Institutions, Corruption/Prosperity, and Religion (A), (B), (D), (1), (3), (6)

Jason García Portilla
Additional contact information
Jason García Portilla: University of St. Gallen

Chapter Chapter 8 in Ye Shall Know Them by Their Fruits, 2022, pp 77-123 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter characterises the relations between religion, institutions, and the transparency–prosperity nexus. It explains how economic prosperity, democracy, and transparency are part of a feedback loop that constitutes a single phenomenon. More importantly, this chapter deepens the institutional analysis by concentrating on the particular historical influence of religion on the different legal traditions in Europe and the Americas. It is the cornerstone of Part 3 and, as such, of the entire book. The Reformation brought forth a wide range of modern institutions. Among these, education and democracy are the most crucial ones for ensuring prosperity/transparency outcomes. Likewise, Protestantism has impacted the secularisation of the state in Protestant countries (and also in Roman Catholics, albeit to a lesser, more indirect extent). Protestantism fosters horizontal power relations and secular-rational attitudes towards authority. Thus, such egalitarian and secular attitudes are linked to greater transparency and prosperity. The Lutheran German Revolution formed the basis of the various later Protestant, dissenting revolutions and legal traditions (i.e. British and American). Some of its concepts (e.g. separation of state functions from the church; state-sponsored education) permeate all modern legal systems to this day and ended the monopoly of Roman canon law. Regardless of the advances made by Roman Catholicism in the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II: 1962–1965), corporatist ideologies remain prevalent, mostly in Latin America. But while Roman Catholic discourse has shifted, the institutional inertia persists and maintains the hierarchical status quo and longstanding feudal structures.

Keywords: Institutions; Religious institutions; Democracy; Prosperity; Roman Catholicism; Vatican II; Protestantism; Revolutions; Legal traditions; Roman law; Canon law; Common law; Biblical law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:conchp:978-3-030-78498-0_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030784980

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-78498-0_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Contributions to Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().