Electrical and magnetic phenomena produce radiation - from radio waves to
visible light to gamma rays - and thus critically affect all of astronomy.
Interestingly, however, the direct interactions of electrons, ions and
neutral matter are very complicated to compute mathematically.  So magnetic 
fields and electricity in the universe are acknowledged to be very important
processes in astronomical systems, but are often not calculated
in detail.  To some degree, these processes are often used as a "cosmic fudge
factor," invoked to explain details of observed phenomena when simpler
theories can't explain them.  This unfortunate circumstance is changing as 
mathematical and computational methods improve.