Ruth Braunstein is a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute. Before joining JHU, she was Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. A cultural sociologist interested in the role of religion and morality in American political life, Ruth's award-winning research has been published in the top peer-reviewed journals in her field, and has been covered in major news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Time Magazine. She also writes frequently for public audiences, including at The Guardian, Religion News Service, and The Conversation, and in her weekly Substack Democracy Is Hard

Ruth‘s research, writing and teaching have been recognized by numerous awards and fellowships. She received the inaugural Distinguished Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association’s Religion Section, and her former department’s 2021 Faculty Mentor Award. 

She is currently President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University, and Chair of the Board of Directors of PRRI.

She earned her doctoral degree in sociology from New York University and her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University. She is originally from Atlanta, GA.

Ruth Braunstein is the author of My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America (Princeton University Press), which examines how the mundane act of taxpaying can, under certain circumstances, become infused with intense moral significance — sometimes positive, sometimes negative — with major implications for American politics and institutions. This project is supported by grants from the Louisville Institute, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, and the University of Connecticut. 

She also produced and hosts the audio documentary When the Wolves Came: Evangelicals Resisting Extremism, a documentary podcast that spotlights evangelical leaders who are resisting political extremism in their church and the country. When the Wolves Came is a project of the Meanings of Democracy Lab, which Ruth directs, and The Mash-Up Americans, and was created with support from the Henry Luce Foundation.   

She is also the author of Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide, a comparative ethnographic study of progressive faith-based community organizing and Tea Party activism; and co-editor of Religion and Progressive Activism: New Stories About Faith and Politics. 

I will be teaching Introduction to Sociology in Spring 2026. 

Selected publications include: 

BOOKS:

2025 Braunstein, Ruth. April 2025. My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America. Princeton University Press.

2019 Braunstein, Ruth, Ed. 2019. Religion, Humility and Democracy in a Divided America (Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 36). Emerald Publishing Limited.  

2017 Braunstein, Ruth. 2017. Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide. University of California Press.

2017 Braunstein, Ruth, Todd Nicholas Fuist and Rhys H. Williams, Eds. 2017. Religion and Progressive Activism: New Stories about Faith and Politics. NYU Press.

EDITED SPECIAL ISSUE:

2019 Braunstein, Ruth, Ed. 2019. Religion, Humility and Democracy in a Divided America (Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 36). Emerald Publishing Limited.

PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES:

Perry, Samuel L. and Ruth Braunstein. 2025. “Not Paying Unto Caesar: Christian Nationalism, Politics, Race, and Opposition to Taxation.” Social Forces. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf041

Braunstein, Ruth. 2024. "Toward a Cultural Sociology of Taxation." Socio-Economic Review, 22(2): 931–952. 

​Braunstein, Ruth, 2022. "A Theory of Political Backlash: Assessing the Religious Right’s Effects on the Religious Field." Sociology of Religion. 83(3): 293–323.​

Winner of the Distinguished Article Award from the American Sociological Association Section on the Sociology of Religion

Winner of the Distinguished Article Award Honorable Mention from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion​

Braunstein, Ruth, Andrew Whitehead, and Ryan Burge. 2021. “Religion, Politics, and Public Funding for Abortion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 61(1): 230-41.

Perry, Samuel L., Ruth Braunstein, Philip S. Gorski, Joshua B. Grubbs. 2021. “Historical Fundamentalism? Christian Nationalism and Ignorance about Religion in American Political History.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 61(1): 21-40.

Braunstein, Ruth. 2021. “The ‘Right’ History: Religion, Race, and Nostalgic Stories of Christian America.” Religions 12(2): 95.

Baker, Joseph O., Gerardo Martí, Ruth Braunstein, Andrew L Whitehead, Grace Yukich. 2020. “Editor’s Note: Religion in the Age of Social Distancing: How COVID-19 Presents New Directions for Research.” Sociology of Religion 81(4): 357–370. 

Braunstein, Ruth. 2018. Boundary-work and the demarcation of civil from uncivil protest in the United States: control, legitimacy, and political inequality. Theory and Society 47(5): 603-633.

Braunstein, Ruth. 2018. A (more) perfect union? Religion, politics, and competing stories of America. Sociology of Religion 79(2): 172–195.

Braunstein, Ruth. 2017. Muslims as outsiders, enemies and others: The 2016 presidential campaign and the politics of religious exclusion. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 5(3): 355-372.

Braunstein, Ruth and Malaena Taylor. 2017. Is the Tea Party a “religious” movement? Religiosity in the Tea Party versus the Religious Right. Sociology of Religion 78(1): 33-59. 

Braunstein, Ruth. 2015. The Tea Party goes to Washington: Mass demonstrations as performative and interactional processes.” Qualitative Sociology 38(4): 353-374. (Lead article).

Yukich, Grace and Ruth Braunstein. 2014. Encounters at the religious edge: Variation in religious expression across interfaith advocacy and social movement spaces. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53(4): 791-807.

Braunstein, Ruth, Brad R. Fulton, and Richard L. Wood. 2014. The role of bridging cultural practices in racially and socioeconomically diverse civic organizations. American Sociological Review 79(4): 705-25. 

Winner of the Clifford Geertz Best Article Award from the American Sociological Association Section on the Sociology of Culture 

Winner of the Dennis Gouran Research Award from the Group Communication Division of the National Communication Association

Braunstein, Ruth. 2012. Storytelling in liberal religious advocacy. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 51(1):110-127.

Winner of Graduate Student Paper Award Honorable Mention from the American Sociological Association Section on the Sociology of Religion

MULTIMEDIA:

2025 When the Wolves Came: Evangelicals Resisting Extremism. Executive Produced by Ruth Braunstein (Meanings of Democracy Lab) and Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer (The Mash-Up Americans)