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  5. Beliefs in Supernatural Forces and Politics
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Beliefs in Supernatural Forces and Politics

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (CST)

Marriott Rivercenter, Conference Room 21
Hosted By: Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics & Association for Comparative Economic Studies
  • Chair: Jared Rubin, Chapman University

The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power and People

Paul Seabright
,
Toulouse School of Economics

Abstract

Discussion in recent years about a perceived decline in the importance of religion in North America and parts of Western Europe masks a deeper truth. At the world level, the importance of religion in people's lives describes varying trajectories across countries, rising in some and falling in others, with no clear trend visible on average. There seem to be many countries where religiosity is fairly low and stable, and many where it is fairly high and stable. Apparent declines or increases in religiosity in various countries may reflect, not secular long-term trends but movements from a high stable state to a low stable state or vice versa. Two main factors seem to influence the importance accorded to religion in different countries. The first is the extent to which religious movements can offer their members community benefits, both spiritual and material, that secular institutions in their country do not. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, but also innovative Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist organizations have been able to grow in strength in recent years in this way, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The second is the extent to which religion is perceived as relatively politically neutral. When it comes instead to be perceived as politically partisan, it gradually loses legitimacy with those members of the population who are not natural supporters of the political regime. Religion may gain legitimacy, as it did under Communism in many countries, by standing up for individuals of all political persuasions who are threatened by authoritarian regimes ; the growth of Orthodox Christianity in the last three decades, as well as Catholicism in Poland, are striking examples. However, religion may lose legitimacy where it is perceived as having been instrumentalized by partisan political interests.

Supernatural Authority and Political Power in the DRC

Sara Lowes
,
University of California-San Diego
Eduardo Montero
,
University of Chicago
Nathan Nunn
,
University of British Columbia
James A. Robinson
,
University of Chicago

Abstract

In Central Africa witchcraft has two faces, a private one (where it is used by witches) and a public one (where it is used by chiefs or political authorities). A large ethnographic literature suggests that it is desirable for chiefs to exercise such powers, known as bokoko in Congo, if only to protect people from the private use of witchcraft. We implemented a survey where we collected information on the supernatural powers of chiefs in Equateur Province of the DRC. We find that in villages where chiefs are chosen by election, rather than inherit their position, they are reported to have substantially higher supernatural abilities. We show that the greater the bokoko of a chief, the better able they are to protect the village. However, chiefs with higher levels of bokoko are not trusted. Our results suggest that the nature of supernatural beliefs creates a very different type of political economy.

Freedoms Delayed: Political Legacies of Islamic Law

Timur Kuran
,
Duke University

Abstract

The Middle East is the world’s least free region. Civic life is weak. Religious freedoms are limited. Autocratic rule is the norm. Such patterns are legacies of classical Islamic law, which developed during Islam’s initial centuries and is now generally inoperative. Islamic institutions shaped political development most basically through five channels: rules for providing social services (which kept civic life anemic), the Quran’s tax rules (which, though designed to strengthen property rights, led to arbitrary taxation), Islamic partnership and inheritance rules (which kept enterprises small and ephemeral), legal individualism (which, by denying legal standing to organizations, hindered political checks and balances), and blasphemy and apostasy rules (which restricted religious freedoms and impoverished political discourses). Thwarting liberal variants of Islam, Islamic institutions convinced modernizing Muslims that to protect their own freedoms they must repress public expressions of Islam. The repressiveness of assertively secularist regimes establishes not Islam’s irrelevance to political outcomes but that regimes with an Islamic identity have no monopoly on illiberalism. Middle Eastern regimes of all stripes operate within an opportunity set rooted in the region’s history. Although there is no quick fix for the region’s prevailing illiberalism, some key prerequisites of a liberal order are already in place.

The Reformation, Political Legitimacy, and the Tudor Roots of England’s Constitutional Governance

Avner Greif
,
Stanford University
Jared Rubin
,
Chapman University

Abstract

This paper highlights the importance of endogenous changes in the foundations of legitimacy for political regimes. It focuses on the central role of legitimacy changes in the rise of constitutional monarchy in England. It first defines legitimacy and briefly elaborates a theoretical framework enabling a historical study of this unobservable variable. It proceeds to substantiate that the low-legitimacy, post-Reformation Tudor monarchs of the 16th century promoted Parliament to enhance their legitimacy, thereby changing the legislative process from the “Crown and Parliament” to the “Crown in Parliament” that still prevails in England.
JEL Classifications
  • Z1 - Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology
  • P0 - General