미국인의 종교성이 정치생활에 미친 영향에 대한 연구

Abstract

Chang Nam KimAmericans' religiosity, which is their important cultural value, has greatly influenced American society since their republic started, and politics has been anything but a sanctuary that has not been under the influences of religiosity. However, there have been few empirical studies focusing on the effects of Americans' religiosity on American electoral politics, especially on the evaluations of political candidates. Through empirical data, this study examined the effects of Americans' religiosity on the evaluations of presidential candidates' personal traits, which constitute the candidates' character. The results of this study demonstrate that Americans' religiosity has strong effects(p<.001) on the evaluations of almost all the personal traits of presidential candidates. Specifically, the results show that American voters always assign higher value to a presidential candidate identified with a sincere and moderate degree of religiosity than one identified with a fundamental or extreme degree of religiosity. This results seem to be caused by American voters' moderatism. American voters particularly favor a candidate with latent religiosity, who is not likely to express religiosity overtly but whose behaviors are ethical and tend to be influenced by religious values. This study also show that American voters evaluate the rhetorical presidential candidate, who expresses his religiosity only when it is profitable to do so, significantly less favorably than the candidate identified with an extreme degree of religiosity. The findings provide meaningful evidence for ascertaining the potential and legitimacy of the influences of cultural values, especially those of religiosity, in American politics.