Mosques and Local Goods Provision in Tunisia

• In Event: Power and Promotion: Local Governance in the MENA

Abstract

Particularly outside the developed world, religious institutions often take on important non-worship-based roles in local communities, from meeting halls, to hubs of charity, to centers of dispute resolution, to opportunities for political linkages. Yet within countries, and even inside religious traditions, these features of local governance often vary widely. We document and investigate this variation in Tunisia, blending an original, nationally representative population survey with census and electoral data to identify the conditions under which mosques assume certain characteristics across hundreds of Tunisian communities. We find that focusing on areas where Ennahda candidates are in control of local or national government, mosques are systematically more likely to be used for political purposes, including collecting information about government policies and contacting elected officials. Our research adds empirical weight to a growing interest in the local politics of governance and goods provision while extending theoretical study of the so-called “Islamist Advantage.”

Authors

• Steven Brooke, University of Wisconsin- Madison

• Monica Komer, University of Wisconsin--Madison