Religion and Political Power

Revolt on the Nile: Economic Shocks, Religion, and Political Power

Religion , Political Identity and Public Health Delivery

This paper analyzes whether the religious identity of political leaders in India influences policy-determined variation in health outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. In order to analyze the causal effect of the religious identity of politicians, we take advantage of the fact that some Muslim politicians contested in close elections against non...

Political Religion and Church-State Issues

In this paper we examine public attitudes on the role of religion in the American political process, as well as some public policy implications of those attitudes. Although the current American legal regime may lean toward strict separationism, the political system has seen renewed religious activism over the past three decades. Historically, religious involvement in American politics has been ...

Islam ’ s Bloody Innards ? Religion and Political Terror , 1980 – 2000

Culturalists claim that political outcomes, such as respect for human rights, are deeply rooted in culture. Some have singled out Islam as particularly problematic. We assess whether Muslim societies suffer higher levels of political terror compared with others. Our results show that countries containing larger shares of Catholics, and those dominated by Catholics, fare the worst. The share of ...

The Political Economy of Religion , Individual Liberties , and Redistribution

In this paper we study the role of religiosity in political choices such as redistribution and individual liberties. To a standard model with consumption and effort, we add a third good: civil liberties with a cap established by law. More liberties, like divorce, abortion, gender parity, or gay marriage, may be considered good by the secular and detrimental by the religious individuals. With st...