The Pacifying Effects of Local Religious Institutions

Abstract

This paper tests whether local religious institutions have a dampening effect on the probability of communal violence. It argues that a dense layer of institutions strengthens horizontal and vertical contacts and networks within religious communities. Horizontal linkages help to bridge social, economic, and ethnic divisions. Vertical contacts enable religious leaders to stay informed about communal grievances among their followers and to coordinate conflict resolution attempts. In our analysis of more than 60,000 villages in Indonesia, we are able to document a statistically significant and substantively meaningful negative effect of the density of local religious institutions on the probability of mass fighting. This effect is robust to the inclusion of an exhaustive list of confounding variables and alternative measures of violence. We present additional evidence that this pacifying effect of religious institutions is weaker or absent in conflicts that evolve along explicitly religious cleavages.

Criminality and Income Inequality in Indonesia

“…Third, we find evidence on the criminal behavior approach of Becker (1968) and Ehrlich (1973) that a larger income gap between individuals (proxied by Gini ratio) can increase criminality. Our results are also in line with the earlier empirical findings in the context of advanced countries (Atems 2020;Choe 2008), (Wu and Wu 2012), as well as developing countries (Enamorado et al 2016;de Hoyos et al 2016), (Imrohoroglu et al 2004) including Indonesia (Cameron and Shah 2014;De Juan et al 2015;Nguyen 2019). Our evidence suggests that government efforts to close the income gap are fundamental to social cohesion (lower crime).…”

“…Higher levels of unequal income distribution were significant determinants of violence related to elections or justice, although no significant effect on crime was found. De Juan et al (2015) also found that vertical and horizontal inequalities could be a source of violence in Indonesia. These studies are relevant considering that increasing welfare disparity in Indonesia could be associated with the rising levels of criminal activities and violence.…”

“…There were increases in cybercrime (Suryono et al 2021;Prabowo 2012), ethnoreligious violence (De Juan et al 2015;Diprose and Azca 2019), terrorism, organized crime, and drug-related crime (Kramer and Stoicescu 2021) in Indonesia, posing a great challenge to the country. A number of reforms to the criminal law have been proposed in an effort to facilitate crime and violence control.…”

Resolutions of Conflicts among Radical Beliefs through the Wisdom of Cultural Values

“…In Indonesia, conflicts frequently revolve on differences in religious views (Arifianto, 2021;Harahap et al, 2018;Hasan, 2017). Adherents of indigenous religion are susceptible to confrontation with the broader population (Cao, Duan, Liu, & Wei, 2018;De Juan, Pierskalla, & Vüllers, 2015;Hasanah, Widianto, & Gita Purwasih, 2021;Syarifudin, 2021). One of them is Dayak Hindu Budha Bumi Segandu Indramayu, also known as Dayak Indamayu.…”

Beyond belief: How religion fosters self‐determination

“…Scholars of religion and conflict have devoted great attention to different aspects of the role of belief systems in processes of contestation (Brubaker, 2015; Smith, 1992), ranging from civil war and terrorism to, more recently, nonviolent contestation and religion's contribution to peace processes (Basedau et al, 2016; De Juan et al, 2015). We know that conflicts with a religious component last longer, are more difficult to resolve, and involve a greater number of casualties (Vüllers et al, 2015).…”