Document de travail

The Quran and the Sword

Emmanuelle Auriol, Jean-Philippe Platteau et Thierry Verdier

Résumé

This paper elucidates the willingness of an autocrat to push through institutional reforms in a context where traditional authorities represented by religious clerics are averse to them and where the military control the means of repression and can potentially stage a coup. We show that although the autocrat always wants to co-opt the military, this is not necessarily true of the clerics. Exclusive co-option of the military obtains where the loyalty of the autocrat’s army is strong while the organizational strength of religious movements is rather low. Radical institutional reforms can then be implemented. Empirically, the dominant regime in contemporary Muslim countries is the regime of double co-option where the autocrat resorts to a double-edged tactic: pleasing the official clerics by slowing the pace of reforms, and ensuring the loyalty of the military so as to put down clerics-led rebellions.

Mots-clés

Autocracy; Army; Instrumentalization of religion; Islam; Reforms;

Codes JEL

  • D02: Institutions: Design, Formation, and Operations
  • D72: Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
  • N40: General, International, or Comparative
  • O57: Comparative Studies of Countries
  • P48: Political Economy • Legal Institutions • Property Rights • Natural Resources • Energy • Environment • Regional Studies
  • Z12: Religion

Remplacé par

Emmanuelle Auriol, Jean-Philippe Platteau et Thierry Verdier, « The Quran and the Sword », Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), octobre 2023, p. 1772–1820.

Référence

Emmanuelle Auriol, Jean-Philippe Platteau et Thierry Verdier, « The Quran and the Sword », TSE Working Paper, n° 22-1381, novembre 2022.

Voir aussi

Publié dans

TSE Working Paper, n° 22-1381, novembre 2022