Religiosity and Electoral Behavior

The relation between religiosity and electoral behavior as the major research question in this study has been reported by some researchers with paradoxical results. For a more profound understanding of the relationship between the two variables, religiosity was analyzed at two levels: scale and type; electoral behavior was also investigated at two levels: voting tendency and voting participation. By reviewing theoretical and experimental literature, four hypotheses were proposed as fallows: the more religious the participants are, the more likely they are to participate in polling and vote for “The Fundamentalists” (Osulgarayan); the less religious they are, the less they are likely to participate in polling and more likely to vote for “The Reformists”. The study was conducted through a survey by distributing questionnaires among the participants. The sample, consisting of 376 participants, was selected from among the students at Tarbiat Modarres University. The findings indicate that the extent of religiosity has a significant effect on electoral behavior, that is, voting tendency and voting participation.