.00

-5.09

-2.75

Sample

 

Dem

16

34

27

 

 

 

 

 

12 to 15

Rep

1

1

4

 

-4.00

-5.09

-2.75

 

 

Dem

16

34

27

 

 

 

 

 

LT 12

Rep

1

0

0

 

-3.00

-2.00

-4.32

    Dem
8
2
10
       
                   

Total (percent) 

 

10%

33%

56%

 

 

 

 

Source:  General Social Survey (Davis, Smith, and Marsden 2005).