Power from on high : the political mobilization of Brazilian evangelical Protestantism

The resurgence of religion as a vehicle for mobilizing voters and influencing government policy has surprised those who assumed religion would become less important as nations modernized. This dissertation proposes a new explanation of religiously based political mobilization and tests the explanation with qualitative and quantitative data from Brazil. Religious behavior is shown to be the product of subjectively rational individual decisions constrained by organizational culture. The politicization of religion is shown to be a result of strategic decisions about how to maintain or expand the conditions and resources necessary to reproduce religion. Changes in social and political structure are shown to have a determinative effect on the decision to mobilize politically.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Government

Grantor

The University of Texas at Austin

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Gaskill, Newton Jeffrey

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dietz, Henry A.

• Religion and politics--Brazil
• Brazil--Politics and government--1985-2002

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/2152/11613

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/11613