Institutionally embeddedness and religious change: Colombia, El Salvador, and Latin America

• In Event: Shifting Religious Social Contexts

Abstract

Why have Evangelicals increased more in some countries than others since the 1970s? Scholars of religion in Latin America have proposed anomie and religious economies theories to explain religious change. However, these theories leave some puzzles unexplained. This paper addresses one of such puzzles: the different religious evolutions between Colombia and El Salvador since 1970. Based on this paired comparison, it argues for a third theory of religious change that draws on theories of historical institutional change and takes the emergence of liberation theology as a critical moment for religious evolution. If in the late 1960s and 1970s the central Church became progressive under liberation theology, it broke with the pre-existing institutional arrangements, leading to state repression. This repression further ended its historic privileges and opened opportunities for Evangelicals to grow out of pre-existing organizational structures. This paper finally offers an initial assessment of the generalizability of this theory in the whole region based on an original dataset. By doing so, it contributes to the literatures on religious change and religion and politics in Latin America, as well as to the broader literature on the sociology of religion.

Author

• Emilio Lehoucq, Northwestern University