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Foreshadowing Mars: Religiosity and pre-Enlightenment warfare

Author

Listed:
  • Barber, Luke
  • Jetter, Michael
  • Krieger, Tim
Abstract
Can religiosity sway a society's propensity for violence against outgroups? We first introduce two state-year-level religiosity measures for several pre-Enlightenment European states with the frequencies of religious language in book publications and Christian names of newborns. To identify causal effects on warfare, we exploit the local visibility of solar eclipses - phenomena orthogonal to climatic, cultural, economic, environmental, and institutional developments that, in pre-Enlightenment Europe, were overwhelmingly viewed as supernatural, religious events. Accounting for dyad- and year-fixed effects, we observe positive, statistically significant, and quantitatively sizeable effects on subsequent attack war onset. Reduced form estimates, robustness checks (e.g., acknowledging dyad-specific time trends), and placebo exercises yield consistent patterns. Exploring mechanisms, religious terminology explicit to religious outgroups (specifically Jews and Muslims) spikes in solar eclipse years and predicts attack war onset, particularly against Islamic states. Finally, consistent with the idea of a religious primer highlighting ingroup-outgroup demarcations and exacerbating tensions along such lines, city-year-level solar eclipses also predict Jewish expulsions and witch trials in pre-Enlightenment Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • Barber, Luke & Jetter, Michael & Krieger, Tim, 2023. "Foreshadowing Mars: Religiosity and pre-Enlightenment warfare," Discussion Paper Series 2023-03, University of Freiburg, Wilfried Guth Endowed Chair for Constitutional Political Economy and Competition Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wgspdp:279791
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    religiosity; warfare; ingroup-outgroup demarcations; anti-Semitism; witch trials;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • F51 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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