Votes and Votive Candles: Modernization, Secularization, Vatican II, and The Decline of Religious Voting in Italy: 1953-1992

In this article the traditional interpretation of the relationship between modernization, secularization and vote for religious parties are validated with respect to the Italian case. Such case is of particular relevance because of the centrality of the Catholic religion in the Italian society and politics, and of the domination of the religious party - the Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana –DC) - in the country’s party system. This article analyses the impact on the DC vote of a series of indicators of modernization, and secularization, and of Church organization, over the entire period of the first republic(1953-1992). The uniqueness of this analysis rests on the exceptional detailed and historical data set employed, for the Italian comune (N= 6,140) across this time period. At the end, the analysis confirms the force of the modernization and secularizing factors in depressing the religious vote for the DC, and the countervailing effects , up to a certain point, of the Church organizations