The Political Sources of Religious Identification: Evidence from the Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire Border

Abstract

Under what conditions does religion become a salient social identity? By measuring religious attachment among the people living astride the Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire border in West Africa, an arbitrary boundary that exposes otherwise similar individuals to different political contexts, this article makes a case for the importance of the political environment in affecting the weight that people attach to their religious identities. After ruling out explanations rooted in the proportion of different religious denominations, the degree of secularization and the supply of religious institutions on either side of the border, as well as differences in the degree of religious pluralism at the national level, it highlights the greater exposure of Ivorian respondents to the politicization of religion during Côte d’Ivoire’s recent civil conflict. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the power – and challenges – of exploiting Africa’s arbitrary borders as a source of causal leverage.

Identification with Religion: Cross‐National Evidence from a Social Psychological Perspective

“…Kachanoff and colleagues () report a U‐shaped relationship between how positively or negatively people feel toward their religious group and how psychologically central their religious identity is (based on data from Canada and South Africa). Relatedly, McCauley and Posner () find that religious identification increases when elites strategically politicize religion (based on data from the Burkina Faso‐Côte d'Ivoire border). Despite these advances, we must do more to better understand the sources of variation in religious identification with religion, especially from a comparative perspective.…”

“…Indeed, leading surveys worldwide (e.g., the American Religious Identification Survey, the General Social Survey, and the World Values Survey) and work done by Gallup and the Pew Research Center include measures of affiliation with organized religious traditions and elements of religiosity (such as regularity of prayer, how “important” religion is in one's life, and belief in God or a “higher power”). Existing studies also demonstrate the strong, direct connection between religious affiliation and religiosity on the one hand and an entire range of social and political behaviors on the other hand (e.g., Benjamin, Choi, and Fisher 2010; Cosgel and Minkler , b; Graham and Haidt ; Jelen ; Kunovich and Hodson ; Maliepaard and Phalet ; McCauley and Posner 9; Putnam and Campbell ; Seul ; Smidt et al. ).…”

1. Introduction

“…His trade expectations theory confirms that economic interdependence between states can either increase or decrease the probability of war, depending on their economic prospects. Great powers need a strong and growing economy in order to sustain 30 Cashman (2013, chapter 6) 31 DeRouen (2014, chapter 4), McCauley and Posner (2017) 32 Cashman (2013, chapter 5), Copeland (2015, chapter 1) 33 Copeland (2015, chapter 2) 4. Different Kinds of War in Human History their positions in the international system.…”

Sectarian Triangles: Salafis, the Shi‘a, and the Politics of Religious Affiliations in Northern Nigeria

“…The sectarianization literature also helps to refute the idea that state authorities are passive bystanders to sectarian conflict. The sectarianization literature focuses on the Middle East (Wehrey 2014; Hashemi and Postel 2017; Wehrey 2017), but its core finding-that religious identity is shaped by firsthand political experiences-has been paralleled elsewhere (e.g., McCauley and Posner 2019).…”