In Hoc Signo Vinces—an Exploratory Study on the Impact of Religion on Violence in Sport

Vincenzo Alfano (), Massimo Guarino and Francesca Rotondo
Additional contact information
Vincenzo Alfano: DiSEGIM, University of Napoli “Parthenope”
Massimo Guarino: Italian Ministry of Culture
Francesca Rotondo: Italian Agency for Territorial Cohesion

Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 2023, vol. 6, issue 3, No 6, 200-214

Abstract: Abstract Does religion continue to spur violence even in contemporary times? This work aims to shed some light on the relationship between belonging to a given religion and violent behavior. Whereas religions often preach love and caring for others (meaning that among believers, a decrease in the level of violence may be registered), at the same time, it could be argued that a religious sense of belonging shapes self-identity and that in challenging situations this increases violence, especially towards foreigners. To test this hypothesis, we gathered data about yellow and red cards from the FIFA World Cup, obtaining a dataset of quasi-experimental data on violence, which we integrated with the Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project. Via a quantitative analysis that employs different estimators, our results show that the more Christians there are in a country, the more violent its national team will be, whereas the more Buddhists there are, the less violent the team will be. No significant relationship is found with regard to Jews or Muslims. Finally, when investigating Christian confessions, Eastern Christians appear to show the most violent behavior.

Keywords: Violence; Sport; Religion; FIFA; Quasi experimental; Z29; Z12; Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41996-023-00115-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:joerap:v:6:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s41996-023-00115-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... policy/journal/41996

DOI: 10.1007/s41996-023-00115-1

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy is currently edited by Gary A. Hoover

More articles in Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().