Religion, Ethnicity, and Public Goods Provision across Latin America

• In Event: Religious-Based Mobilization

Abstract

Ethnic heterogeneity is often found to have a negative relationship with public goods provision. There are many exceptions to this general trend, however, and religious institutions sometimes help various ethnic groups work together towards achieving the provision a wide range of public goods (including populist political activism). At the same time, religious groups can exacerbate ethnic tensions and make cross-ethnic collaboration even more difficult. Under what conditions do religious institutions mitigate (or exacerbate) the oft found negative relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and public goods provision?

Utilizing a new statistical dataset developed from a variety of sources, this study provides a cross-national comparison across Latin America to assess the potential impact of several religious factors in influencing the relationship between ethnicity and public goods provision. These include various forms of church and state accommodation, the presence of religious competition, and specific religious theological and institutional factors. In doing so, it utilizes various measures of public goods provision including education expenditure, infant mortality, political participation, and railroad tracks per square kilometer. It also utilizes several measures of ethnicity as suggested by previous literature.

Author

• Christopher Hale, University of Alabama