Religious Competition and Ethnic Mobilization in Latin America: Why the Catholic Church Promotes Indigenous Movements in Mexico

Abstract

This article suggests that a society's religious market structure can explain whether religion is “the opium of the people” or a major source of dissident secular mobilization. I present a simple model explaining why under monopolistic conditions, Catholic clergy in Latin America ignored the religious and social needs of poor rural indigenous parishioners but, when confronted by the expansion of U.S. mainline Protestantism, became major institutional promoters of rural indigenous causes. Catholic indigenous parishioners empowered by competition demanded the same benefits their Protestant neighbors were receiving: social services, ecclesiastic decentralization, and the practice of religion in their own language. Unable to decentralize ecclesiastic hierarchies, and facing a reputation deficit for having sided with rich and powerful elites for centuries, Catholic clergy stepped into the secular realm and became active promoters of indigenous movements and ethnic identities; they embraced the cause of the Indians as a member retention strategy and not in response to new doctrinal ideas emanating from Vatican II. Drawing on an original data set of indigenous mobilization in Mexico and on life histories and case studies, I provide quantitative and qualitative evidence of the causal effect of religious competition on the creation of the social bases for indigenous ethnic mobilization.

Religious Engagement, Civic Skills, and Political Participation in Latin America

“…Outside of the American politics literature, however, the focus on civic skills is often overlooked in favor of studies examining direct religious mobilization (but see McClendon and Riedl 2015) or cases in one country or localized region (e.g., Hale 2015Hale , 2018Rink 2018;Smith 102 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION 2016; Trejo 2009). While much of this literature likewise focuses on religious affiliation, it predominantly assesses how different churches coordinate religious responses to public policy or other government activity through explicitly political means.…”

Unbroken Links? From Imperial Human Capital to Post-Communist Modernisation

“…Scholars have also demonstrated how Protestant Christianity in various contexts in turn spurred intense inter-denominational competition and gradual interchurch convergence in the provision of mass education, as opposed to that available solely to the higher elite or clergy (Berger 1969;Bayly 1989;Frykenberg 2003;Zhuk 2004). Thus, in contexts where the Protestant Church had become an important provider of schooling for disadvantaged groups, the Catholic Church has also shown a greater willingness to sponsor education as a means to attract or retain adherents (Trejo 2009;Woodberry 2004). By contrast, Eastern Christian traditions, not exposed to conversionary Protestant Christianity, as well as such other religions as Islam, discouraged the development of mass literacy.…”

Conscience and Context: Attitudes Toward Abortion in Mexico

“…In addition, the influence of the northern region may be a function of proximity to the United States (which may entail exposure to diverse religions, and perhaps to missionary activity by evangelical Protestants), resulting in more “pro‐life” attitudes. Indeed, as Ramirez (:194) notes in his brief account of evangelical missionaries in Mexico: “The border states and territories often represented training ground for missionary personnel preparing for assignments farther south in Mexico or in the Caribbean and Latin America.” The resulting religious competition, as well as more general exposure to Protestantism, may in turn occasion countermobilization on the part of Catholic leaders in the northern region (see Trejo, ). Chi‐square comparisons of the northern region to other areas show that residents of northern Mexico are significantly more likely to take conservative positions on euthanasia and homosexuality.…”