Supernatural Ties: Religious Beliefs and Practices and Commitment and Cohesion in Politics

Abstract

I propose a general mechanism of religion in politics which is not limited to the use of violent tactics or a particular religious background: religious belief and practice generate strong mutual commitment among individuals in a group and this commitment can, in turn, create political cohesion. This process gives a strong organizational resource to political actors who can successfully link political goals to religious commitment and illuminates three puzzles: first, why do some organizations persist in demanding autonomy or independence for decades while others cease after only a short time? Little is known about the persistence of contentious actors, violent and nonviolent, who may eventually become rebels in a civil war. Linking research on civil war duration, nonviolent contention, and the club model of religion with novel cross-national time series data from a sample of self-determination organizations in Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, and Canada, I find some evidence that organizations based on religion or religion-like ideologies in the sample are more likely to persist. I find stronger evidence that organizations persist when they encourage membership practices (such as religious study or dress codes) through which individual members demonstrate public commitment to the group.

Second, why do some politicians offer an overt religious basis for their policies? Overt religious rhetoric can harm a politician’s standing with less religious voters in the United States, and positive stereotypes of religious people are diminishing. Still, even politicians who depend on less religious voters sometimes use overt rhetoric instead of subtler religious cues. In two survey experiments, I find that religious rhetoric does not increase the level of a voter’s confidence that a politician is committed to a noncontroversial policy in an undergraduate sample nor to a controversial policy in a national sample in the United States, but it does increase the probability that a voter becomes completely convinced of a politician’s commitment to a controversial policy, though not among Democrats, nor does visible participation in a congregation affect this signal.

Third, what keeps some civil wars from resuming after violence has stopped? Previous research has shown religious civil wars are likely to recur due to time-invariant factors of issue indivisibility and information uncertainty. Using existing data on secessionist rebels from 1975 to 2009, I find evidence that recruitment from religious networks drives recurrence. Giving religious constituencies equal access to political power and reaching formal ceasefires or agreements with territorial rebels discourages rebels from mobilizing that network for a return to fighting and makes them no more likely to return than nonreligious territorial rebels.

These results identify a general process of religion applicable across different religious backgrounds and political contexts: cohesion from practices, often related to religion, which allow individuals to signal their commitment to a group. Identifying this process makes the study of religion in politics less context limited giving a starting point for future research.