Cultural Wars in American Politics

That contemporary American politics is divided into two differing ideological, moral, and lifestyle groups - a divide so severe as to constitute a "cultural war" - is a widely-held popular belief.

The most systematic academic version of the culture wars claim has appeared in two influential books by sociologist James Davison Hunter, the earlier dating from 1991. Hunter's formulation of the myth serves the contributors to this volume as a point of departure.

They add more measured analyses to the rhetorical overstatement in Hunter's claim, assessing its accuracy with a broad range of evidence based on individual attitudes, subcultural values, political party dynamics, and culture-wide ideological currents. On every level of analysis, the contributors find that Hunter's bipolar axis obscures the variety of ways in which culture actually functions in current politics. That variety receives the nuanced treatment it deserves in this collection.

Examining the full range of sources of cultural politics and offering competing models for understanding the current ideological landscape, this volume will be useful in a variety of classroom and seminar settings, from political sociology and social movements to contemporary American culture and the sociology of religion.