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Churches as societal veto players

How to include religious influence in actor-centered theories of policy-making

This is a pre-peer reviewed version of

Fink, S. (2009). Churches as Societal Veto Players: Religious Influence in Actor-Centered

Theories of Policy Making. West European Politics 32, 77-96.

Abstract

The article argues that the study of western democracies can benefit from a

conceptualization of Christian churches as societal veto players characterized by three

features: their power, which depends on their mobilization potential; their preferences, which

can be deduced from churches’ official statements and which are often outside the political

spectrum; and their coherence, which determines the size of their indifference curve. In all

three categories, the Catholic Church is a “stronger” veto player than protestant churches.

Conceptualized as societal veto players, churches can be included in actor-centered theories of

policymaking. Particular attention should be paid to veto points, church-state relations and

religious parties, as these are the features of the political system that affect churches’

behaviors. A comparative study of churches’ roles in stem cell policies illustrates the use of

the concept and shows that the Catholic Church is indeed a “stronger” veto player than

protestant churches.

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Introduction: Religion and politics as an important topic of study

Political science has only recently re-discovered religion as an issue. The most

prominent example is the study of religious fundamentalism. But not only do such extreme

manifestations of religious struggle merit the attention of political science. How religion

influences everyday policy-making in supposedly “secular“ Western societies is also of major

interest (Castles, 1998, Minkenberg, 2003).

The study of religious influence on policy-making is of major interest for several

reasons. Some of the most highly politicized policy fields are of considerable importance to

religious organizations. This does not only cover socio-political issues – gay rights, abortion,

or education – but also major socio-economic issues like the design of social security

institutions (Esping-Andersen, 1990). All these issues have historically been domains of the

churches. Even today, churches have their main areas of interest in these policy fields. In

many of these policy fields, other organizations have risen to power. But this does not imply

that religious influence has completely disappeared in western industrialized democracies.

Comparative public policy should not dismiss religious influence a priori.

Religion has, for two reasons, long been an “unfashionable variable“ (Castles, 1994: 26)

in political science. The first reason is the enduring legacy of the secularization thesis, which

states that religion lost its influence on society in the course of modernization (Bruce, 2005).

However, the secularization thesis is under severe theoretical and empirical attack (Gill,

2001). But there is a second reason why religion has only seldom been used as an explanatory

factor for public policy. Most modern theories of policy-making are actor-centered. They

conceptualize policy-making as interest-based interactions between collective actors within

institutional constraints (Scharpf, 1997, Ostrom, 1999). The concept of religious influence

does not fit in well with such a view of policy-making. Religion is often seen as a “cultural

background“ (Castles, 1994: 20) before which the actual political interactions take place.

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According to established political science theories, parties, firms, or trade unions are the main

actors in modern democracies. Religion and culture are merely the stage setting.

The aim of this article is to bring religion back to the center stage of political analysis

by switching the perspective. Religion should not only be considered as a background factor,

but can also be conceptualized in an actor-centered way. I propose combining insights of the

sociology of religion with Tsebelis’ (2002) veto player theory and conceptualizing Christian

churches as societal veto players. These veto players are characterized by their power,

preferences and cohesion. Their power stems from their mobilization potential, which is

dependent on the denomination and religiosity of the electorate. The new form of veto actor

can then be used in any actor-centered theoretical framework.

There are several advantages of such a theoretical synthesis. The first advantage is that

religious influence steps forward to the center stage of political analysis. By conceptualizing

churches as societal veto players, they can be integrated in actor-centered models of political

science, and their interactions with other political actors can be modeled. Many policies can

be explained better if the role of churches as veto players is taken into account. The second

advantage is that veto player theory is enriched. Veto player theory has been criticized for its

lack of attention to societal actors (Jochem, 2003). The concept of societal veto players

overcomes this narrow focus.

This article is structured in six sections. The second section discusses the shortcomings

of established theories of public policy to account for the influence of religion on public

policy. The third section introduces the concept of Christian churches as societal veto players

and discusses their characteristics. The fourth section elaborates how churches, as societal

veto players, can be included in actor-centered and institutional frameworks. The fifth section

is a comparative study that illustrates the usefulness of the concept in explaining public

policy, namely, the stem cell research policies in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Austria. The

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final section summarizes the main arguments and outlines how the concept of societal veto

players can be extended and refined.

The Problem: How to conceptualize religious influence?

Despite cumulating evidence of the pervasive influence of religion on politics, political

science has long neglected the role of religion in politics. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason for the neglect is the pervasiveness of the secularization thesis, which

contends that religion has lost its preeminent role in social life (Berger, 1969, Bruce, 2005).

But the secularization thesis has come under severe criticism (Westerlund, 1996, Stark, 1999).

Empirically, various authors have demonstrated that many policy fields still show an impact

from religious beliefs (Gill, 2001, Minkenberg, 2003). The theoretical criticism comes from

two perspectives. Concerning the perspective of sociology of religion, Casanova (1994) states

that there is not one encompassing trend of secularization, but a complex set of interrelated,

but by no means concurring or unidirectional processes. Using concepts from

microeconomics, the “religious economy“ school (Iannaccone, 1991) sees the problem of

secularization as a question of market behaviour. The religious economy school posits that the

religious vitality of a society is dependent on the interaction between adherents, churches and

the state (Gill, 2001: 131f.), and that secularization is no encompassing or inevitable trend.

Thus, there are empirical and theoretical reasons for believing that Christian churches

still play a major role in politics in Western industrialized countries (Norris and Inglehart,

2004).

But there is a second reason why political science has neglected the question of

religious influence. Even if we admit that secularization is no given a priori, we are still left

with the problem of how to include religious influence in actor-centered theories of policy-

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making. Theories of policy-making highlight the role of purposeful actors that interact within

institutional constraints (Scharpf, 1997, Ostrom, 1999). It is not obvious how to accomodate

religious influence into this actor-centered framework. Most current theories of politics and

religion view religion as a background factor without specifying how this background factor

relates to an actor-centered framework (Inglehart and Flanagan, 1987, Castles, 1994: 20,

Therborn, 1994, Madeley, 2003). The main empirical result from studies in this tradition is

that a “catholic cultural impact“ (Castles, 1998: 302) or a “cultural heritage“ (Minkenberg,

2002: 222) influences public policy. These results are perfectly valid as a variable-oriented

approach, and they are helpful for assessing the viability of the secularization thesis. But the

religion-as-a-background-variable perspective needs to be complemented with a perspective

that details how actors use this heritage. Religion, as a sociological variable, must be

translated into information about actors’ resources and preferences. Only then can we model

churches on the same analytical level as other collective actors and include them in actor-

centered frameworks.

The first step towards an actor-centered concept of religious influence is recognizing

that religion is not only a spiritual phenomenon, but is highly institutionalized in the form of

churches (Gill, 2001: 120).

An approach that follows this line of reasoning is developed by Warner (2000). She

conceptualizes Christian churches as interest groups. Using a market analogy, she studies the

strategies of the Catholic Church in pursuing its policy preferences and ensuring its

organizational survival. Her main finding is that the critical strategic decision of the Catholic

Church was whether or not to chose an ally in the modern party system, and if so, which one.

From a comparison of Italy, France and Germany, Warner concludes that this decision was

strongly path-dependent and contingent upon the role of the Church and its allies during

fascism (Warner, 2000).

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The problem with Warner’s approach is its focus on a very specific set of circumstances

– the postwar transition period (Warner, 2000: 12). The approach does not cover the role of

protestant churches, and it does not cover the role of churches in everyday policy-making in

established democracies.

Minkenberg (2003: 206) also treats Christian churches as interest groups, but expands

on the idea and discusses several factors that separate churches from socio-economic interest

groups. Churches have a heightened status because of their special public recognition. They

only act in specific policy fields, and they often have special institutional relationships to the

state. For these reasons, he regards churches as “parapublic institutions“ (Katzenstein, 1987:

58, Minkenberg, 2003: 206), which may sometimes act as interest groups, but fulfill many

other roles (Minkenberg, 2002: 237, Enyedi, 2003: 225-6).

However, a theoretical foundation that focuses on the special status of churches and

treats them as somewhat unique actors impedes attempts to embed churches as actors in

overarching theoretical frameworks.

The review of theoretical perspectives on churches’ role in public policy suggests that

there is still conceptual work to do. What is lacking is a concept of the churches’ role in

public policy that acknowledges a) their role as interest groups, b) their institutional ties to the

state, c) their selective role depending on the policy field and d) and which is nevertheless

grounded in established theories of policymaking and does not view churches as unique actors

but as an example of a larger category of actors (see also Enyedi (2003: 230)).

The solution: Christian Churches as societal veto players

This article proposes using Tsebelis’ (2002) veto player theory to conceptualize

churches as societal veto players (Bauer et al., 2004). Thereby, two contributions to ongoing

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theoretical debates are made. First, we obtain a theoretically more informed view of churches’

roles in politics. Second, veto player theory is enriched. Veto player theory is not confined to

a narrow view of the political system. Its main elements may also be used to account for the

role of societal actors in politics.

Veto player theory (Tsebelis, 2002) is an attempt to overcome the diverse

categorizations of regime types, party systems and institutional configurations (Tsebelis,

2002: 2). Instead of analyzing the institutional configurations of polities in detail, all political

systems are analyzed in regard to the number of actors with veto power that they generate,

and the preferences these actors possess. The preferences of the veto players determine the

likelihood of policy change and restrict the range of possible policies. Only policies that lie

within the intersection of the indifference curves of the actors (the winset) can be attained.

The larger the winset is (depending on the size and position of the indifference curves and the

voting criteria), the larger the potential for policy change. Thus, the identification of the status

quo, the veto players, and their preferences should allow for the prediction of the range of

possible policies.

Veto player theory has been criticized for many reasons (Birchfield and Crepaz, 1998,

Ganghof, 2003, Jochem, 2003), among them the lack of attentiveness for societal actors. In

most empirical applications, the veto players are reduced to the governing parties (Tsebelis,

2002: 18, Jochem, 2003), with very little exceptions to this rule (Tsebelis, 1999: 593-4). But

there is nothing in the fundamental logic of veto player theory that prevents us from

conceptualizing societal actors as societal veto players. The main theoretical elements of veto

player theory can be used to derive statements about how and when churches act as veto

players.

The remainder of this section will elaborate the implications of conceiving Christian

churches as veto players, and will outline the conditions under which Christian churches can

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act as societal veto players as well as their characteristics. The goal is to derive theoretically

grounded hypotheses about the behaviour of Christian churches as political actors.

It is not probable that churches act as veto players in all cases. The term “societal veto

players” separates them from institutional or partisan veto players that are regularly involved

in policy-making. Thus, the conditions under which churches can (and want to) act as veto

players must be delineated.

The main factor that influences the ability of Christian churches to act as a societal veto

player is their mobilization potential. Under mobilization potential, I conceive the ability of a

church to mobilize its adherents for political action, such as collective action in the form of

protests or voting behaviour in general elections as well as single-issue referendums.

The basal determinant for the mobilization potential of churches is the number of

adherents: the proportion of the electorate that churches can theoretically mobilize. The

foremost condition of any mobilization potential is that a church has adherents at all. The

Catholic Church has no mobilization potential in predominantly protestant countries like

Sweden, but a high mobilization potential in catholic Spain.

The number of adherents on paper has to be complemented with closer investigation of

the actual willingness of the adherents to act politically for religious reasons. The actual

willingness to act politically can be called the concrete mobilization potential. It can be

supposed that the more religious the adherents are, the more are they willing to act politically

for religious causes. The Catholic Church nominally has over 90% adherents in the French

population, but overall levels of religiosity are low, as these are only Catholics “on paper“.

Italy is a counterexample. The proportion of Catholics in Italy is as high as in France, but they

are considerably more religious (Norris and Inglehart, 2004: 72-4). As survey research has

shown (Inglehart and Baker, 2000, Norris and Inglehart, 2004), a rough rule of thumb is that

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catholic adherents are more religious than their protestant counterparts. Thus, they should be

more ready to mobilize for religious causes.1

In this way, religiosity returns to the theoretical account, although not as a background

factor characterizing whole societies, but as a power resource for churches as potential veto

players. Rather than postulating that religiosity is a cultural heritage, the concept of churches

as societal veto players focuses on the role of religiosity as a power resource for churches.

The concept can be used to deduce empirically testable statements. We should observe

variation of the political behaviour of churches, depending on the religiosity of their

adherents, with greater power and greater influence on public policy the more religious the

adherents are. As a conjecture, the mobilization power of the Catholic Church should ceteris

paribus be larger than the mobilization power of protestant churches, as Catholics typically

are more religious.

The considerations thus far have only established the baseline mobilization potential of

churches. Empirical observations show that mobilization potential is a strongly issue-

dependent parameter. Churches may have lost their adherents in some issue areas. Adherents

may be more secular in practice and cannot be mobilized for certain issues. They may be

divorced, and will not support collective action against divorce. However, churches may

mobilize their adherents – and sizable proportions of non-adherents – for issues that contradict

generally held moral notions. Churches may mobilize many of their adherents and non-

adherents against embryo research or the dismantlement of the welfare state. The actual issue

under consideration also affects the interest of the church to act politically. Some issues may

not be salient enough or rank low on the churches’ political agendas.

Thus, the power of churches, and hence their ability to act as societal veto players,

strongly depends on their mobilization potential, which in turn varies with the number and

religiosity of adherents and the specific issue under consideration.

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The second main feature, besides power, that characterizes the church as a societal veto

player are its preferences. The preferences of churches as actors are especially important, as

the absorption rule (Tsebelis, 2002: 26-7) predicts that the preferences of actors that lie

between other actors in a spatial model are absorbed. Accordingly, these actors need not be

accounted for. I argue that this is ultimately an empirical question, but that there are good

reasons to suspect that churches’ preferences lie outside the usual spectrum of policy

preferences. The first reason is the strong fixation of churches on absolute moral values that

are put down in magisterial teachings. These documents are the result of abstract moral

reasoning, and presumably contain positions that lie outside the spectrum of positions held in

the party system. The second reason is that Christian parties – the other actors that try to

embed Christian values in policies – have a more mixed set of motives. Besides striving for

“Christian“ policies, they also have to care for offices, votes, the viability of coalitions and

campaign financing (Strom, 1990). This, in turn, leads them to adopt more pragmatic policy

preferences. Their preferences should not be as extreme as those of the churches, which have

a smaller focus on offices and power.

The preferences of the Catholic Church are presumably more extreme and more

homogeneous than those of the protestant churches. The Catholic Church is organized very

hierarchically according to top-down principles (Weber, 1983, Woodberry and Shah, 2004).

The various protestant churches are more bottom-up in their preference formation and are

therefore susceptible to societal preferences apart from moral reasoning. It follows that the

preferences of the Catholic Church are presumably more likely to be outside the usual

spectrum and also more homogeneous across countries.

A feature that is strongly related to the preferences is the cohesion of the church as an

actor, and the discipline of its leading members. The discussion of preferences alone indicates

only the hypothetical ideal point in a policy space. But according to Tsebelis (2002: 20),

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actors have circular indifference curves that indicate how far they can deviate from their ideal

policy solution. Churches as actors – and especially the Catholic Church – cannot deviate far

from their ideal point, as they are strongly bound by doctrines. A second aspect is that

Churches are collective veto players. They can be conceived as elaborate organizations

comprising many actors. Accordingly, the size of their indifference circle also depends on the

cohesion and discipline of their members. Cohesion here refers to the coherence of the policy

preferences of the members; discipline refers to the willingness of the members to act upon

the directive of their leaders (Ganghof, 2003). In this respect, Catholic and protestant

churches differ. The cohesion and discipline of the Catholic Church are higher than those of

protestant churches (Martin, 1978, Weber, 1983, Woodberry and Shah, 2004). Accordingly,

the Catholic Church can be conceived as a “stronger“ veto player than the protestant churches.

Its preferred ideal point is clearly defined in doctrines and dogmas, and the ideal point is not

meant to be a strategic negotiation position but rather an absolute moral judgment which is

not subject to negotiation. The same goes for, in principle, protestant churches, but as their

preference formation is more bottom-up (see above), they are more likely to take into account

considerations apart from moral reasoning and are therefore are more open to negotiations and

second-best solutions.

To summarize, Churches, as veto players, are characterized by their mobilization

potential (determined by raw numbers of adherents, religiosity and specific issue salience),

their preferences, and their cohesion and discipline. All of these factors suggest that the

Catholic Church is ceteris paribus more likely and more able to act as a societal veto player

than protestant churches.

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The political environment: church-state relations, veto points, and Christian parties

Conceptualized as potential societal veto players, churches can be modelled as actors in

actor- and institution-centred frameworks. This section discusses the features of the

institutional landscape and of the actor constellation that are of central interest to churches as

actors. Pertaining institutional features, the analytically most important features of a political

system viewed from a churches-as-societal-veto-players-perspective are the presence of

special veto points and the church-state-relations. Concerning the actor constellation, the

most important feature is the power of religious parties.

The first feature of the institutional landscape of central interest to churches is the

presence of special veto points (Immergut, 1992) that facilitate the transposition of

mobilization potential into political influence. The most important veto points that can be

used by the churches are referendums. Referendums are veto points that can be used to

overturn already passed laws, but they can also be used anticipatively. The mere threat of a

referendum can change the policy-making process, as legislators try to calculate the risk of a

law being overturned later, and design their proposals accordingly (Immergut, 1992: 31). The

importance of referendums for the churches is evident. With the threat of using their

mobilization potential in a referendum, churches can start negotiations with political actors; or

they can use the referendum ex post to overturn already existing laws. Thus, special veto

points can be regarded as the institutional facet of power of the churches, complementing the

resource facet of power, the mobilization potential.

The role of special veto points is to facilitate political action of the churches. However,

it is not necessary that special veto points are present. The possibility of referenda enhances

the potential of churches to act politically, but other forms of political action, such as mass

protest, are still possible. Conversely, the presence of special veto points is even

counterproductive if the mobilization potential of the churches is low. Strategically, they

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should try to close these veto points and avoid referendums if their mobilization potential is

low.2

The second feature of the institutional landscape which is of central interest for

churches as societal veto players are the state-church-relations (Enyedi, 2003, Madeley, 2003,

Minkenberg, 2003). The impact of close state-church-relations on public policy is contested.

Some authors claim that a strict separation of church and state is a facet of secularization that

heralds the demise of religious influence (Gorski, 2000). Others claim that a separation of

church and state fosters the vitality of the religious market and raises the influence of

churches on policy (Iannaccone, 1991). Minkenberg (2002, 2003) argues for a middle

position. He claims that established churches – that is, churches that are financially and

legally closely tied to the state – have problems acting as interest groups, as they have to

pursue their institutional interests (Minkenberg, 2003: 213). On the other hand, deregulation

does not automatically lead to a rising religious influence (Minkenberg, 2002: 233). This

position fits in with the proposed framework: the main determinant of churches’ influence on

policies is their mobilization potential. However, if they are very closely tied to the state, they

may not be able to use their power without negative repercussions.

The third feature of central interest to churches as veto players is the power of religious

parties. It is important to recognize that religious parties and strong churches are phenomena

that are related, but by no means concurring. As has been argued, churches as veto players

have preferences presumably more extreme than religious parties. In a pure veto player

framework, this would mean that the religious parties are absorbed. But as has also been

argued, churches are distinctly societal veto players, constituting another type of veto player.

The argument here is that the presence of powerful religious parties enhances the political

power of the church and its ability to act as a societal veto player. The presence of religious

parties implies that the church obtains another access point to the political system. Religious

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parties are strongly susceptible to threats of the church to mobilize their adherents. Viewed

from the perspective of the religious parties, the presence of a strong church as a societal veto

player diminishes their room for negotiation, as they must add possible electoral punishment

and public shaming to their strategic calculations.

To sum up, three aspects of the institutional configuration and the actor constellation are

particularly important if we conceptualize churches as societal veto players. First, the

presence of special veto points can enhance churches’ political power. Second, very close

church-state-relations constrain churches’ political influence. And third, the presence of

strong religious parties enhances the political power of churches, as they provide another

access point to the political system. The overall framework is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Overview of the Churches-as-societal-veto-players framework (italics: features of special interest

to the churches)

Churches as Societal Veto Players

Power Preferences

Institutional Context (Special Veto Points, Church-State Relations)

Actor Constellation (Religious Parties)

Interaction Policy Problem (Issue area)

Policy

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The empirical application: Churches and embryo research policies

This section illustrates the use of the framework and shows the usefulness of the

analytical categories. Going further, some conjectures of the framework are tested. The case

studies cannot act as an exhaustive test of the hypotheses, as the number of cases is not

sufficient. But the case studies serve as an exploratory test of the viability of the concepts.

The cases are the churches’ behaviour and success in influencing embryo research

policies in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Austria. Embryo research policy has been one of

the most salient issues for the churches in recent times. According to Christian doctrine,

embryo research is morally wrong and should be interdicted. Thus, we should observe the

attempts of churches to act as societal veto players.

The selection of the three cases and the policy field is motivated by the attempt to hold

some factors constant (salience of the issue, preferences of the churches, state-church-

relations) while having variation on other factors (cohesiveness of the churches, presence of

veto points and religious parties). Thus, only some of the conjectures can be tested.

In Italy, the Catholic Church was a major player in the policy field. With its 97%

Catholic adherents, it had a major abstract mobilization potential, and, as these adherents are

very religious (Norris and Inglehart, 2004: 72-4), the mobilization potential is also a very

concrete factor (Donovan, 2003, Schrank, 2007). The church-state relations can be considered

as a partial establishment of the church (Minkenberg, 2003: 207). The preferences of the

Catholic Church are very clear: “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person

from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person

must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent

human being to life.“ (Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, 1987) This translates

into a position that rejects any experimentation on the human embryo (Pontifical Academy for

Life, 2000: 697). Furthermore, the Italian Constitution allows for referendums, and Italy has

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religious parties in parliament. These factors worked together, with the Catholic Church

acting as a strong societal veto player in a favourable institutional environment and sometimes

in a favourable actor constellation.

The first part of the Italian policy process demonstrates the veto potential of the

Catholic Church.3 During the 1990s, secular coalition governments ruled Italy. The Church

understood that the chances of getting a restrictive law on embryo research were low and

preferred to prevent the passage of a law altogether (Donovan, 2003: 112, Ramjoué and Klöti,

2004: 54). During this time, the Church’s influence ran via the Christian Democratic Party,

but it also used the threat of public outcry to make the secular government refrain from

passing a liberal law. The second part of the development began with a change of the actor

constellation. A centre-right coalition with the participation of Christian democrats won the

elections in 2001. Now, the church could use its close connections to the government. The

government drafted one of the strictest embryo research laws worldwide (Lorenzi, 2003b),

which banned stem cell research. If anyone still had doubts about the strong religious

influence on the policy, the minister of health introduced the law with the words “research

should be carried out on animals, not on Christians“ (Lorenzi, 2003a). The real test of the

Church’s powers came when secular groups challenged the new law in a referendum. The

Catholic Church mobilized its adherents and achieved a stunning victory (Arie, 2005).

The Italian case illustrates some of the theoretical arguments about the importance of

mobilization power and clear preferences. The Catholic Church had a very cohesive

preference, based on abstract moral reasoning. Additionally, its theoretical as well as actual

mobilization potential was high. Thus, it was a strong veto player with no room for

negotiation. In the absence of religious parties in government, the Church could not positively

influence policy according to its preferences, but it could nevertheless obstruct policies that

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were not according to its preference. With religious parties in government, the Church even

had a chance of positively (co)designing policy.

The case of embryo research policy in Austria is, in most respects, a case similar to that

in Italy. The proportion of Catholics is high, and their religiousness is high as well (Norris and

Inglehart, 2004: 72-4). The church-state-relations can be considered a partial establishment

(Minkenberg, 2003: 207), and Austria has a Christian democratic party. The only difference is

the lack of a regular referendum procedure on public policies (Hug and Tsebelis, 2002: 499)

As can be expected, the policy process in Austria has many parallels to the policy

process in Italy. The Catholic Church played a major role in the design of a very restrictive

embryo research law (Stranzinger, 1992, Hadolt, 2005). The Catholic Church was able to use

its close ties to the Christian democratic party (Grabner, 1999), but also mobilization of the

public via its media outlets, up to the point where it made its own law proposal in a newspaper

(Hadolt, 2005: 29). The position of the Catholic Church was very coherent and strongly

influenced by the official catholic doctrine of the donum vitae (Körtner, 2002). The protestant

church, on the other hand, had problems formulating a coherent position and left the question

open to the individual’s conscience (Körtner and Bünker, 2001).

Thus, the Austrian case demonstrates that the possibility of a referendum is not a

necessary factor for the influence of churches as veto players. Apart from the missing

referendum, Austria is a most similar case to Italy, and the outcomes – strict embryo research

laws – are very much the same. This indicates that referendums may be an additional point of

leverage for churches as veto players, but not a necessary condition for their influence.

The case of embryo research policy in the United Kingdom is a counterexample to Italy

and Austria, because the churches were not capable to act as societal veto players. The United

Kingdom has several churches, the Anglican Church, several protestant denominations, and a

small Catholic Church. As in Italy and Austria, the state-church relations can be considered a

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partial establishment (Minkenberg, 2003: 207). The Catholic Church in England was cohesive

in its preferences – like all Catholic churches, it argued according to the donum vitae: “We

believe that research on cloned human embryos is both immoral and unnecessary. It is

immoral because it involves the deliberate creation and destruction of new human lives for the

sole purpose of extracting stem cells for research. It strips an individual human life, in its

earliest form, of all dignity, reducing it to no more than a commodity, a supply of disposable

organic matter.“ (Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, see Sleator (2000: 50f.)) However,

the mobilization potential was low, as only 9% of the British population is catholic. On the

other hand, the Anglican Church has a higher theoretical mobilization potential (with 47%

adherents), but a low actual mobilization potential, as the adherents are not very religious

(Norris and Inglehart, 2004: 72-4). Additionally, the British political system has no

referendums as special veto points, and the party system includes no religious parties. Thus,

the chances for religious influence were rather low. Moreover, the Anglican Church had

problems finding a cohesive position (Mulkay, 1997). Its political representatives had no clear

preference and argued “Christians have a rather difficult time because it is no good looking in

the New Testament […] because we shall not find in it what our Lord said about embryos. It

is a question of the development of Christian doctrine, and undoubtedly there is more than

one view taken in the Church as a whole.“ (Lord Longford, see Mulkay (1997: 107)). In

contrast to the Catholic Church, which clearly voiced an opinion against both therapeutic and

reproductive cloning, the Anglican Church tried to differentiate between both forms of

cloning (Sleator, 2000: 51). A similar lack of cohesiveness can be observed in the Church of

Scotland, which changed its opinion on the desirability of stem cell research within one year

(Church of Scotland, 2000, Bruce, 2001). Consequently, the Anglican church’s influence on

the policy was very low, and the United Kingdom passed one of the most liberal stem cell

research laws worldwide (Montpetit, 2007).

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The case of the United Kingdom shows two major churches that were, albeit for

different reasons, not able to act as strong societal veto players. The Catholic Church lacked

mobilization potential, and the Anglican Church lacked both a cohesive position and

mobilization potential. This illustrates the reasoning of section 3, where it was argued that

preferences and power determine the ability of churches to act as societal veto players.

Table 1: Overview of the cases and the main factors

Country Church Mobilization

Power

Preference Cohesiveness Veto Points Church-

State

Relations

Religious

Parties

Policy

Italy Catholic high opposed to

stem cell

research

high Referendum partial

establishment

yes (but

not over

the whole

time)

strict

Austria Catholic high opposed high no partial

establishment

yes strict

United

Kingdom

Catholic low opposed high no partial

establishment

no liberal

Anglican medium opposed low no partial

establishment

no liberal

Table 1 illustrates the characteristics of the cases with regard to the elements discussed

in the theoretical part of this article. Although the theoretical conjectures can not all be tested

conclusively because the number of cases is too small, some cautious conclusions can be

drawn. Italy is the most likely case of religious influence. All the factors that were

theoretically identified to be beneficial for churches as societal veto players were present in

20

Italy. Adding the insights from the Austrian case, we can conclude that referendums are not a

necessary condition for churches’ influence. The British case shows that the cohesiveness of

the churches’ positions does indeed make a major difference. Only a cohesive position makes

churches strong societal veto players. Mobilization resources must also be added to this, as

the British case demonstrates. The process tracing of the Italian case over time additionally

allows for some conclusions about the role of Christian parties. In the absence of Christian

parties in parliament, the Catholic Church was nevertheless capable of acting as a veto player,

preventing the passage of a law on embryo research. However, only when a Christian

democratic party returned to government power was the Catholic Church able to actively

influence public policy. Nothing can be concluded about the influence of state-church

relations, as this factor was held constant.

Thus, the case studies can not conclusively test all the conjectures of the theory, but

they show that the main concepts of the theory are valid and that churches are able to act as

societal veto players.

Conclusions

The article argues that it is theoretically fruitful to conceive of churches as societal veto

players. As societal veto players, churches are characterized by their power, as and their

preferences. They can therefore be included in actor-centred political analyses. In an actor-

centred and institutionalist framework the most important factors influencing churches’

behaviour are the church-state relations, special veto points in the form of referendums, and

the presence and power of religious parties. The comparative case study illustrates the

usefulness of the concept. Furthermore, the comparative case study shows that the basic

theoretical conjectures of the concept are valid. The Catholic Church is a more powerful veto

player because its mobilization potential and its cohesiveness are higher than those of

21

protestant churches; and referendums and Christian parties serve as additional amplifiers of

church power.

Concerning the established theories on public policy and religion and the sociology of

religion, the concept of churches as societal veto players holds a middle ground between the

rigorously micro-oriented economy of religion literature (Iannaccone, 1991) and the broad

macro approaches that see religion as a cultural background variable (Castles, 1994). Only the

conceptualization of churches as corporate actors with preferences and power allows us to

consider them on the same analytical level as parties and other political actors. In this way,

the concept also shows a way in which variable-oriented research may be reconciled with

actor-centred research: by treating socio-demographic properties of the society as indicators

for power resources of actors. However, up to now, the concept of churches as societal veto

players is in some ways narrower than the established theories of sociology of religion. It only

covers the behaviour of Christian Churches in industrialized countries. Whether churches as

societal veto players is a meaningful concept for Hindu or Islamic countries is an open

question. However, even if the application of the concept is confined to Christian

industrialized countries, this is no small achievement. The powerful role of churches in

Western industrialized countries has been disputed by the secularization thesis, and has yet to

be rediscovered by political science.

There are many policy fields in which the concept of churches as veto players may be

fruitfully applied. Sociopolitical issues – child care policy, gay rights, abortion, education –

currently have a pivotal role in political struggles, as economic policy is often determined by

the imperatives of austerity. The most politicized issues of current politics are socio-political

issues, in which the churches have major stakes. Whether they succeed in fulfilling their

preferences on these issues is an open empirical question. But all of these policy fields cannot

be adequately analyzed if the potential power of the churches is ignored.

22

The last conclusion from this article is that veto player theory is not confined to partisan

actors. Some of the main theoretical elements of veto player theory – preferences,

cohesiveness, and indifference curves – can be fruitfully applied to societal actors. Thus, one

of the main points of critique of Tsebelis’ theory can be countered. The empirical applications

of the theory may have been very narrowly concentrated on partisan actors (Jochem, 2003,

Kitschelt, 2003), but there is nothing in the theory that a priori forbids its application to

societal actors.

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Notes

1 There are exceptions to the rule. Protestant fundamentalism is strong in the USA (Wilcox, 1996, Rozell and

Wilcox, 1997), while France is nominally strongly catholic but has a long tradition of laicism and even anti-

clericalism (Kalyvas, 1996).

2 This is at odds with the argument that the power of interest groups is mainly determined by their access to veto

points, not by their resources (Immergut, 1992: 32). I argue that special veto points are an additional way for the

churches to voice their opinion, but are not necessary for political influence. The first and foremost power

resource is the mobilization potential.

3 The protestant church is virtually nonexistent in Italy, thus it had no influence in stem cell policies and will not

be covered here.