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The Curious Case of School Prayer: Political Entrepreneurship and the Resilience of Legal Institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2012

Bradley D. Hays
Bradley D. Hays*
Affiliation:
Union College
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Bradley D. Hays, Union College, 807 Union Street, Schenectady, NY 12308. E-mail: haysb@union.edu
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Abstract

School prayer represents a curiosity of Reagan era politics. Reagan and the social conservative movement secured numerous successes in accommodating religious practice and faith in the public sphere. Yet, when it came to restoring voluntary school prayer, conservatives never succeeded in securing the judicial victory that they sought despite conditions that seemingly favored change. Herein, we attempt to reconcile Reagan era successes with Reagan era failures by exploring Reagan's entrepreneurial activity to affect both the demand (i.e., judges) and supply (i.e., litigants) side of legal change. Identifying Reagan's entrepreneurial activities in his attempt to alter national social policy reveals the resilience of legal institutions to presidential and partisan regimes. Reagan's efforts to change national school prayer policy gained some measure of legislative success by securing the Equal Access Act but it failed to garner a change in school prayer jurisprudence. We conclude by noting that the difficulty of influencing both the demand and supply side of legal change in a timely manner and its implication for reconstructing policy through the courts.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , August 2012 , pp. 394 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2012

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