Political Regulation of Norms: Religious Education and Voting as Substitutes

• In Event: Autocratic Dynamism and Democratic Backsliding in MENA

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, religious parties have dominated Turkish politics. Yet, districts that have seen the largest rise in AKP (the ascendant religious party) vote share have seen a greater decline in enrollment in religious schools and no increase in other measures of religiosity. Hence, the rise of religious politics is neither a consequence — nor a cause — of rising religiosity or indoctrination via schooling. We propose a model that explains the connection between religiosity and voting for religious parties in terms of the political regulation of social norms. Parents with a religious identity wish to regulate the behavior of their children. They can do so via internal control mechanisms such as religious schooling, or by attempting to shape their social environment by voting for religious parties. This external control mechanism only works when religious parties receive sufficient vote share to gain representation. In such an environment, religious education and religious voting are substitutes. We find support for this theory using district-level data on Turkish vote shares and educational choice from 1981-2019. This is a period of significant economic development, with greater relative returns for secular schools. We assess whether districts that just cross the threshold of AKP representation experience the greatest decline in religious school enrollment. We use placebo tests to rule out other mechanisms and examine whether parents indeed substitute religious voting for religious education as returns to the latter decline.

Authors

• Avital Livny, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Jared Rubin, Chapman University