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Religion, Clubs, and Emergent Social Divides

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  • Makowsky, Michael

Abstract

Arguments for and against the existence of an American cultural divide are frequently placed in a religious context. This paper seeks to establish that, all politics aside, the American religious divide is real, that modern religious polarization is not a uniquely American phenomenon, and that religious divides can be understood as naturally emergent within the club theory of religion. Analysis of the 2005 Baylor Religion reveals a bimodal distribution of religious commitment in the US. International survey data reveals bimodal distributions in twenty-eight of thirty surveyed countries. The club theory of religion, when applied in a multi-agent model, generates bimodal distributions of religious commitment whose emergence correlates to substitutability of club goods for standard goods and the mean population wage rate. Ramifications of religious bimodality include potential instability of majority rule electoral outcomes. Median estimators, such as majority rule democracy, are non-robust with bimodal distributions. When religion is politically salient and polarized, small errors can disproportionately shift the election result from the preferences of the median voter.

Suggested Citation

  • Makowsky, Michael, 2009. "Religion, Clubs, and Emergent Social Divides," MPRA Paper 14359, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:14359
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel M. Hungerman, 2014. "Do Religious Proscriptions Matter?: Evidence from a Theory-Based Test," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(4), pages 1053-1093.
    2. Finley, Theresa, 2021. "Free riding in the monastery: Club goods, the cistercian order and agricultural investment in Ancien Regime France," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 318-336.
    3. Fan, Jijian & Friedman, Daniel & Gair, Jonathan & Iyer, Sriya & Redlicki, Bartosz & Velu, Chander, 2021. "A simulation study of how religious fundamentalism takes root," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 465-481.
    4. Chung, Seung-hun & Partridge, Mark, 2023. "Are short-term cultural shocks persistent? Taliban rule and long-run human capital accumulation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 18-49.
    5. Friedman, Daniel. & Fan, Jijian. & Jonathan Gair & Sriya Iyer & Bartosz Redlicki & Chander Velu, 2016. "How Fundamentalism Takes Root: A Simulation Study," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1681, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Culture Divide; Religious Divide; Club Theory; Multi-Agent Model; Sacrifice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques

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