ABSTRACT
Like their colleagues in other social science disciplines, political scientists who study religion have embraced the empirical research methods associated with the "behavioral" revolution. Though researchers have not abandoned the philosophical, legal, and historical approaches dominant in the prebehavioral era, the political relevance of religion is increasingly appraised "scientifically." In practice, this means analyzing quantitative data obtained through sample surveys. Since the 1980s, when the resurgence of fundamentalist political concern virtually forced the topic of "religion and politics" onto the mainstream research agenda, academic journals and presses have increasingly published survey-based studies of religious influences on mass political behavior.
