Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Religion and Political Activism in Mexico

为什么宗教组织在某些情况下促进世俗政治参与，而在另一些情况下则不然？为了解决这个问题，这个项目有助于我们理解政治参与、宗教与集体行动之间的关系、种族与公共产品之间的关系，以及关于意识形态和利益在解释世俗政治活动中的作用的辩论。以往对宗教和政治参与的分析并没有评估宗教机构对俗人政治参与的微观影响。本研究利用集体行动文献中机构为生产公共产品构建个人激励的洞见，形成了宗教机构对政治行动主义影响的理性主义微观假设。通过关注墨西哥公民社会、参与和民主之间的关系，该研究将有助于学术界和决策界更好地了解民主治理和稳定的基本组成部分。该项目的知识价值在于它对民主背景下宗教组织与政治参与之间关系的研究。该研究调查了三种形式的政治参与和动员。墨西哥政治参与的地区差异将被用来揭示宗教组织动员政治行动的条件。本项目采用多方法研究设计，利用：1)定量分析从具有全国代表性的全国政治文化与公民调查（ENCUP）中收集的13500个数据观察；2)在墨西哥恰帕斯州的圣Cristóbal德拉斯卡萨斯教区和Yucatán州的Yucatán总教区进行近6个月的定性实地研究；3)基于智能体的模拟经验预测与经验数据的模式匹配模型。主要的期望是，在宗教机构将决策、监督和制裁权力下放给俗人的地方，个人能够发展能力，克服与政治激进主义有关的集体行动问题。该项目还在更广泛的社会层面做出了重要贡献。全球“第三次民主化浪潮”涉及的国家，其公民在个人宗教信仰水平上普遍得分较高，但其公民在政治参与水平上也普遍得分较低。更准确地了解有组织的宗教如何以及何时在政治动员中发挥作用，可以帮助我们更好地衡量这些国家公民参与的前景。此外，在宗教和政治领域使用基于主体的建模是新颖的。这种方法使用计算机来模拟受制度因素约束的个人相互作用的宏观结果。最后，该项目将直接从尤卡坦的实地研究地点培训讲西班牙语的土著学生进行内容分析。这将促进研究方法的跨文化交流，并为代表性不足的土著学生从事学术研究提供独特的机会。

Why do religious organizations facilitate secular political participation in some settings and not in others? In addressing this question, this project contributes to our understanding of political participation, the relationship between religion and collective action, the relationship between ethnicity and public goods, and the debate over the role of ideology and interests in explaining secular political activism. Previous analyses of religion and political participation have not assessed religious institutions' micro-level impacts on laity political participation. By utilizing the insight from the collective action literature that institutions structure individual incentives for producing public goods, this study forms rationalist micro-level hypotheses of religious institutions' effects on political activism. By focusing on the relationship between civil society, participation, and democracy in Mexico, the study will help the academic and policy-making communities better understand fundamental building blocks of democratic governance and stability. The project's intellectual merit is associated with its examination of the relationship between religious organizations and political participation in a democratic context. The research investigates three forms of political participation and mobilization. Regional variation in political participation across Mexico will be used to uncover the conditions under which religious organizations mobilize political action. The project employs a multi-method research design utilizing: 1) a quantitative analysis of 13,500 data observations collected from the nationally representative National Survey of Political Culture and Citizenship (ENCUP); 2) qualitative field research of nearly 6 months in the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the Mexican State of Chiapas and the Archdiocese of Yucatán in the State of Yucatán; and 3) an agent based model to pattern-match simulated empirical predictions against empirical data. The main expectation is that where religious institutions devolve decision-making, monitoring, and sanctioning authority to laity, individuals develop capacities to overcome collective action problems related to political activism. The project also makes important contributions at a broader social level. The global "third wave of democratization" involved nations whose citizenry generally score high on levels of individual religiosity, yet whose citizens also generally score low on levels of political engagement. A more precise understanding of how and when organized religion plays a role in political mobilization can help us better gauge the prospects of citizen participation in these countries. Additionally, the use of agent-based modeling is novel in the field of religion and politics. This method uses computers to simulate macro-level outcomes as the result of the interactions of individuals constrained by institutional factors. Finally, the project will incorporate training of native indigenous Spanish-speaking students directly from the field research site in Yucatan to perform content analysis. This will facilitate a cross-cultural exchange of research methods and provide a unique opportunity for underrepresented indigenous students to engage in scholarly research.