EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Seduction of Religious Clerics and Violence in Autocratic Regimes - with special emphasis on Islam

Jean-Phillipe Platteau () and Petros Sekeris
Additional contact information
Jean-Phillipe Platteau: University of Namur

No 3/2013, NEPS Working Papers from Network of European Peace Scientists

Abstract: In establishing and consolidating strong centralized states absolute monarchs do not rely on sheer force alone but they also resort to the tactic of seduction whereby they buy the loyalty of potential rivals or dissenters. We argue with special reference to the lands of Islam that seduction is not confined to political or military rivals or enemies but may be extended to religious clerics whose legitimizing helps sheltering the absolute ruler from open opposition and defusing potential rebellion. Our model which features three actors, the ruler, the religious authorities, and the common people allows us to identify the conditions under which the ruler is more or less likely to grant substantial material privileges to the official clerics. By positing (1) that official clerics respond not only to material privileges but also to ideological factors, and (2) that their potential contribution to mass protest or revolutionary movements (in the event that the ruler does not choose to treat them well enough) depends on technological/motivational factors encapsulating the influence of the state of communication technologies or the level of inspiration or emulation gained from successful rebellions in other countries, we are able to make useful predictions and, in particular, to shed new light on the Arab Spring.

Keywords: Mass protests; Ideology; Communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2013-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara, nep-cdm and nep-nps
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.europeanpeacescientists.org/3_2013.pdf Full text (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.europeanpeacescientists.org/3_2013.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.europeanpeacescientists.org/3_2013.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:nepswp:2013_003

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NEPS Working Papers from Network of European Peace Scientists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vincenzo Bove ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:ris:nepswp:2013_003