Confessions of an Interest Group by Carolyn M Warner

Confessions of an Interest Group by Carolyn M Warner

Following World War II, the Catholic Church in Europe faced the challenge of establishing political influence with newly emerging democratic governments. The Church became, as Carolyn Warner pointedly argues, an interest group like any other, seeking to attain and solidify its influence by forming alliances with political parties. The author analyzes the Church's differing strategies in Italy, France, and Germany using microeconomic theories of the firm and historical institutionalism. She demonstrates how only a strategic perspective can explain the choice and longevity of the alliances in each case. In so doing, the author challenges earlier work that ignores the costs to interest groups and parties of sustaining or breaking their reciprocal links. Confessions of an Interest Group challenges the view of the Catholic Church as solely a moral force whose interests are seamlessly represented by the Christian Democratic parties. Blending theory, cultural narrative, and archival research, Warner demonstrates that the French Church's superficial and brief connection with a political party was directly related to its loss of political influence during the War. The Italian Church's power, on the other hand, remained stable through the War, so the Church and the Christian Democrats more easily found multiple grounds for long-term cooperation. The German Church chose yet another path, reluctantly aligning itself with a new Catholic-Protestant party. This book is an important work that expands the growing literature on the economics of religion, interest group behavior, and the politics of the Catholic Church.

A detailed, comparative study of the relationship between the Catholic Church and political parties in post-war Italy and France.. -- David J. Levy Catholic Herald

Carolyn M. Warner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Arizona State University.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780691010267
ISBN 10	0691010269
Title	Confessions of an Interest Group
Author	Carolyn M Warner
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Year published	2000-04-16
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.