Religion, clubs, and emergent social divides

Michael Makowsky

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2011, vol. 80, issue 1, 74-87

Abstract: Arguments regarding the existence of an American cultural divide are frequently placed in a religious context. This paper seeks to establish that, all politics aside, the American religious divide is real, that religious polarization is not a uniquely American phenomenon, and that religious divides can be understood as naturally emergent within the club theory of religion. Analysis of the survey data reveals a bimodal distribution of religious commitment in the U.S. International data reveals evidence of bimodal distributions in all twenty-nine surveyed countries. The club theory of religion, applied in an agent-based computational model, generates bimodal distributions of member commitment.

Keywords: Culture divide; Religious divide; Club theory; Agent-based model; Sacrifice and stigma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 D71 D72 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Religion, Clubs, and Emergent Social Divides (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:80:y:2011:i:1:p:74-87

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2011.02.012

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