Midterm Guide

Important

This page has been updated to reflect what is on the final draft of the midterm exam.

This is a list of concepts and frameworks with which you should be familiar for the midterm exam. You might be asked to define and/or apply any of these during the examination. You might not be directly asked about these terms, but they can help you answer some of the questions.

1. Secularization theory
   1. Differentiation (privatization, desacralization, liberalization)
   2. Modernization theory
2. Arguments for why religion is still an important phenomenon in the United States (see Wald and Calhoun-Brown)
3. Religious composition of the major political parties
4. The Three B’s approach (believing, belonging, and behaving) and how to measure them
5. Religious tradition classification, known as RELTRAD (how do scholars group individuals in religious affiliations)
6. Putnam and Campbell’s “shock” and two “aftershocks”
7. Potential sources of religious influence
8. The establishment and free exercise clauses in the First Amendment
   1. Lemon test
   2. Strict scrutiny
   3. Smith precedent
   4. Ministerial exception
9. Davis’ (2001) framework of separation, integration, and accommodation
10. What does it mean to study the intersection of religion and politics from a political science perspective?
11. The evolution of religious divisions (“conflict”) in the twentieth century (to the present)
12. Culture wars model
    1. Is there a culture war?
    2. The role of elites in mobilizing religious differences
13. Religious cues in voting behavior