Current Research Projects

the moral meanings of taxpaying

Braunstein's next book, My Tax Dollars: The Sacred Taxpayer and the Almighty Dollar, takes readers on a journey through America’s taxpaying culture, from its well-trodden center to its lesser-known edges and seedy underbelly. En route, readers will encounter propagandists and IRS agents; civic educators and popular songwriters; prophets and gurus; taxpayers and tax resisters. Through their stories, we learn that for most people most of the time, taxpaying is a mundane fact of life, like any other bill to be paid. Yet at certain points in time and for some people more than others, mundane taxpaying becomes infused with intense moral significance—sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Set against a backdrop of a deeply divided country and a modern world characterized by multiple and competing sacred forms, My Tax Dollars shows that once taxpaying is lifted out of the realm of the mundane, both the act of taxpaying and the use of tax dollars can each be framed as either sacred or profane, encouraging fiscal sacrifice on one hand and entrenched resistance on the other. Yet a close look at this contestation also reveals striking points of convergence. While the eclectic characters profiled in this book span the political spectrum and hold very different things dear, they recognize one sacred form in common: the autonomous and agentic individual taxpayer. Moreover, they agree that the tax dollar – like the almighty dollar more generally – is a powerful tool with which to advance their own sacred projects.

The book and related writing focuses especially on the following groups and projects:
  • war tax resisters
  • anti-abortion activists against "taxpayer funded abortion"
  • anti-government tax defiers
  • projects to promote taxpaying

Related writing: 

mapping the pluralist resistance: the front lines of the battle against christian nationalism

The ascendance of Christian nationalism (CN) in the US had rightfully raised concern. But there is another side of this story: it has also ignited a wave of resistance. This project aims to map this emerging "pluralist resistance." The diverse voices of the pluralist resistance are rarely conceptualized as part of a shared movement. They include Christian, non-Christian, interfaith, and atheist organizations; people of all races and ethnicities; and groups that don’t always think much about the relationship between religion, race and democracy, like policymakers, journalists, educators, and philanthropists. They include groups pushing for a fuller and more honest accounting of American history, and those seeking to expand our current vision of Americanness and our national story. While attending closely to their internal disagreements, the project will primarily document how they are pushing in the same general direction—against CN and toward pluralistic democracy. Through a documentary podcast, a web-based storytelling and data collection platform, and writing aimed at public audiences, the project aims to promote greater understanding of this field among the public and the field itself, toward the end of strengthening their collective efforts and by extension the foundations of a pluralist democracy. 

Related writing: 

Previous Research Projects

American religion, humility & democracy

This project, launched with an interdisciplinary conference and continued through an essay series at The Immanent Frame and a special volume of Political Power and Social Theory, asks whether religious conviction and humility are at odds with one another, and what the study of religious groups can tell us more generally about the possibility of communicating across social and political differences in an era of heightened polarization.

the politics of (in)civility

This article calls for greater attention to civility contests, in which people demarcate civility from incivility and assign individuals, groups and behaviors to these categories. Through a focus on political protest in the U.S., it reveals how institutionalized power holders, opposing social movements, and the media engage in civility contests in order to justify the control or (de)legitimation of protest, and highlights patterned  disparities in the outcomes of these contests

religion and the 2016 election​

A series of articles analyzes the role of religion in the 2016 election, including one in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology showing that Muslims were framed by GOP candidates as "outsiders, enemies and others" and a second in Sociology of Religion exploring the role of progressive religious groups as carriers of an alternative to Trump's "MAGA" narrative.   

religion and progressive politics

This line of research investigates how progressive religious leaders and communities inject their voices and values into public debates in the United States. My co-edited book (with Todd Nicholas Fuist and Rhys H. Williams), Religion and Progressive Activism: New Stories About Faith and Politics, was published by NYU Press. Additional findings are reported in the American Sociological Review, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and other outlets.

how competing visions of America drive grassroots politics

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Tea Party group and a progressive faith-based community organization, this project portrays grassroots organizing and active citizenship across the political divide. A book based on this research, entitled Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide, was published by the University of California Press. Additional findings are reported in the American Sociological Review, Contexts, Qualitative Sociology and Understanding the Tea Party Movement.