RELIGION AND ECONOMY: DOES RELIGION MATTER?
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
OF
ANKARA YILDIRIM BEYAZIT UNIVERSITY
BY
ABDÜLVAHHAP ÖMER TOPRAK
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN
THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
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Approval of the Institute of Social Sciences
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Seyfullah YILDIRIM Director of Institute
I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Prof. Dr. Murat ASLAN Head of Department
This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Prof. Dr. Ömer DEMİR Supervisor
Examining Committee Members
Prof. Dr. Fuat OĞUZ (AYBU, Economics)
Prof. Dr. Ömer DEMİR (ASBU, Economics)
Assoc.Prof. Dr. Özgür H. AYDOĞMUŞ (ASBU, Economics)
Assoc.Prof. Dr. Fatih Cemil ÖZBUĞDAY (AYBU, Economics) Assist.Prof. Dr. Zeynep Burcu UĞUR (ASBU, Economics)
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PLAGIARISM
I hereby declare that all information in this thesis has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work; otherwise I accept all legal responsibility.
Name, Last name : Abdülvahhap Ömer TOPRAK
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ABSTRACT
RELIGION AND ECONOMY: DOES RELIGION MATTER?
Toprak, Abdülvahhap Ömer
Ph.D., Department of Economics Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Ömer DEMİR
July 2019, 195 pages
The main objective of this thesis is to discuss what economics brings new in the scientific analysis of religion and to empirically investigate the relationship between religiosity and several socio-economic and demographic variables as well as economic development indicators using LSS individual data in Turkish population where empirical studies on this topic were very limited until recently. Although there are differences between genders, education and income are found to be negatively associated with religiosity in the analysis of micro data used to determine significant associates of religiosity in terms of individual socio-economic and demographic caharacteristics. Macro data analysis revealed that there is significant negative correlation between religiosity and level of development accross provinces.
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ÖZET
DİN VE EKONOMİ: DİN ÖNEMLİ Mİ?
Toprak, Abdülvahhap Ömer Doktora, İktisat Bölümü
Tez Yöneticisi : Prof. Dr. Ömer DEMİR
Temmuz 2019, 195 sayfa
Bu tezin ana amacı iktisadi yaklaşımın dinin bilimsel analizine sağladığı katkıları irdelemek ve son döneme kadar ampirik çalışmaların sınırlı olduğu Türkiye nüfusu özelinde YMA 2013 mikro verisi kullanılarak bireysel dindarlık ile bireyin bazı sosyo-ekonomik ve demografik özellikleri arasındaki ilişki ve genel dindarlık düzeyi ile ekonomik gelişmişlik göstergeleri arasındaki ilişki ampirik olarak ortaya konmuştur. Bireysel veri analizinden cinsiyetler arası farklılıklar olmakla birlikte eğitim ve gelir düzeyi ile bireysel dindarlık arasında negatif yönlü bir ilişki olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Toplulaştırılmış veri analizinde ise illerin genel dindarlık düzeyi ile ekonmik gelişme düzeyleri arasında negatif korelasyon bulunmuştur.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to Express my gratitude to my advisor Prof. Dr. Ömer DEMİR for his continuous support of my Ph.D. study, for his immense knowledge, motivation and guidance throughout the research and writing of this thesis.
I’m also grateful to TURKSTAT for sharing micro data that enabled this work to be done.
vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM ... iii ABSTRACT ... iv ÖZET ...v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vii
LIST OF TABLES ... ix
LIST OF FIGURES ...x
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ... xi
I. INTRODUCTION ...1
II. RELIGION and SOCIAL SCIENCES ... 10
II.1. Approaches of Several Disciplines Towards Religion ... 12
II.1.1. Sociological Perspectives on Religion... 13
II.1.2. Anthropological Perspectives on Religion... 17
II.1.3. Psychological Perspectives on Religion ... 19
II.2. Economics and Religion ... 21
II.2.1. What Economics Bring New in the Analysis of Religion ... 22
II.2.2. Rational Choice Theory ... 25
II.2.3. Recent Developments ... 27
III. ECONOMICS of RELIGION ... 32
III.1. Religion and Growth ... 35
III.2. Religion and Socio-economic Variables ... 44
III.2.1. Age ... 45
III.2.2. Gender ... 46
III.2.3. Education ... 49
III.2.4. Income ... 51
III.3. Religion and Behaviour ... 54
III.3.1. Substance Use and Sexual Behavior ... 55
III.3.2. Criminal/Deviant Behavior ... 56
III.3.3. Health, Marriage, Fertility and Divorce ... 57
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IV. RELIGION and ECONOMIC LIFE in TURKEY... 62
IV.1. Data Source and Methodology ... 65
IV.1.1. 2013 Life Satisfaction Survey ... 67
IV.1.2. Sample Caharacteristics and Variable Selection for the Analysis ... 68
IV.1.3. Logistic Regression Framework Applied in the Analyses ... 71
IV.2. Correlates of ITR ... 73
IV.2.1. Effects of Socio-economic and Demographic Variables on ITR ... 79
IV.2.2. Happiness and its Relation With ITR... 98
IV.3. Interest to Religion and Development Indicators Accross Provinces ... 103
IV.3.1. GDP per capita ... 107
IV.3.2. Well-Being Index ... 110
V. CONCLUSIONS ... 114
REFERENCES ... 122
APPENDIX ... 140
A. CHI-SQUARE TEST OF INDEPENDENCE RESULTS BETWEEN ITR AND SELECTED VARIABLES ... 140
B. DETAILED LOGISTIC REGRESSION RESULTS FOR TOTAL SAMPLE .... 146
C. GENDER BASED LOGISTIC REGRESSION RESULTS ... 150
D. LOGISTIC REGRESSION WITH ENVIRONMENTAL PARAMETERS ... 155
E. LOGISTIC REGRESSION RESULTS FOR THE 2014-2017 LSS DATA ... 160
F. CHI-SQUARE TEST OF INDEPENDENCE FOR HAPPINESS ... 163
G. ITRP AND DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS... 169
H. CURRICULUM VITAE ... 175
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LIST OF TABLES
TABLES
Table III.1. Several development indicators of Muslim Countries vs Rest of the World .... 41
Table III.2. Authors, countries and found relationship between education and religion ... 51
Table IV.1. List of surveys, subjective measurement and properties ... 64
Table IV.2. 2013 LSS Sample size and allocation accross 81 provinces ... 67
Table IV.3. 2013 LSS Sample Characteristics ... 70
Table IV.4. Variable Levels and ITR ... 73
Table IV.5. Chi-Square Test of Independence Results ... 75
Table IV.6. Gender Based Differences between Educ7 and Work variable levels ... 77
Table IV.7. Logistic Regression for Total Sample Results ... 80
Table IV.8. Model Parameters for Male Respondents Only ... 83
Table IV.9. Model Parameters for Female Respondents Only ... 84
Table IV.10. Model Parameters and their Significance by Gender ... 85
Table IV.11. Environmental Variables Specificity and Coding ... 88
Table IV.12. Model Parameters with the Addition of PopGroup and Region Variables .... 90
Table IV.13. Gender Differences with Environmental Variables ... 91
Table IV.14. LSS Sample Size 2013-2017 ... 93
Table IV.15. Sample Characteristics and Their Relation with ITR for 2014-2017 LSS Combined Data ... 95
Table IV.16. Model Parameters for 2014-2017 LSS Combined Sample ... 96
Table IV.17. Gender Differences in LSS 2014-2017 Combined Data ... 97
Table IV.18. Happiness and Related Variables Cross-tabulation... 99
Table IV.19. Variables and their relation with ITR and Happiness ... 103
Table IV.20. Happiness vs ITR Odds Ratio ... 103
Table IV.21. Correlation matrix of selected variables ... 106
Table IV.22. ITRP and PUniv effects on GDP_PC ... 110
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LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURES
Figure III.1. GDP per capita and Religiosity of Countries... 36
Figure III.2. Pew Forum Gender comparison among diffirent religions ... 48
Figure IV.1. Graphical View of Variable Levels vs ITR ... 75
Figure IV.2. Work Pattern Difference between Genders ... 78
Figure IV.3. Educ7 Pattern Difference between Genders ... 78
Figure IV.4. Selected Environmental Variables and ITR=1 ... 87
Figure IV.5. Thematic Map of Turkey Showing Percentage Interested to Religion ... 89
Figure IV.5. Variable Patterns by Years for LSS 2014-2017 ... 94
Figure IV.6. Graphical Representations of Happiness With Other Variables... 100
Figure IV.7. Happiness and ITR vs Other Variables ... 102
Figure IV.8. Scatterplot of GDP_PC vs ITRP ... 108
Figure IV.9. Scatterplot of WBI vs ITRP... 111
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EVS European Values Survey
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GSS General Social Survey of US
HPI Happy Planet Index
ISSP International Social Survey Programme
LSS Life Satisfaction Survey
OIC Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
OR Odds Ratio
TURKSTAT Turkish Statistical Institute
WBI Well-being index
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I. INTRODUCTION
The main objective of all social science disciplines, especially economics, is to understand the nature of the phenomenon and establish a knowledge-base in every facets of life which is used to determine and satisfy human needs and to increase his wealth and happiness. The criteria such as national income, average household income, education level are used in the comparison of happiness and well-being between countries or societies, so called objective measures in general, regardless of the structure of the societies culture, lifestyle and habits. There is a certain level of correlation between income level and happiness/well-being, but studies point to some problems related to the measurement of people's happiness levels/well-being only by using these measures. In other words, these parameters are important aspects of happiness/well-being, but they are not the sole explanation of the real situation. Indeed, empirical studies show that the happiness/satisfaction levels of societies or countries, which have great differences in income levels, do not differ that much in terms of happiness/life satisfaction levels. This can be explained in two ways; the first explanation is very influenced by relativity, i.e. the level of happiness/satisfaction of the individual is determined not only by his own situation/income/education, but by the general situation as compared to other people living together in the same society. The second explanation is that other variables or parameters that are not included in the calculations other than relativity may also be in operation, which has recently led economists to areas such as religion, which have previously been regarded as study areas of theology and sociology. How does religious beliefs affect economic performance? How does the individual's belief affect the daily economic decisions? How much is religion a factor motivating or demotivating the individual to economic development? How does religious beliefs play a role between economic development and happiness, or overall life satisfaction? These questions lead the economists the need to better understand the religion from the economic perspective. To answer such questions there emerged two subfields called "The Economics of Religion” and “Religion Economics” to more closely examine the impact of religion to economy and reversely economic developments to religious beliefs and practices.
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Religion is a very complex phenemenon as it is obvious from the debates starting from early discussions of eighteenth and nineteenth century thinkers. From the beginning of the enlightenment period many scholars have seen religion as a subject condemned to extinction. The ideas put by Comte, Spencer, Weber, Marx, Jung, Tylor, Fraizer, Freud and Durkheim, which are all accepted as founders of social science disciplines saw religion as a primitive orientation of human beings sourced from his shortcomings and predicted its distinction with the advancement of science, techonology and education which can be seen the main source of conflicts between religion and some social science disciplines such as sociology, psychology and anthropology from the start. Their theories gave rise to the secularization thesis which then caused many social scientists to be distant in studying the relationships between religion, religiosity and its crucial role in human action. But time, as the best witness, proved that religion did not disappear but continue to exist with its direct or indirect impact on people’s daily life and all type of decisions which then lead to social science disciplines return to the scientific study of religion. Today it is widely accepted that religion is important due its positive or negative effects on a wide range of human mood and action including psychological effects, decisions such as marriage, fertility, divorce, deviant behaviours, crime, honesty, thrift, social networks and many more. Since its effect on daily human life in many aspects, nearly all social science disciplines nowadays take the issue more seriouly apart from the early evaluations of religion phenemenon as well as the secularization thesis. Now there emerged subdisciplines in every area of social sciences, to analyse these effects and their consequences more closely, such as sociology of religion, psychology of religion, anthropology of religion and finally economics of religion as stated before.
As the sociological, anthoropological and psychological perspective on the analysis of religion will be briefly discussed later in this study, the economic analysis of religion has many advandages to generate more objective knowledge due to its unique approach to religion compared to other disciplines. The most important differentiating point is that today’s economists see religion within the boundaries of rationality that gives the opportunity to closely analyse the relationship between human beings and supernatural without imposing the truth or falsity of the religious claims under consideration as will be discussed in more detail in relevant parts of this study.
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Since Weber’s thesis that describes how and why Calvinism as a version of Protestanism could create a rationalised economic system of capitalism (Eyasu, 2016), there have been many debates and discussions on the effects of religion on economic development and the reverse, the effect of economic developments on religion. His work focused to explain the reasoning and rationale behind the evolution of institutions in the protestant western world had grown rapidly leading to more rational infrastructure and hence development while the rest of the world lacked which then resulted developmental differences between countries. In doing this inquiry he was also focused on identifying the relationship of these evolution with major world religion traditions. The main point was why it occurred in the west and did not in the rest of the world by analyzing the differences in traditions. In his very detailed and wide-ranging historical study “The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism”, Weber sought to understand the reasons of the developmental differences betwwen the ratinal capitalist west and the rest which failed to develop such a system (Ritzer, 2011). The feature of Calvinism, a form of protestanism, that Weber determined as important for growth, was the idea that only a small number of people are chosen for salvation, the actions of human being can not change this ie predestination and finally to reduce the risk of being damned can only be reduced with signs that can be used as indicators whether a person was saved via hard work in worldly activities which increase the probability of being saved becoming a “man of vocation” (Eyasu, 2016). Weber emphasizes the role of beliefs and ordered practices that lead the west developed protestanism as rational religious system which then played a very instrumental role in development of capitalism which is for him a rational economic system in this way.
Weber’s thesis was just the opposite of what Marx argued. According to Marx the foundation (or substructure) of a culture is formed by the culture's dominant economic system, not by any religious convictions. That economic system determines every other aspect of the culture: its art, literature, social and economic theories, and also its religion.
Being in line with his ideas, despite the fact that Adam Smith, who is regarded as the founding father of economics, wrote some 25 pages in relation to religion and economics in his very well known “Wealth of Nations”, until the 1970s, very few of the economists take the area of interest. The reason is quite possibly that Weber’s book is the first book to read in their reading list as Demir stated (Demir, 2013). In the relevant part of his book, Smith studied religion and the potential of religiosity to create its own markets, under the
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circumstances at that time. Until Becker’s “new home economics” idea, religion and religiosity, and their possible effects on the economy, remained unchallenged, and economists regarded religion as a non-significant often negligible external variable. In fact, it is very intresting for religion area not to be one of the major source of interest for economists for many years. Because, with a closer look, it is possible to say that the "perfect man/complete person" figurine, which is common to all religions roughly defined in the sacred texts normatively, is opposite to the behavioral assumptions of homos economicus. When homos economicus assumed to maximize his own interests and, while doing so, assumed to be selfish in a sense, religious advice involves sharing the interest with others and alturism. If this is the case, it is quite strange to establish economic models as these advice will not affect human behaviour.
Until Gary S. Becker's study in 1964, religion or religiosity was seen as an element that did not need to be considered in economic models. For the first time in his work, Becker applying “new home economics” considered non-market goods (like religion) as one of the household commodities that individuals are assumed to allocate time and goods to maximize their utility. Later in the light of Becker’s view, Azzi and Ehrenberg considered religion as a household production model in 1975 and added the afterlife consumption to the utility function of the individual. Taking into account of church attendance and contributions within their model individuals allocate their time and goods among religious and secular commodities so as to maximize their lifetime and afterlife utility. In fact this effort is the first model to incorporate religious beliefs into some economic models. With this pioneering work, many years later, especially by American and European economists, many scholars tried to analyze the issue more closely on individual/household level, institution level and finally on market level. Later Iannaccone extended the Azzi and Ehrenberg’s model by including religious human capital in 1984.
Today the relationship between the religion and the economy is studied in three dimensions. The first dimension consists of the analysis on how religious beliefs affects human behaviour that have important economic consequences. Second dimension of studies more focused on how economic development affects religious beliefs and practices. And the last dimension involve the application of religious norms into economic sphere, which is called “religious economics” and out of scope of this study. It is now widely accepted among all social science scholars there are significant associations between religion or religiosity
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and many important economic outcomes, it has effects on character formation of individuals and thus on every aspect of life including economic one and decisions of individuals, groups and society as a whole, that is religion matters proved by many independent academic researches in a very wide spectrum done worldwide.
For example Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (2003), Barro and McCleary (2003) and Noland (2005) examined effects of religion on growth by using cross-country data. Berman (2000), Goody (2003) and Botticini and Eckstein (2005) analysed the reverse relationships of how economic development effects religious beliefs and practices again using international data. Fields (2003), Kuran (2004) and Sen (2004) analysed the religion-growth relationship in the context of specific religion traditions of Catholocism, Islam and Hinduism respectively. Glaeser, Ponzetto and Shapiro (2005) investigated the effects of religion on political outcomes. Lehrer (2004) and McQuillan (2004) have analysed the effects of religion on marriage and fertility. Some scholars such as McQuillan (2004), Hayford and Morgan (2009), Brelsford et al (2011), Luquis et al (2012) studied the relationship between religiosity and sexual behaviours, marriage, divorce, fertility and abortion. Evans (1995) focused on deviance, Evans at al (1995) and Sadique (2016) studied the links between religiosity and criminal activity. Chitwood et al (2008), Dennis et al (2009), Poulson et al (2010), Wells (2010), Sauer-Zavala et al (2014) examined drug and alcohol consumption, underage drinking. Iyer (2016) empirically showed that religion enhances cooperative behaviour in the society; Becker and Murphy (2000) investigated religon’s crucial role in creating externalities which then serve to increase the individual welfare. Some of these studies will be reviewed later in detail.
Recent works in the West in this area are more focused on to groups and institutions beyond individiual and household level. Club based and later firm based approaches to churces, where religious commodities were produced, constitute the main focus of many recent studies in the field. Iannaccone (1992) analysed firm-like characteristics of religious institutions compared with club-view approaches. Club-like caharacterisitcs of religious organisations were mainly studied by by Carr and Linda (1983), Sullivan (1985), and Chiswick (1991). The firm view approach introduced mainly by the studies of Ekelund (1996) book on Catholic Church. Many important contributions in the area of religious markets, where sects, denominations and more specifically churches assumed to be firms
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and all comprise religious market with competition, by the studies of Finke and Startk (1992), Finke and Iannaccone (1993) and Iannaccone and Stark (1994).
The common outcome of all these empirical studies, carried out by almost all European and American researchers, is that opposite to what secularisation thesis predicted, religion and religiosity within the context of church attendance is not diminished by time as proved by many researhers such as Iannaccone (1998, 2003), Barro&McCleary (2003, 2006), McGilliwray (2007), Stark&Finke (2000), Iyer (2016) and many more. This defacto situation now forces many academics to study religion and its wide-range impacts more closely as it is empirically showed that religion and religiosity has significant effects on education, income, labour, marriage, fertility, divorce, crime or deviant behaviour, life satisfaction and happiness. Now it attracts many scholars and national as well as international organisations managing variety of conferences on Economy and Society accross the to reserve several sessions on Religion and religiosity and their effects in people’s daily lives. Morover there are also several journals specialized in the social-scientific study of religion published around academic sphere such as Social Compass, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Review of Religious Research and the Journal of Church and State.
Altough the area now is attracting many academics, there are two major problems in front of those who want to do research on religion and religiosity. The perception of religiosity in the first case is subjective rather than objective. The second is the difficulty of conducting field research that produces reliable results in this regard, as religion or religiosity is regarded as one of the most mysterious aspects of private life. Perhaps for these two reasons, empirical work done by different researchers, especially on Christian communities, has produced inevitably different results due to the sensitive nature of the phenomenon. As a data source, in nearly all studies, the church’s member lists were used as an indicator of religious attendance over time, and this has played a rather facilitating role and produced wide variety of data. Most of these studies are empirical studies on the Christian world. Except internationally conducted surveys, such as WVS and ISSP, which many times ignore the country specific conditions and neglect the differences between various religious traditions, there is no alike detailed works in Muslim countries due to many reasons. As an example of muslim society, we are not so lucky in terms of data where there are many communities and sects like the Christian world. In the Ottoman Empire era, many
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religious, cultural and ethnic origins were able to live together in peace under the same roof, while numerical data on the size of these groups were recorded until the middle of the 1700s, with no worries. However, these records are unavailable for today due to the many political, societal and structural changes after the World War I. Although they are both sacred places of worship, there are important differences between the churches and the mosques according to the way they are treated their members. It is not possible to say the same thing about the mosques while the information or member list are being held in churches regarding the congregations. The law of closure of lodges and zawats that were established during the transition period from the empire to the republican era, these type of data became very scarce. Due to this transition period, to do an empirical work on religious life has been painful for researchers as well as respondents for many years. However, to be able to say something on the economic view of religion in muslim countries or generalize results, it is crucial to support with empirical evidence, beyond personal evaluations and small sociological studies with limited scope and sample sizes. Therefore these type of studies were very limited till the year 2000.
Within the developments in the recent 15 years, now there are many surveys and empirical studies, despite some small sample sizes and low level of representability, on social and political trends including some religious variables (religious affiliation and practices), or life satisfaction/happiness surveys conducted by public as well as many private organizations in Turkey. One wave of International Social Sciences Program (ISSP) and two waves of World Values Survey (WVS) is also conducted in this period. Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) and The Presidency of Religious Affairs conducted Religious Life Survey in 2013, with the largest sample size in this context, and it has the distinction of being the highest-level of representativity in terms of coverage and sample size but micro data for the researchers was not available yet before the completion of this study. It contains subjective religiosity as well as some extra indicators that can lead to the determination of level of religiosity regarding activities and affiliation, if there is any, to include worship and practice together with faith and piety. Additionally, the level of happiness and life satisfaction is measured annually by the TURKSTAT since 2003 on national scale. In this data set, which also includes many economic behaviors/preferences, although there is no similar clarity question about religious life like the above research directly related to religiosity, there are some clue questions which will be described in relevant parts of the study to be used as a proxy to represent the individual’s distance to religion. Other surveys
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if involve religious life, they are not related to economic behavior, if they include economic conditions/preferences like poverty or life satisfaction then there is no strict variable about religiosity. therfore it seems to be the best alternative data source to be used in studying the relationships between religion, economic development and socio-economic and demographic variables.
Empirical academic studies on Economics of Religion are very limited in Turkey being strongly related with the above explained data shortages. More efforts have been observed on religious economics rather than the economics of religion. Islamic approach to interest and banking/financial system is one of the major topic analysed by scholars (for example Uludağ 1988). Çarkoğlu and Kalaycıoğlu (2008) studied political economy of religion in Turkey and managed the local survey of ISSP with cross-country comparison of religiosity accross the world. Akşit et al (2012) have realised the first survey to analyse the interaction between religion and life-styles accross country based on a qualitative and quantitaive survey in 2012. Demir’s (2013c) work has the privilege of being the first book on directly “economics of religion” and investigating the religion from the economic perspective sterssing widely encountered wrong type of conclusions in these type of studies, causality-correlation or association relationship. Onay (2004) investigated the effects of religion on university students; Cirhinlioğlu and Ok (2011), Akdoğan (2002) and Kımter (2008) studied gender differences in religiosity; Demir (2010) examined religious traditions among Turkish women living in Germany; Taplamacıoğlu (1962), Uysal (1995) and Köktaş (1993) studied the effect of age and other socio-demograpgic varibles on religiosity; Çelik (2002) analysed the interaction between income and religiosity indicators; Yorulmaz (2016) studied the relationship between religious practices and overall happiness of individuals.
The main aim of this thesis is to examine more closely the works ever made studying on the relationship of religion or religiosity with important socio-economic and demographic variables together with economic development indicators aroud the World and generate Turkish piece of work to contribute this very wide literature being one of the muslim majority countries; which were many times underrepresented in interantional surveys; using large scale national survey data of TURKSTAT Life Satisfaction Survey. This study will rely on micro and macro data analysis results to show the relationships between religiosity and individual and macro development indicators as well as the detailed analysis of socio-demographic variables. After this introduction, next chapter of the study involves how
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economists analysed religion compared to other disciplines such as sociology, psychology and anthropology within the context of scientific study of religion, does economics bring any improvement to the understanding and scientific analysis of religious beliefs and behaviours with some reference to recent study topics in these fields are analysed. Chapter III covers detailed review and discussions of recent literature in the area of economics of religion for selected indicators to be studied in this thesis. Chapter IV is the final part of the study before conclusions covering all micro and macro data analysis devoted to find the most significant correlates of religiosity in micro basis as well as the relationship of religiosity with economic development indicators in Turkey on macro basis.
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II. RELIGION and SOCIAL SCIENCES
A diverse and rich relationships between science and religion has been stated, by a historian of science and religion, as outcome of many studies, which is a strong proof of complexity of the phenomenon in support of the general arguments of the past (Brooke, 1991).
Many scholars have struggled for centuries with the question of how to define religion, which is indeed seen as a prerequisite for the scientific study of religion. For some disciplines, for example economics, defnitions are very crucial in data analysis, modelling and inference. Of course, there are many attempts to get a precise definition of religion or religiosity but as a summary of all debates about defining it, the conclusion is almost suggesting that it is not possible to define it precisely to be valid everywhere. Indeed, there are very famous broad textbook defnitions that social scientists agree are helpful in this respect. Émile Durkheim’s defnition of religion is usually considered one the most famous: “A religion is a unifed system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (1915, p:4).
Two broad categories could be mentioned here are substantive or functional type of definitions, which then can be subdivided into many subcategories such as intellectualist, emotionalist, cognitivist etc. There is no commonly accepted single definition of religion. Substantive definitions refer to investigating religion as a philosophy or system of beliefs, and using it to try to understand our world. In contrast, functional definitions, as the name implies, focus on the role of religion plays in people’s daily lives. Although economists are relatively new to the field compared to other disciplines such as philosophy, theology, history, anthropology, sociology, anthropology and psychology, the study of religion is rooted back in history. Since the 1700s scholars from Galileo, Voltaire, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and many more have discussed the issue from wide range of perspectives and forecast the extinction of religion. But with all its consequences, positive or negative, religion stubbornly continues to exist with high level of influence on people’s attitudes, behaviors and ovearall daily life.
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Considering the attempts to define religion, one thing to keep in mind at all times is that the definitions are not always independent of the influence of theoretical choices and goals of the researcher. In other words, it seems that what theorists think religion is many times depends on the explanation of it they favour. By doing so they do not only limit the area of research, but they also stress and imply the definition that supports their theoretical interpretations. They include the terms and faces of the phonemon that comply with their theory or understanding at the beginnig of the research. This type of approach is very common among the social scientists that work on this very complex phonemenon, religion. This may be due to some sort of unavoidable cognitive illusion, as studied by Demir (2013b), whatever you support, you see it in your results, may still many others see the opposite.
Perhaps due to this possibility some sociologists have argued that it is better not to attempt to define the subject matter at the begining period of study, researchers would be in a position to do this only after extensive investigation. Max Weber, one of the pionering scholars in the field, declined to give a definition of religion and for him this could only be done, he argued, at the conclusion of our studies (Weber, 1965), thought he did not give a definition at the end of his studies. The well-known anthropologist Nadel, in his study of the religious beliefs and practices of a West African people, emphasizes the difficulty of differentiating the things as religious and non-religious, ie profane. What he proposes is to include anything about religion in to be sure not to leave anything out that resembles religion which create a very wide spectrum in defining such a thing and have the possibility to cover everthing as religious (Nadel, 1954). As William James in The Varieties of Religious
Experience remarked, in discussing the variety of definitions of religion, he concluded that
due to the fact that they are so many and so different definitions from different viewpoints prove that the word “religion” cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective name (James, 1961).
As it seems from this brief summary it is almost impossible to get a universal definition of “religion” to be valid everywhere without context, more specifically without any influence of the culture to be studied. Now the scientific study of religion is in the focus of many social science disciplines producing vast amount of studies and organizations. The aim of this thesis is not to discuss or comment on the debates the variety of definitions of religion starting from the enlightment process, a good summary and discussions about the evolution of definitions with historical perspectives can be seen in Nye (2008), Hamilton
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(2001) and Dixon (2008). The definition that will be assumed in this study will be handled in Economics and Religion part. Before discussing how economics handle the issue more closely, in this part I will try to shortly analyse and focus on some important theories of religion with the review of several disciplines studying religion.
II.1. Approaches of Several Disciplines Towards Religion
As this brief review implies the theory of or explanation of religion has also many ongoing debates. Coming to the scientific analysis of religion the theory at the beginning has a crucial role especially when interpreting the results. From many debates and discussions it seems intellectualism is generating a variety of themes and discussions for further insights into religion that foster and encourage further studies on this topic. How different viewpoints the disciplines in analysing the religion took place is the main concern of this part.
Anthropological explanation of religion approaches religion as a case of culture whereas sociological explanation of religion takes it as a case of society in very broad terms. Psychological theories take religion as an affair of the individual sourcing within the individual, whereas sociological theories take it as an affair of a group or society as a whole being the main source of individual religiosity. Furthermore, emotionalist psychological theories see the roots of religion being based on the emotional side of human nature while intellectualist psychological theories interpret religion as stemming from human reason (Hamilton, 2001).
Many disciplines today focus on religion and its effects on human life and behaviour, individually or socially. I will mention not all but some of them namely sociology, anthropology, psychology and finally economics which is the main topic of this study. Each of them sheds light to one face of this complex pehenemenon depending on the general accepted theory of religion in that discipline and researher’s standpoint, understanding and theory in mind.
There have been many contributions on the subject matter which can be divided (then may be subdivided within the discipline) into two broad categories. Religiously driven normative religious studies mainly focus on how an individual or a group should behave and what should be done for and how to get a longing proper social order in the society with peace and piety (Wesley Taylor, 2015; McBride, 2018; Ülgener, 2006). These sorts of studies are out of the scope of this thesis, but will be referred whenever needed specially to
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give examples. The other approach has an aim to understand and sometimes determine possible consequences of people’s religious beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours to some extent and their effects on social, cultural, political and economic life from different perspectives. There are now many fields and subfields that their concern centered on religion and religious behaviour. Within sociology for example a subfield “sociology of religion”, or within economics “economics of religion” now has focus on the analysis of religious beliefs and practices and their possible consequneces within their context. I will brief the mainstream approaches to religion in several branches, namely anthropology, sociology, psychology and finally economics.
II.1.1. Sociological Perspectives on Religion
The discipline of sociology is to seek and find patterns of social activities. Like all other social science disciplines, its main concern is to determine the ways that individuals, small groups and the whole societies order their lives and try to explain the rationale behind all types of thoughts, beliefs and behaviours. When religion is concerned, the sociology of religion, a relatively new discipline within sociology today, is more interested in discovering the patterns of these beliefs and behaviours associated with or stemmed from religion differentiating it from previous sociological perspectives that elaborates and discuss the truth of claims made by religion standing in rather anti-religious position in varying degrees. The job of finding patterns does not necessarily mean to find causalities where many times correlation and causality mixed with each other in many studies. For example in the West christian world generally women appear to be more religious than men, the same is valid in Muslim societies also, the question of why this happens force sociologists to seek and find explanations.
The beginning of the evolution of the discipline of sociology are rooted in the transformation period of European society on the process of industrialization. Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, all very influential in the evolution of social sciences, were participants and observers of this very big change and challenge. These big thinkers of the era sought not only to understand the processes that were taking place but also to establish a discipline that would enable us to understand what was happening. Other questions such as is it happening everywhere? what consequences likely to appear? which group of people seem to be affected? The conclusion made by nearly all of them to admit that religion was a central
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issue in explaining the answers of all these questions that what was happening, why it was happening leading to what consequences.
As far as the Marxist perspective on religion is concerned there are two key elements which should be stated, descriptive and evaluative ones. For Marx religion depends on the economy as a whole with all its intraclass relations, and take it as dependent variable. For him religion can only be understood from economic perspectives and power relations in the economy. It is the economic order and means of production that determine the relationship between capitalists and workers that enable us to understand the religion under consideration.
Weber has influenced every corner of sociology including the sociology of religion. His arguments on secularization, religious roles, religious change, religious organizations, and authority continue to be debated in all social sciences. He is concerned, assuming substantive type definition of religion, with the ways in which religious ethic effects both individual and collective behavior. This depiction highlights his Sociology of Religion (1965), which is a comparative study of the major world faiths and their influence on people’s daily life. His most important conclusion is found in The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism (1904), which is one of the most widely read texts in sociology and in
all social sciences. For Weber, the connections between ethic and context and between religion and the world must be assessed case by case. A principal task of the sociologist is to pinpoint main actors of the process taking place at individual and social level.
Durkheim is more concerned with the social outcome of the religion. He claims that by the elimination of traditional religions, new forms of society will emerge which requires new forms of religion, which he defined this new form as the discipline of sociology. In his view, religion has a key role in social order and will always exist due its function. However, the precise nature of religion will differ from culture to culture, from time to time and from place to place in order to achieve a good “fit” between religion and the dominant social order (Durkheim, 1915).
An integrative role of religion was stressed with the idea of normative functionalism by Talcott Parsons, an American sociologist opposing Durkheim’s and Weber’s ideas. He defined religion as a functional requirement for society, having crucial role in the complex models of social systems as well as social actions. The notion that the social order should be
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supported by religious values was widespread as an outcome of bringing together social systems with social action. His ideas were followed by Robert Bellah and Niklas Luhmann. Later on, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (Berger and Luckmann, 1966) inverted this so called Parsonian model suggesting that social order exists, but it is constructed from below not from above. Social order arises from the struggles by individuals to make sense of their lives. Berger’s notion of “sacred canopy” brings the social and individual level existence (Berger, 1967).
Early emphasis on secularization thesis seemed to lose its influence in following years when the fact that secularization has not happened as expected has been realised in the academic sphere. Berger’s opinion has also changed, and in the 1960s he became a very strong promoter of the secularization thesis, following Weber’s tradition (Berger, 1969). The survival of religion and religious movements in the US, as well as in many parts of the developing world, forced Berger to radically alter his thinking. He then adapted the notion of secularization as a theory that mostly suits to the European countries, no longer as a universial theory (Berger, 1999).
An alternative theory seeing pluralism as contributing to the growth rather than the weakening of religion has emerged in the US. This theory is known as tha rational choice theory (RCT), which is promoted by the American sociologists Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, with contributions later by Roger Finke and Larry Iannaccone. RCT assumes both the presence and the desirability of choice, in this case the choice of religion. The theory is mainly based on the idea that individuals, being utility maximizing agents, are naturally religious and aiming to maximize gain and minimize loss with cost-benefit analysis make their religious choices rationally just like all other choices, as put by these two sociologists (Stark and Bainbridge, 1985). Argumenting with their terms, RCT draws both on economic ways of thinking and on elements of exchange theory which will be discussed deeply in economics and religion part of this study. Their work relies heavily on supply side analysis rather than the demand side: religious activity increases where there are many supplies offered by a wide range of religious “firms”, and diminish where supplies are limited, like strict monopolies in the economy.
European sociologists of religion are totally different from US counterparts and are more focused religious decline accross Europe. Secularization has also changed in terms of strict meaning given to it before in this period, where it no longer means the disappearance
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or diminishing of religion but the loss of the social significance of religion (Wilson 1982; Bruce 2002). Secularization theorists seems rightfully noted this critical critical change across Europe in the evolution of social sciences and religious life in Europe. Their quick inference that “religion and modern, primarily urban, life is incompatible” was proven wrong by many independent studies. Secularization did not happen in the US, and in the developing world, as expected where there is pluralism in the marketplace of religions (Berger, 1999).
Sociological approaches to religion today seems to combine various sociological analysis and tools with the interpretive understanding of the phenomenon. Weber’s definition of sociology still valid everywhere is “a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its causes and effects” (1947, p:88). As this brief summary implies today’s understanding of sociological study of religion is about exploring and explaining the very diverse and complex patterns in the very private religious aspects of human living. In order to accomplish these tasks, the discipline has drawn on a wide variety of methods with strong emphasis on empirical investigation of the phenomenon which requires methodological approach, such as surveying, fieldwork, interviewing, archival research, or textual analysis, or a combination of some of these data capturing methods. Taken together qualitative and quantitavive data, they enable the researchers to build up a picture of the phenomenon. With quantitative data analysis sociologists try to find patterns in religion and religious activities over time (Hamilton, 2001; Blau et al, 1992; Davie, 1994; Finke and Stark, 1988). Qualitative data analysis, taken from anthropology and psychology, has been widely used in investigating the phenemenon in religious minortities which can not be handled through surveys due to the very small sample sizes (for example Sewell, 2010). Cross-country studies across Europe and US as well as comperative studies with other cultures and religions are made by many contemporary researchers (for example Davie, 2000).
Since religion and more specifically religiosity is a human activity which is tought to be affected by surrounding environmental conditions, the analysis of religion is about the analysis of culture more precisely of gender, ethnicity, education, work relations and other social and power relations. Gender, ethnic, sexual, and religious differences analysed by many contemporary sociologists. A good overview of sociological studies of religion is provided by many writers such as Hamilton (2001), McGuire (2002), Hinnells (2005), and finally Dixon (2008).
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II.1.2. Anthropological Perspectives on Religion
The study of religion has been the main focus of anthropology since the time starting with Tylor as he describes the religion as “belief in spiritual things” (Tylor, 1903). Tylor has the privilege of being the first professor in anthropology in the world at the University of Oxford in 1896 and accepted by many as the founding father of the discipline. All religious ideas had, in his view, developed from a primitive belief in the revival of natural phenomenon “animism”. According to Tylor, based on his anthropological studies in living tribes, all religions are false attempts to give a meaning to life which may be rational but simply erroneous. More recently, Robin Horton has concurred with Tylor’s intellectualist view of religion, regarding African religions as explanatory attempts to link causes and events in much the same way as scientific practice, but based on inadequate or faulty information (Bowie, 2006). As it is obvious from this discussion the debate on defininig what the religion is an ongoing one when anthropology is concerned also, like other social sciences. Today’s anthropologists describe the discipline as an inclusive, comparative study of human societies, from their prehistoric origins to the present (Bowie, 2006). Historical notions about the discipline come with the debates on how do they explain religion. For Malinowski religion enables people to cope with life’s fluctuations whereas for Radcliffe-Brown who saw religion as part of the structure of society. These are sociological and psychological aspects of the same phenemenon, which can then be treated as illogical and rational at the same time. That fundamental disagreement among scholars again prove the complexity of the religion phenomenon (for a detailed discussion see Bowie, 2006).
Malinowski, sometimes considered as the founding father of fieldwork in anthropology through his pioneering work in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea at the beginning of 1900’s focused on its function on individuals in psychological and sociological perspectives. For him religion is a form of response developed physicologically by human being to cope with the emotional stress (Malinowski, 1948). As science and technological level do not give satisfying answers or explanations, human beings turn to religion and magic to satisfy their needs which involves the idea of diminishing religion with scientific and technological advancements, the core point of secularization thesis.
Émile Durkheim, a French sociologist, is one of the influential thinkers affecting the works in this discipline. His symbolist view, drawing on data from Australian aboriginal societies, pinpoints the society as the source of both religious norms and profane norms
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rather than the individual itself, ie everyday norms and sacred ones. His description of religion merely rely on the society’s highest goals and ideals which is not sourced by an individual response to life crises as Malinowski claimed, he saw religion as embodiment of society’s highest goals and ideals and God as a projection and reflection of society in The
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912). According to his view, religion acts as a
cohesive social force which is real in the sense that it exists in people’s minds leading to social order.
More recently Clifford Geertz and Talal Asad made many contributions in the field. Talal Asad for example discuss and criticize the assumption made by many scholars that religion can be studied as a cross-cultural category after which he concludes that there cannot be a universal definition of religion without refencing its specific historic and cultural context (Asad, 1993). Moreover, there are some scholars of religion who adopt a more explicitly anti-religious position in the name of science. For example, according to Lett, anthropologists have an intellectual and ethical obligation to investigate the truth or falsity of religious beliefs and his idea lead him to conclude that all types religious beliefs are scientifically wrong due to their nonfalsifiablity (Lett, 1997).
As far as anthropology concerned there are plenty of approaches used in the analysis of religion by different scholars. To name some of them intellectualist approach (Morris 1987, Horton 1993), emotionalist approach (Tambiah 1990), structuralist approach (Claude Levi-Strauss, 1968), interpretive approach (Clifford Geertz, 1973), cognitive approach (Boyer 1993, McCauley and Lawson 2002), phenomenological approach (Morris 1987, Erricker 1999) have analysed the issue in a wide range of perspectives in different cultures and practices.
There are good examples for all of these recent anthropological approaches: Bowie (2005), Bowen (1998) and Klass (1995). Referencing different religious traditions, Hinnells (1997); and Woodhead et al. (2002) can be visited. And for contemporary theorists in the study of religion, see Deal and Beal (2004). For specific reference and discussions about rituals Asad (1993), Smith (1987), Bloch (1992) and Hughes-Freeland (1998) are good examples.
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II.1.3. Psychological Perspectives on Religion
Studies of Religion in the field mainly started with Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, both among the most influential thinkers of enlightment period followed by Pierre Janet, Théodore Flournoy, G. Stanley Hall, Edwin Starbuck, James Pratt, James Leuba, and above all William James who are all treated as creators of the mainstream approaches and traditions of the field (Main, 2006). Main argues that this discipline at least at the beginning periods was not only concentrated on producing natural knowledge with social scientific analysis. Many of beginners in the field had pro-religious or anti-religious agendas towards religion that lead to researchers in the field to be distant in creating indifferent social inquiry in religion issue. The other disadvantage of the field in producing generalizable results stems from the fact that the field itself has limitations on the scope and generalizability in terms of empiricism since it handles human being case by case.
The psychology of religion is mainly on individual basis, involves the application of psychological theories to understand varios aspects of religion in individual’s mind effecting his regular habits and thoughts. It’s main tool is with the help of in depth psychological interviews and some other instruments to interpret the role that religion plays, most of the time with unavoidable subjectivity of the resercher, mainly focusing on case by case of individual beliefs and experiences rather than understanding its social impact. Mainstream scientifc psychology today are more oriented in empirical studies in order to assure more objectivity studies to undertake the mission of finding behavioral side and its effects on social life.
Religion is seen as the product of the human tendency to understand the world and of human reason and capacity to deduce, generalise and draw conclusions from observation and experience by the intellectual psychology theories. This is rooted back the early intellectualist thinkers Comte, Spencer, Tylor and Frazer. Their ideas will not be stated or discussed here, instead I will focus on recent trends and scholars, but their ideas influnced much of the works in the area and found the traditions in the field.
Along with the increasing importance given to empirical studies in the field recent attempts produced considerable empirical findings focusing on the psychological effects of religion on individual’s state and behaviour. Although it is accepted that subjectivity can not be eliminated due to interpretive approach many empirical studies generated information on happiness and health and their relation with religiosity together with moral behaviours and
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fear of death (Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle, 1997), overall religious behaviour and its effects on several important individual decisions (Spilka 2001), effects of religion on marriage, fertility, divorce, crime or deviant behaviour, and gender differences Jonte-Pace (2001), There are also some comparative studies Parsons (2001), for nonaffiliated spirituality Barnard (2001) some of which also have important social dimension such as fertility, crime, attitudes etc. At social level, social integration or exclusion, political involvement, individual achievements effecting labour productivity are other areas that researchers have visited to study the effects of religion and religiosity. Some of the important findings to be cited here are religiosity generally positively correlated with happiness, increase the ability to cope with several difficulties of life and decrease the fear of death. At social level it increases marital stability and fertility, reduce crime and divorces and increase the amount of total givings on positive side. Yet there are also findings encountered specifically on conservative religious sects, religiosity possess positive correlation with authoritarianism, and a loss of freedom of thinking (Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle 1997).
Since it is assumed subjectivity cannot be eliminated completely even with standardised questionnaires from the psychological studies of religion due to the fact that respondents expected to make introspection which they are not very well trained (Wulff, 1997), some researchers have turned to more qualitative psychological research methods such as face to face interviews with standardised or unstandardised form of questtionnares and participant observation studies, in which the researcher’s subjectivity is used as a research instrument (Main, 2006). Wulff argues that the questionnaires used in objective correlational studies define religion in literalistic terms (Wulff, 1997), where Spilka and others claim the objective empirical studies can only achieved by liberal religionists (Spilka, 2001). More focus on researher’s mind towards religion set aside by many recent scholars.
Cognitive approaches in understanding the religion and religiosity in psychological studies, some of them using reductionsit arguments, recently appear to be one of the important evolving area of the field. This approach uses evlotionary psychology and is in many ways quite different from others, a detailed discussion on religion and cognition by Luther Martin call it scientific cognitive studies (Martin, 2005). He argues that “cognitive science of religion can approach such questions theoretically, formulating generalizable answers as intersubjectively testable predictions” (Martin, 2005, p:487). The basic idea is that religious systems can be explained in terms of “basic or pan-cultural human
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psychological characteristics” (Hinde 1999, p:14). Stewart Guthrie (1993), Pascal Boyer (2001) and McCauley and Lawson (2002) are among the most significant scholars using that approach.
II.2. Economics and Religion
Despite the fact that Adam Smith, who is regarded as the founding father of economics, wrote some 25 pages in relation to religion and economics in his very well known “Wealth of Nations”, until the 1970s, very few of the economists take the area of interest. The reason is quite possibly that Weber’s book is the first book to read in their reading list as Demir stated (Demir, 2013). In the relevant part of his book, Smith studied religion and the potential of religiosity to create its own markets, under the circumstances at that time. Until Becker’s “new home economics” idea in 1964, religion and religiosity, and their possible effects on the economy, remained unchallenged, and economists regarded religion as a non-significant often negligible external variable. In fact, it is very intresting for religion area not to be one of the major sources of interest for economists for many years. Because, with a closer look, it is possible to say that the "perfect man/complete person" figurine, which is common to all religions roughly defined in the sacred texts normatively, is opposite to the behavioral assumptions of homo economicus. When homo economicus assumed to maximize his own interests and, while doing so, assumed to be selfish in a sense, religious advice involves sharing the interest with others and alturism. If this is the case, it is quite strange to establish economic models as these advices will not affect human behaviour.
Until Gary S. Becker's study in 1964, religion or religiosity was seen as an element that did not need to be considered in economic models. For the first time in his work, Becker applying “new home economics” considered non-market goods (like religion) as one of the household commodities that individuals are assumed to allocate time and goods to maximize their utility. Later in the light of Becker’s view, Azzi and Ehrenberg considered religion as a household production model in 1975 and added the afterlife consumption to the utility function of the individual. They took two indicators of religiosity, church attendance and money contributions within their model assuming that all individuals allocate their time and goods among religious and secular commodities to maximize not only their lifetime but also afterlife utility. In fact this effort is the first model to incorporate religious beliefs into some economic models. With this pioneering work, many years later, especially by American and
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European economists, many scholars tried to analyze the issue more closely on individual/household level, institution level and finally on market level. Later Iannaccone extended the Azzi and Ehrenberg’s model by including religious human capital in 1984 (Iannaccone, 1984).
Apart from other social science disciplines, today it is widely accepted that religion and religiosity are influential in many aspects of people's behavior, including the economic sphere and should be studied more closely. Religion and religiosity is important due to their observable and non-observable effects on individual choices and behaviours since they change the environment they live in by changing the utilities of goods. And due to their motivation and encouragement on trust and share with the help of religious institutions, more cooperative behaviour would be possible within the social networks especially by reducing transaction costs incurred otherwise (Demir, 2013c). Religion and religiosity can also influence individual wealth and happiness with its effects on more regular and estimable social behaviour (Becker and Murphy, 2000).
II.2.1. What Economics Bring New in the Analysis of Religion
In defending the economic approach to religion and its unique advantages among other social science disciplines Stark briefly explains that the economic approach is not mainly about money and prices as the name reminds. Rather, it is an economic approach in individual level since it involves the analysis of exchange relations of human beings with supernatural; and in social level it is about the analysis of two fundamental concepts demand-supply in religious markets. While other disciplines also concerned with the demand, like anthropology, sociology and psychology, their difference from economic approach come from the fact that they see social deprivations, neurosis, ignorance or fear which are all human shortcomings as the main source of the demand that people are driven to faith. In contrast the economic approach takes a “normal” view of demand, not sourced from any human failure or shortcomings, and assumes that religious behaviour can be modeled within the scope of rationality like any other human activity. The other important differentiating point of economic approach resides in its way of handling the supply side interactions with rationality. For Stark, the most observable variations in the demand side directly as the result of effectiveness and pluralism of supply side, religious institutions, which directly effects
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the overall religiosity in social context. Any type of monopoly in supply side negatively effect the meassured religiosity especially when church attendance and total givings are taken as two indicators of individual religiosity (Stark, 2006).
The core of all religions is their way of explanation on two subjects; the meaning of life, and the supernatural’s character, desires and expectations from human beings. The term supernatural defined, by Stark (2006), to involve the forces outside and beyond the nature that have the ability to create, change or ignore physical forces that are understandable by human reasoning. It is by these definitions that the question of why people tend to be religious or involved in religious activities answered as “to please the supernatural” and why do people wish to please supernatural? Like in any other human activity to gain benefits or to avoid harm. This exchange relationship is the core point in the economic approach to religion, completely ignoring the truth or falsity of the claims made by religions which gives it to analyse the phenomenon more objectively without stressing any position in favour or opposite direction or discussing its claims.
The other advantage of the economic approach proven empirically by many recent works is that of rationality and predictability of human behaviour. Stark emphasize this dimension: “were our behavior substantially irrational, not only would social science be invalid, but social life would be impossible: if the behavior of others were utterly unpredictable, we could not interact” (Stark, 2006, p:53). As far as religion concerned historical records show that many scholars thought most of the human behaviour meet the standart of rationality except religious behaviour which for Thomas Hobbes for example dismissing all religions as “credulity,” “ignorance,” and “lies,” and gods as “creatures of . . . fancy” (Hobbes, 1956) which then followed by David Hume. But within the suggested limits all humans assumed to act predictable way within the limits of rationality. As the sociologist James Coleman put it, “much of what is ordinarily described as nonrational or irrational is merely so because observers have not discovered the point of view of the actor, from which the action is rational” (Coleman 1990, p:18).
The economic approach to religion, according to Stark, is based on nine fundamental principles: belief, exchange with supernatural, individual experience of faith, rational choice, commitments, collective enterprise, intensity, group membership and competition (Stark 2006, p:49). These principles, once accepted, enhance the understanding of religion and religious behaviour and enable to measure the impact of these on individuals behaviour and
