RESEARCH IN RELIGION AND MASS POLITICAL-BEHAVIOR IN THE UNITED-STATES- LOOKING BOTH WAYS AFTER 2 DECADES OF SCHOLARSHIP

This article attempts to assess the extent of ''scientific progress'' in the study of religion and political behavior in the United States. Using three models of scientific enterprise, I find that the empirical study of religion and politics has been quite successful in an induct ive, cumulative sense and has been moderately successful in providing interpretive, verstehen explanations as well. In general, research in religion and politics has not produced much in the way of ''covering l aws,'' ''paradigms,'' or ''research programs,'' in which religious var iables are central theoretical concepts. Rather, explanations using re ligious phenomena are typically special cases of more general theoreti cal perspectives. I suggest that the last characterization does not re flect intellectual failure on the part of researchers; rather, the phe nomena of religious politics appears essentially decentralized, and ou r best theories of religious behavior help account for the lack of par simonious explanations in this area.