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Breaking the Chains?: Constraint and the Political Rhetoric of Religious Interest Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2011

Katherine E. Knutson
Katherine E. Knutson*
Affiliation:
Gustavus Adolphus College
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Katherine E. Knutson, Gustavus Adolphus Colllege, 800 West College Avenue, Saint Peter, MN 56082. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Some scholars of religious interest groups argue that one challenge facing religious groups in their pursuit of political goals is that they are unwilling or unable to compromise, which makes it difficult for them to operate strategically within the secular political environment. An alternate explanation is that the types of arguments religious groups use are multifaceted but do not filter into the public discourse. In this article, I examine the concept of constraint in the context of mediated debates of contentious political issues by looking at the extent to which religious and nonreligious groups differ in their development of argument frames. Compared with nonreligious groups, religious groups do display more evidence of constraint in mediated debates over public policies. Patterns of constraint relate to visibility, framing, group resources, and group purpose. More importantly, however, I find that the patterns of constraint have more to do with journalistic decisions to filter arguments made by religious groups than with the actual rhetorical strategies of religious groups.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , August 2011 , pp. 312 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2011

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