Nations Under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy

by Anna Grzymała-Busse

2017 Award in History and Social Sciences

Jury Statement

Nations Under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy is an outstanding accomplishment of historically grounded and carefully contextualized comparative political science. Its richness of range and detailed empirical command are no less impressive than its conceptual and methodological sophistication. Together they make an exceedingly rare combination, appealing to historians and political scientists alike, while leaving scholars across the disciplines in its debt. Shining a carefully focused light on a remarkably neglected subject—the complex, variable relationship of religion to politics—Grzymała-Busse captures a patently important question of contemporary social and political life, develops a sophisticated research strategy for its investigation, and delivers outcomes that are as fascinating and suggestive substantively as they are compelling methodologically. The case studies are ambitiously chosen and brilliantly carried off. The study should be enormously influential whether as methodological model or source of arguments and ideas.