Electoral Institutions and Religious Clientelism in Post-war Italy

• In Event: The Politics of Church and State

Abstract

Religious leaders are powerful electoral mobilizers, capable of moving blocks of votes in support of their preferred candidates. Yet, how do incumbents reciprocate this support? Focusing on the case of post-war Italy, this paper investigates whether elected politicians use state resources to secure the support of religious groups and their leaders. To this purpose, we have collected georeferenced information on the renovation history of about 35,000 buildings owned by the Catholic Church in Italy. Drawing on established models of clientelism and distributive politics, we argue that electoral districts represented by Christian democratic (DC) politicians are more likely to receive state transfers to build or renovate their churches. We test this argument by exploiting variation in DC representation at the level of Senate districts between 1948 and 1992 with a difference-in-differences approach. The analysis shows that districts represented by DC senators have more investments in churches, but only in the core regions of the DC. The findings highlight the reciprocal relationship between church and state officials.

Authors

• Massimo Troncone, ETH Zurich

• Roberto Valli, Princeton University