Pre-Colonial Religious Institutions and Development: Evidence through a Military Coup

Abstract

This paper offers a novel illustration of the political economy of religion by examining the impact of religious elites on development. We compile a unique database on holy Muslim shrines across Pakistani Punjab and construct a historical panel of literacy spanning over a century (1901-2011). Using the 1977 military take-over as a universal shock that gave control over public goods to politicians, our difference-in-differences analysis shows that areas with a greater concentration of shrines experienced a substantially retarded growth in literacy after the coup. Our results suggest that the increase in average literacy rate would have been higher by 13% in the post-coup period in the absence of shrine influence. We directly address the selection concern that shrines might be situated in areas predisposed to lower literacy expansion. Finally, we argue that the coup devolved control over public goods to local politicians, and shrine elites, being more averse to education since it undermines their power, suppressed its expansion in shrine-dense areas.

Decentralised Governance: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World

“…The same families have historically acted as natural contenders for political power and have participated in elections held under both colonial rule and Ayub's era (Ewing 1983;Gilmartin 1988). However, the Zia era marked a decisive shift in their politicisation and propelled a significantly larger number of shrine families into electoral politics, as illustrated in the next section (Malik and Malik 2017;Malik and Mirza 2022). One might think that Zia, himself a devout Muslim, gave prime importance to enlisting the support of shrine families.…”

Devolution under autocracy: evidence from Pakistan

“…The same families have historically acted as natural contenders for political power and have participated in elections held under both colonial rule and Ayub's era (Ewing 1983;Gilmartin 1988). However, the Zia era marked a decisive shift in their politicisation and propelled a significantly larger number of shrine families into electoral politics, as illustrated in the next section (Malik and Malik 2017;Malik and Mirza 2022). One might think that Zia, himself a devout Muslim, gave prime importance to enlisting the support of shrine families.…”

Political Dynasties and Local Economic Development in Pakistan (Article)

“…The descendant effect dominates the founder effect thereby resulting in an overall negative effect of dynasties. This suggests that when the subsequent generations of politicians enter into politics, their performance deteriorates to the point that residents of their constituencies become poorer and are left with fewer public goods (George and Ponattu, 2019;Malik, et al 2021).…”

“…Hence, an ideal strategy, in this case, is to compare one set of close election winners with another set of such winners. Accordingly, we compare the performance of dynastic members of national assembly (MNAs) who defeat non-dynastic candidates by a close margin with that of non-dynastic MNAs who defeat dynastic candidates by a similar close margin while using a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) (Galasso and Nannicini, 2011;Malik, et al 2021). As winning an election by a close margin is likely to be random, the use of close elections as an identification strategy minimises the effects of observable and non-observable politicians' characteristics on the probability of winning an election.…”

“…Furthermore, the intensity of electricity shortages was significantly higher in rural constituencies than in urban. Similarly, landholding had played a significant role in the creation of dynastic families in Pakistan (Malik, et al 2021). Restricting the analysis to rural constituencies with various indicators of local development would not only provide the actual effect of dynastic politics on economic development but also will test the validity of the nightlight as a proxy for economic and human development.…”