Item Detail
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12639
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0
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0
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English
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Religion, Regime, and Politics : The Founding and Political Development of Utah
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Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Harvard University
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Ph.D. diss.
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"Unique among the states of the American commonwealth because of its religious character, a religious polity imbedded in the secular, liberal American regime, Utah is, or at least should be, interesting to political science. Contemporary political science lacks the theoretical tools to explicate Utah. Mormonism gives Utah a distinctive tone that sets it off as a separate community. A kind of structured whole, structured by its fundamental religious commitments, it possesses a distinctive regime form. The most important occurrence in the state's history was its founding, the process by which its regime was established. Contemporary political science grew out of a tradition that abstracted from community, regime, and founding. Utah raises the question whether it is really possible for political science to ignore these matters. The primary purpose of political science with regard to Utah must be to explicate the Mormon roots and substance of its politics. Mormonism is the heart of the state's political order, and the belief in modern or continuing revelation is the heart of Mormonism. This belief, implying certain conceptions of man and the human condition, underlies Mormon political thought, in which are intermingled commitments to democracy and theocracy, and which ultimately articulates itself in the twin but not altogether consistent ideals of Zion and the Kingdom of God. It was the root of the conflicts, among the Mormons and between the Mormons and their non-Mormon neighbors, in the 1830s and 40s, that eventually led to the founding of Utah. While it in a way constituted the problem that Mormon leaders were attempting to solve in founding the community, it was also the ultimate basis for the policies followed in it. It is the ordering principle around which the Mormon community in Utah is structured. Explaining Utah's politics principally involves tracing the connections between the Mormon tenet of continuing revelation and the founding and regime form of the community." [Author's abstract]