Exporting Utah’s Theocracy Since 1975: Mormon Organizational Behavior and America’s Culture Wars Contrary to most theocracies, Mormon Utah has always required democratic participation for its theocracy. Two major transitions bracketed the twentieth-century manifestation of Utah Mormon theocracy. Beginning in the 1890s, Utah’s democratic theocracy had to confront significant political dissent from faithful Mormons and to accommodate non-Mormon political power. By the 1990s, the non-Mormon accommodation persisted, but internal dissent had become politically insignificant. Of greater interest was the process by which LDS headquarters after 1975 exported its democratic theocracy to the nation at large. This required politicizing the Mormon rank-and-file’s adoration of the living prophet, claiming that decisions of the hierarchy are without error, appealing to basic fears within the national population, forging political alliances with formerly hostile religious groups, and organizing a permanent LDS network for political activism on national, state, regional, and local levels. The result is that LDS headquarters in Utah can determine the outcome of political votes in states which have less than one percent Mormon population. By any standard, this is an extraordinary development in American politics and society. Place at end of abstract: This presentation will appear as an essay in the forthcoming book, Church and State in Utah, sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Utah

D. Michael Quinn