Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

This World Affairs 2023 special issue contains six contributions, including this one, exploring some of the key political consequences of traditional beliefs such as magic and superstition in the developing societies of the Global South as well as in certain industrially advanced societies of the Global North. To show why traditional beliefs matter, we provide an explanation in this introduction for why traditional beliefs exist in developing countries, why they survive in developed countries, and why they may become more popular over time. By utilizing a simple game theoretic approach, we explain why rational people can sometimes increase their payoffs by subscribing to a superstition while superstitious people never gain by switching to rationality. In fact, the superstition—which has no causal connection with the natural course of events—may even yield better results, not only for the individual but also for the group. This is the reason why, in the framework of evolutionary stable equilibrium, superstitious people can demographically dominate an entire population over time. In addition to explaining the existence and the persistence (or the popularity) of traditional beliefs, we highlight the key findings presented in the articles included in this special issue. All of them underline a cardinal point: traditional beliefs matter. They shape electoral behavior, they shape attitudes toward democratic governance, and they influence voters’ assessment of political figures and historical events. Precisely because traditional beliefs have such extensive implications for a country's political life, we believe that in the future scholars will have to pay greater attention to such beliefs to have a better understanding of political phenomena and trends.

Note From the Editor

“…After all, traditional beliefs involving magic and superstition—such as jinn, spirits of the dead, lucky horseshoes, astrological predictions, or wariness on any Friday the 13th—are not customarily the subjects of hard political science or effective policy design, particularly as seen from the vantage of many parts of the secular Global North. However, a minute or two into reading Baris and Pelizzo's (2023) introduction to the special issue will almost certainly persuade skeptics that any surprise at the topic's perspicacity to important contemporary world affairs is misplaced.…”

“…They thus demand greater future attention if we are to gain a better understanding of political phenomena and trends or design more effective policies. As the guest editors write in their introduction, traditional beliefs “shape electoral behavior, they shape attitudes toward democratic governance, and they influence voters’ assessments of political figures and historical events” (Baris and Pelizzo 2023). The clear and detailed arguments and firm empirical analysis in the special issue demonstrate the point well.…”

“…However, the key political consequences of traditional beliefs in certain industrially advanced societies of the Global North are also subjected to initial exploration. Here we learn from a foray into traditional beliefs in contemporary European democracies (Pelizzo and Kuzenbayev 2023 b ) that, among other things, “[e]xtreme-right voters are more likely to hold superstitious beliefs, superstitious voters are more sensitive to the appeal of the extreme right, and—as the analysis of the German data revealed—they are more likely to have moderately benign views of Hitler and the National-Socialist regime” (Baris and Pelizzo 2023). One central implication of the issue taken as a whole is that a traditional mindset, wherever it appears, is likely to obstruct democratic transitions in the developing world and may also pose a threat to democratic governance in developed ones (Baris and Pelizzo 2023).…”