Church Voting Recommendations, Voter Preferences, and Political Decisions
Corresponding Author
Benno Torgler
School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology
Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology (BEST), Queensland University of Technology
CREMA – Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts
Correspondence should be addressed to Benno Torgler, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, Gardens Point, 2 George St, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia. E-mail: benno.torgler@qut.edu.au
Search for more papers by this authorDavid Stadelmann
Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology (BEST), Queensland University of Technology
CREMA – Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts
Faculty of Law, Business & Economics, University of Bayreuth
Search for more papers by this authorMarco Portmann
CREMA – Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts
Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research, Switzerland
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Benno Torgler
School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology
Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology (BEST), Queensland University of Technology
CREMA – Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts
Correspondence should be addressed to Benno Torgler, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, Gardens Point, 2 George St, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia. E-mail: benno.torgler@qut.edu.au
Search for more papers by this authorDavid Stadelmann
Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology (BEST), Queensland University of Technology
CREMA – Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts
Faculty of Law, Business & Economics, University of Bayreuth
Search for more papers by this authorMarco Portmann
CREMA – Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts
Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research, Switzerland
Search for more papers by this authorWe acknowledge financial support from the Australian Research Council (FT110100463). We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Abstract
In Switzerland, two key church institutions—the Conference of Swiss Bishops and the Federation of Protestant Churches—make public recommendations on how to vote for certain referenda. We leverage this situation to directly measure religious organizations’ power to reflect and shape human decision making. That is, using a direct measure of voters’ commitment to their religious institution, we analyze whether they are more likely to vote in line with this organization's voting recommendation. We find that these recommendations do indeed wield influence, implying that even in a secularized world, religion plays a crucial role in voting decisions. Our results hold for both aggregate and individual-level voting decisions.
Supporting Information
Filename | Description |
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jssr12669-sup-0001-SuppMat.docx68.9 KB | Figure A1: Proportion of Protestants in the different Swiss cantons (in 2000). Table A1: Swiss referenda by religious group (detailed in the national language) Table A2: Data description and sources Table A3: Robustness tests for the effect of different religious preferences on constituent referenda choices |
Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
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