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Chapter 16: Culture Wars in American Politics: Regulating Social Life

Study

Summary

Moral and cultural issues have become central to contemporary policy debates in the United States. The Puritan tradition has been strong and influential in American social and political life, and it has tended to shape much of national policy. However, the spate of moral issues arising in politics in recent decades has created intense political divisions. The issues are important, but they are extremely difficult for the political system to process effectively. While most of the other policy issues we have discussed to this point can be addressed through bargaining and compromise, moral issues generally are not open to compromise, for participants in the process usually are unwilling to trade off their values in these debates.

The problem for government is that these issues are unlikely to go away and indeed may intensify. Scientific progress in the area of reproductive technology and the increasing social, cultural, and religious diversity of American society all but guarantee that there will continue to be conflicts of this type. Furthermore, the political parties have become somewhat aligned along cultural lines, as well as along a left-right continuum, ensuring that the issues will continue to be carried directly into political debates. Moral and political issues tend to create rather unusual political and even religious coalitions that make political calculations all the more difficult for policymakers, and so they may contribute to additional conflict and instability within the policymaking system.

Review Questions:

1. Identify and define the issues at the center of the “culture wars.”
   


2. What are the common characteristics of the issues or conflicts and the center of the “culture wars”? Why are these issues more difficult to contain within the conventional political process?