Legal centralization and the birth of the secular state

Noel Johnson () and Mark Koyama

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2013, vol. 41, issue 4, 959-978

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between the historical process of legal central- ization and increased religious toleration by the state. We develop a model based on the mathematics of mixture distributions which delineates the conditions under which legal centralization raises the costs faced by states of setting a narrow standard of orthodox belief. We compare the results of the model with historical evidence drawn from two important cases in which religious diversity and state centralization collided in France: the Albigensian crusades of the thirteenth century and the rise of Protestant belief in the sixteenth century.

Keywords: State capacity; Religion; Secularization; Heresy; Legal capacity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H10 K42 N43 P48 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Working Paper: Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:41:y:2013:i:4:p:959-978

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2013.08.001

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