Kevin Lewis November 18, 2025 The Political Limits of the Patriarchy: Women’s Rights in Early Representative Institutions Carissa Tudor Perspectives on Politics, forthcoming Abstract: Political scientists often assume that women had no political rights before the twentieth century. Archival records show that this is not the case and reveal an unlikely group of politically active women: Catholic nuns. Using novel data for more than 150 assembly meetings between 1493 and 1789, I demonstrate that ecclesiastical women exercised political rights systematically across France, despite a patriarchal church and monarchy. Ecclesiastical women had political rights because they were economic actors with a stake in state finances and local affairs. Theoretically, I argue that early representative practices ought to be viewed as a tool used by rulers to increase compliance with governance activities. Accordingly, rulers had an incentive to afford rights of representation to those actors on whose compliance they depended: most often, these were economic actors, including some women. From this perspective, select women’s inclusion should have been the default in many early representative institutions. This logic extends beyond ecclesiastical women in France, turning on its head the taken-for-granted assumption of women’s historical political exclusion. The Medieval Origins of Spousal Consent Clara Piano & Ennio Piano University of Mississippi Working Paper, October 2025 Abstract: This paper examines the medieval origins of spousal consent, the norm requiring that marriages be contracted willingly and free from pressure from third parties. We argue that this norm resulted from the Catholic Church’s consolidation of legal authority over marriage in Western Europe in the 11th-12th centuries. Committed doctrinally to the belief that marriages could not be dissolved and that remarriage was therefore impermissible (i. e., marriage indissolubility), the Church was compelled to enforce high consent requirements to the formation of new unions. Using a simple theoretical model, we show that the Church’s optimal level of spousal consent is higher when remarriage is not allowed. Higher consent requirements mitigate the negative effect of indissolubility on the number of marriages contracted. The development of a theory of spousal consent marked a sharp break from pre-Christian practice, which gave parents substantial control over the choice of spouse. It also contrasted with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, both of which permitted remarriage after divorce. Our analysis suggests that the Church’s insistence on free consent was a necessary institutional complement to its unique stance on indissolubility, shaping marriage law and family structure in ways that reverberated throughout European history. Antisemitic hate crimes in New York City: An analysis of administrative data, 2019-2024 Janet Rosenbaum Journal of Public Health Policy, December 2025, Pages 816-829 Abstract: The Israel-Hamas war that began on 7 October 2023 may have spurred anti-Jewish hate crimes, which are associated with measurable health harms including worsened cardiometabolic biomarkers. This study evaluated whether anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York City increased during the Israel-Hamas war using administrative data representing 3255 hate crimes between 2019 and 2024. In 26 of 72 observed months, anti-Jewish hate crimes outnumbered the combined total of all other hate crimes. Compared with other hate crimes, anti-Jewish hate crimes were more likely to be felonies (63% versus 38%, p < 0. 001) and less likely to result in arrest (30% versus 57%, p < 0. 001). Monthly anti-Jewish hate crimes were on average twice as common during the first year of the Israel-Hamas war than the previous 5 years, adjusting for each borough’s Jewish population (PR = 1. 97, 95% CI (1. 64, 2. 35)). The disproportionate frequency of anti-Jewish hate crimes suggests further unmeasured major and minor antisemitic discrimination. Voting on the Reformation Qiyi Charlotte Zhao Stanford Working Paper, August 2025 Abstract: A large literature measures the economic consequences of the Reformation, particularly Protestantism. An important yet overlooked question is what kinds of people became Protestants in the first place, and whether economic factors influenced their decisions. I study this question using rare individual-level data from 16th-century German urban referenda. I find that privileged citizens, whether defined by birth, political status, or residential address, supported Protestantism less than ordinary citizens. Guilds making a living from capital also showed less support than guilds relying on labor. As a possible explanation, Catholic institutions offered the elite exclusive rights and economic networks that Protestantism threatened to abolish. These results highlight the roles of self-selection and preexisting demand, shedding new light on the current literature’s findings and assumptions. Reconstructing History: Using Language to Estimate Religious Spread Arthur Blouin & Julian Dyer Journal of Economic History, forthcoming Abstract: We introduce a data-driven approach to use language to reconstruct history, and apply the methodology to estimate the geographic origins of religious spread. To validate the approach, we use language data to estimate origins of Islam and Buddhism to within 500km of their true (and uncontested) origins. We then apply the methodology to the more complex (and contested) cases of Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism. We show that language-based estimates, in these cases, are significantly more aligned with the origin of scripture than with the origin of the religion. Religion Is Sometimes Raced: Christian Nationalism as In-Group Protection Brooklyn Walker et al. Perspectives on Politics, forthcoming Abstract: Popular narratives suggest that the effects of Christian nationalism should be more heavily concentrated among white Americans. The academic literature on Christian nationalism largely reflects this take, often asserting that it is effectively white Christian nationalism. We question such pronouncements, as they have come without systematic analysis across the broad range of issue areas needed to justify subgroup segmentations. Utilizing national oversamples of Black and Latino Christians (alongside white Christians), we assess the relationship between standard measures of Christian nationalism and attitudes toward policies that vary in their degree of racialization. Our findings qualify typical narratives: consistent with a theory of Christian nationalism as sacralized in-group protection, we find effects that diverge by racial groups on racialized issues but otherwise converge. We close by discussing the implications of these findings and offering suggestions for future work linking race with Christian nationalism. Faith and philanthropy: Megachurch scandals and charitable giving Angela Cools Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, October 2025 Abstract: Religious institutions receive the plurality of U. S. charitable contributions, but do their actions affect the total size of the charitable sector or simply the allocation of donations? I examine the impact of religious shocks on giving using a newly constructed database of megachurch scandals linked to itemized contributions data from the Internal Revenue Service. A scandal reduces local itemized contributions by 1. 9 percent ($10 million) per year for at least three years. Contributions to non-church local charities are largely unaffected, indicating limited substitution between religious and secular philanthropy. However, declines in funds received by crisis pregnancy centers reveal close ties between megachurches and the anti-abortion/pro-life movement in the United States. Scandals also reduce religious service attendance, indicating that religious disengagement is an important channel through which scandals affect contributions. Christian nationalism and attitudes about democracy in Africa John Ishiyama Politics and Religion, forthcoming Abstract: Is Christian nationalism a threat to democracy in Africa, and to what extent are its adherents “anti-democratic” as is often claimed? Using the Afrobarometer Round 7 (2016-18), I examine how extensive these attitudes are held among Africans. Although I find that the proportion of the population on the continent that holds Christian nationalist views is somewhat limited, I find support for the argument that Christian nationalists tend to be less supportive of democracy than others, and more receptive to authoritarian alternatives to democracy. However, they are not more likely to hold intolerant attitudes with regard to other religions and LGBTQ individuals. In addition, I do not find, contrary to the existing literature on Christian nationalism in Africa, that Pentecostals are more intolerant of out groups than other Africans. The Impact of Terrorism on Education: Evidence from the Death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan Saqib Hussain & Chungeun Yoon Labour Economics, forthcoming Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of terrorism on educational outcomes following the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The unexpected death of bin Laden, Al- Qaeda’s founder and symbolic leader, triggered a significant escalation in retaliatory terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups perceived Pakistan as complicit in the U. S. operation, leading to increased attacks on government, military, and civilian targets, with assaults on educational institutions rising by 50 percent. This surge led to a significant decline in educational attainment, reducing average years of schooling by 0. 52 years and lowering primary school completion rates by 5. 9 percentage points, with a more pronounced impact on girls. Furthermore, academic performance declined, with math, English, and reading scores falling by approximately 0. These findings highlight that the elimination of a terrorist leader can incite retaliatory violence, significantly undermining the educational prospects of children, particularly girls. Missionary Activity, Education, and Long-Run Political Development: Evidence Across Regime Types in Africa Soeren Henn, Horacio Larreguy & Carlos Schmidt-Padilla Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming.
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/blog/detail/findings-a-daily-roundup/in-the-image-of-god
In the Image of God
