Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:02:49.874Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pentecostalism as an Informal Political Institution: Experimental Evidence from Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

John F. McCauley
John F. McCauley*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: John F. McCauley, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Informal institutions continue to govern political exchange in Africa, but the traditional, ethnic-based form of “big man rule” is now threatened by an alternative informal institution — charismatic Pentecostalism. This study evaluates the status of Pentecostalism empirically, in a micro-level experiment in Ghana. Using data from a variant of the dictator game, in which participants divide a resource endowment with randomly assigned partners as well as cultural leaders, the study provides evidence of Pentecostal exclusivity, excessive allegiance to leaders, and a shift away from ethnic-based patronage to Pentecostal patronage. As Pentecostalism continues to expand, these findings suggest a modification in the exchange of resources for loyalty in Africa, and grounds for viewing the movement as a new form of big man rule in the region.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 761 - 787
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adida, Claire, Laitin, David, and Valfort, Marie-Anne. Forthcoming. “Muslims in France: Identifying a Discriminatory Equilibrium.” Journal of Population Economics doi:10.1007/s00148-01p-0512-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adida, Claire, Laitin, David, and Valfort, Marie-Anne. 2010. “Identifying Barriers to Muslim Integration in France.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107: 22384–22390.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, Allan H. 2014. An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Kate. 2013. “Why Vote with the Chief? Political Connections and Public Goods Provision in Zambia.” American Journal of Political Science 57: 794–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bardsley, Nicholas. 2008. “Dictator Game Giving: Altruism or Artefact?” Experimental Economics 11: 122–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Ner, Avner, Kong, Fanmin, and Putterman, Louis. 2002. “Share and Share Alike? Intelligence, Socialization, Personality, and Gender-Pairing as Determinants of Giving.” HRRI Working Paper 10-02, Industrial Relations Center, University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Ben-Ner, Avner, Putterman, Louis, Kong, Fanmin, and Magan, Dan. 2004. “Reciprocity in a Two-part Dictator Game.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 53: 333–352.Google Scholar
Bratton, Michael. 2007. “Formal versus Informal Institutions in Africa.” Journal of Democracy 18: 96–110.Google Scholar
Camerer, Colin F. 2003. Behavioral Game Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2004. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cherry, Todd L., Frykblom, Peter, and Shogren, Jason. 2002. “Hardnose the Dictator.” American Economic Review 92: 1218–1221.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John. 1999. “Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony.” American Ethnologist 26: 279–303.Google Scholar
Conroy-Krutz, Jeffrey. 2012. “Information and Ethnic Politics in Africa.” British Journal of Political Science 43: 345–373.Google Scholar
Diekmann, Andreas. 2004. “The Power of Reciprocity: Fairness, Reciprocity, and Stakes in Variants of the Dictator Game.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48: 487–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckel, Catherine C., and Grossman, Philip. 1996. “Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games.” Games and Economic Behavior 16: 181–191.Google Scholar
Economist. 2010. “Slain by the Spirit: The Rise of Christian Fundamentalism in the Horn of Africa.” http://www.economist.com/node/16488830 (Accessed on December 20, 2013).Google Scholar
Fehr, E., and Leibbrandt, A.. 2008. “Cooperativeness and Impatience in the Tragedy of the Commons.” Working Paper No. 378, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich.Google Scholar
Fowler, James H. 2006. “Altruism and Turnout.” Journal of Politics 68: 674–683.Google Scholar
Franzen, Axel, and Pointner, Sonja. 2013. “The External Validity of Giving in the DictatorGame: A Field Experiment Using the Misdirected Letter Technique.” Experimental Economics 16: 155–169.Google Scholar
Freston, Paul. 2001. Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gifford, Paul. 2004. Ghana's New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Habyarimana, James, Humphreys, Macartan, Posner, Daniel N., and Weinstein, Jeremy M.. 2007. “Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?” American Political Science Review 101: 709–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmke, Gretchen, and Levitsky, Steven. 2004. “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda.” Perspectives on Politics 2: 725–740.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Elizabeth, McCabe, Kevin, Shachat, Keith, and Smith, Vernon. 1994. “Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Experiments.” Games and Economic Behavior 7: 346–80.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald L. 1991. “A Democratic South Africa?” In Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley University Press.Google Scholar
Hyden, Goran. 2006. African Politics in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kalu, Ogbu. 2008. African Pentecostalism: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Karlan, D.S. 2005. “Using Experimental Economics to Measure Social Capital and Predict Financial Decisions.” The American Economic Review 95: 1688–1699.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Robert R. 1974. “The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics: Prospects and Problems.” Comparatives Studies in Society and History 16: 284–308.Google Scholar
Kenny, Paul D. 2013. “The Origins of Patronage Politics: State Building, Centrifugalism, and Decolonization.” British Journal of Political Science doi:10.1017/S000712341300015X.Google Scholar
Kessides, Christine. 2005. “The Urban Transition In Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications For Economic Growth And Poverty Reduction.” Working Paper No. 97, World Bank Transport and Urban Development Department.Google Scholar
Laitin, David D. 1986. Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change among the Yoruba. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lawless, Elaine J. 1988. God's Peculiar People: Women's Voices and Folk Tradition in a Pentecostal Church. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press.Google Scholar
List, John A. 2007. “On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games.” Journal of Political Economy 115: 482–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemarchand, René. 1972. “Political Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa: Competing Solidarities in Nation-building.” American Political Science Review, 66: 68-90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindberg, Staffan I. 2006. Democracy and Elections in Africa. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Logan, Carolyn. 2013. “The Roots of Resilience: Exploring Popular Support for African Traditional Authorities.” African Affairs 112: 353–376.Google Scholar
Marshall, Ruth. 2009. Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, David. 1998. “Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty? Pentecostalism, Prosperity, and Modernity in Zimbabwe.” Journal of Religion in Africa, 28: 350–373.Google Scholar
McCauley, John F. 2013. “Africa's New Big Man Rule? Pentecostalism and Patronage in Ghana.” African Affairs 112: 1–21.Google Scholar
Meagher, Kate. 2009. “Trading on Faith: Religious Movements and Informal Economics Governance in Nigeria.” Journal of Modern African Studies 47: 397–423.Google Scholar
Merdjanova, Ina. 2001. “Religious Liberty, New Religious Movements and Traditional Christian Churches in Eastern Europe.” Religion, State, and Society 29: 265–304.Google Scholar
Meyer, Birgit. 1998. “The Power of Money: Politics, Occult Forces, and Pentecostalism in Ghana.” African Studies Review 41: 15–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Donald E., and Yamamori, Tetsunao. 2007. Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Forum, Pew. 2006. “Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals.” http://www.pewforum.org/2006/10/05/overview-pentecostalism-in-africa/ (Accessed on December 23, 2013).Google Scholar
Posner, Daniel N. 2005. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, Daniel N., and Young, Daniel J.. 2007. “The Institutionalization of Political Power in Africa.” Journal of Democracy 18, 3: 126–140.Google Scholar
Schenker, Nathaniel, and Gentleman, Jane F.. 2001. “On Judging the Significance of Differences by Examining the Overlap between Confidence Intervals.” The American Statistician 55: 182–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Susan C. 2005. “Perverse Accountability: A Formal Model of Machine Politics with Evidence from Argentina.” American Political Science Review 99: 315–325.Google Scholar
Stoop, J. 2012. “From the Lab to the Field: Envelopes, Dictators and Manners.” Munich Personal RePEc Archive, Working Paper No. 37048.Google Scholar
Ubink, Janine M. 2008. In the Land of the Chiefs: Customary Law, Land Conflicts, and the Role of the State in Peri-Urban Ghana. Leiden: Leiden University Press.Google Scholar
Van de Walle, Nicolas. 2003. “Presidentialism and Clientelism in Africa's Emerging Party Systems.” Journal of Modern African Studies 41: 297–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitt, Sam, and Wilson, Rick K.. 2007. “The Dictator Game, Fairness, and Ethnicity in Postwar Bosnia.” American Journal of Political Science 51: 655–668.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2012. “World Development Indicators, ‘Data: Indicators’.” http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators (Accessed November 20, 2013).Google Scholar