Conclusions

Abstract

Abstract This chapter sets out the main arguments raised throughout the volume, reflecting on the achievements but also imagining the main elements of a future research agenda on religion and politics. The chapter reviews the main findings of the different chapters by showing that religion and religiosity still weigh on vote choice in secularized societies of Western Europe and in the United States. It also highlights the changes from the historical patterns of association of religion with electoral politics to religious voting, by summarizing the evidence of the single country and comparative chapters. It summarizes what the main mechanisms of a religious voting are, allowing for the distinction between the party-based and the election-based modes of religious voting. While the first works through party identification and ideological distance with a party, the second operates through polarization on moral issues by parties, often reflecting processes of politicization of moral and religious issues activated in the public sphere by different political actors, ecclesiastical elites, religious leaders, and religious or secular movements.