To what extent has the growth of Evangelicalism in Latin America contributed to political participation across the region? A number of scholars of religion and politics in the United States have suggested that Evangelicalism promotes the development of civic skills necessary for political engagement, while the Catholic Church, due to its hierarchical structure, provides fewer opportunities for skill acquisition. In this paper, we apply this debate to Latin America to test whether civic skills developed in Catholic and Protestant church activities lead to differential participation rates in 18 countries. We utilize the 2014 Pew Religion in Latin America survey to test these effects, and find that Protestant churches do indeed promote skill‐developing activities at higher rates, but that Catholics, when involved, are more likely to translate this religious participation into political action. We conclude that political scientists must better understand the organizational role of religion in promoting political engagement worldwide.

中文翻译：

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拉丁美洲的宗教参与，公民技能和政治参与

拉丁美洲福音派的发展在多大程度上促进了整个地区的政治参与？美国的许多宗教和政治学者认为，福音派促进政治参与所必需的公民技能的发展，而天主教教堂由于其等级结构而为技能提供的机会较少。在本文中，我们将这场辩论应用于拉丁美洲，以测试天主教和新教教会活动中发展的公民技能是否会导致18个国家的参与率出现差异。我们利用2014年拉丁美洲的皮尤宗教（Pew Religion in Latin）调查来检验这些影响，发现新教教会确实确实以较高的比率促进了技能发展活动，但是天主教徒在参与其中之后，更可能将这种宗教参与转化为政治行动。我们得出的结论是，政治科学家必须更好地理解宗教在促进全球政治参与方面的组织作用。