Religious Cycles of Government Responsiveness

• In Event: Political Economy of the MENA Region: A Pluralist Approach

Abstract

Across the Muslim World, incumbents express more responsiveness to citizens' economic concerns and extend economic support for lower income groups during the Islamic season of Ramadan. Motivated by this observation, this paper asks why governments in Muslim countries distribute more in Ramadan. Focusing on the case of Egypt, I argue that governments use distribution in Ramadan to: (1) address long-term challenges to their survival by establishing ties with weak supporters and hard-to-buy voters, and (2) insure against short-term threats of mass collective actions heightened by the season's religious norms and rituals. To test this argument, I employ an original municipality-level dataset of government-reported provision of distributive benefits. The findings show that the government reports more economic distribution in places where: (1) electoral support for the incumbent is low, (2) socioeconomic development is high, and (3) the threat of collective action is credible. I also show that this seasonality in distributive policies reflects on budgetary operations, by increasing government expenditures on welfare-related items in anticipation of the season. These findings enrich debates on the role of religion in governance and distributive politics.

Author

• Ahmed Mohamed, Columbia University