Do bishops matter for politics? Evidence From Italy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lanzara, Gianandrea; Lazzaroni, Sara; Masella, Paolo; Squicciarini, Mara P.
• 署名单位: Bocconi University; University of Bologna; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105177
• 发表日期: 2024
• 关键词: Voting behavior; religion; Bishops; leaders

摘要

This paper studies whether and how religious leaders affect politics. Focusing on Italian dioceses in the period from 1948 to 1992, we find that the identity of the bishop in office explains a significant amount of the variation in the vote share for the Christian Democracy party (DC). This result is robust to several exercises that use different samples and time windows. Zooming into the mechanism, we find that two characteristics of bishops matter: (i) his political culture, and (ii) his interaction with the population-the latter being measured using text-analysis techniques.