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Set against the background of mid-twentieth-century institutional changes analyzed by Jürgen Habermas, we provide an account of new social conditions that compose “the public sphere” in the contemporary United States. First, we review recent developments in theorizing the public sphere, arguing they benefit from renewed attention to institutional changes in how that sphere operates. Second,…
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While some research argues that religious pluralism in the United States dampens conflict by promoting tolerance, other work documents persistent prejudice toward religious out-groups. We address this ambiguity by identifying a distinct cultural style that structures Americans’ attitudes toward religious others: support for public religious expression (PRE). Using data from a recent nationally representative survey,…
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Churches have long been sites of local charity work as well as national political movements. What happens when people engage in more individualistic forms of spirituality, like mindfulness meditation or yoga, rather than participate in religious communities? Might the rise of individualized forms of spirituality lead to a decline in political engagement? Or, among people…
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Is racial animus sensitive to social shocks, or is it a disposition that resists change? The early COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by incidents of prejudice and discrimination against the Asian American community in the United States. We investigate whether comparable shifts in public opinion also occurred during this time using survey data fielded through 2019…
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Is civic disengagement correlated across institutions? One case of this question is a long-observed “secular voting gap” where religiously unaffiliated Americans are less likely to vote than their affiliated counterparts. This work often uses self-reports or exit polls that cannot measure variation within the unaffiliated. Using an improved measure of validated voter turnout in four…
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Immigrant integration scholars increasingly emphasize the “local” level, yet most analyses of multilevel integration governance focus on municipal or other governmental actors. However, in the U.S. resettlement program, local governments have little influence on refugee integration, as resettlement services are provided by contracted non-governmental organizations. To understand local integration in this context, I analyze local…
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The new program might strengthen personal connections to refugees, but history shows there are potential downsides as well.
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The headlines told the story. Following the inauguration of former president Donald Trump, articles with titles such as “White Evangelicals Have Turned on Refugees” and “The Group Least Likely to Think the U.S. Has a Responsibility to Accept Refugees? Evangelicals” appeared across news outlets, as multiple journalists and scholars attempted to explain “Why White Evangelicals…
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Politicized claims that Americans will be placed at risk by welcoming refugees are certainly not new. Yet such assertions lack evidence.
