Preaching Democracy

Thomas Andersen and Peter Jensen

No 4/2017, Discussion Papers on Economics from University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper presents evidence that the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) exerted a critical influence on the evolution of democracy worldwide, a view first advanced in the seminal work of Huntington (1991). We gather qualitative case-study evidence on how the Catholic Church influenced the post-Conciliar democratization process in different national contexts. We also adopt a difference-in-difference estimation strategy to show that Vatican II strongly predicts different measures of democracy. Taken together, the evidence substantiates Huntington’s dictum that the third wave of democratization was a Catholic wave.

Keywords: Democracy; third wave; religion; Catholic Church; Second Vatican Council; causal-process observations; difference-in-difference estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N40 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2017-03-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his and nep-pol
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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