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Replication Data for: Poverty and Divine Rewards: The Electoral Advantage of Islamist Political Parties

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: Poverty and Divine Rewards: The Electoral Advantage of Islamist Political Parties
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/XJQALC
 
Creator Grewal, Sharan
Jamal, Amaney
Masoud, Tarek
Nugent, Elizabeth
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description Political life in many Muslim-majority countries has been marked by the electoral dominance of Islamist parties. Recent attempts to explain why have highlighted their material and organizational advantages, such as their provision of social services. In this article, we revive an older literature that emphasizes the appeal of these parties’ religious nature to voters experiencing economic hardship. Individuals suffering economic strain may vote for Islamists because they believe this to be an intrinsically virtuous act that will be met with divine rewards in the afterlife. We explore this hypothesis through a series of laboratory experiments in Tunisia. Individuals assigned to treatment conditions instilling feelings of economic strain exhibit greater support for Islamist parties, and this support is causally mediated by an expectation of divine compensation in the hereafter. The evidence suggests that the religious nature of Islamist parties may also be an important factor in their electoral success.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Religion and politics
Poverty
Voting behavior
Political Islam
Middle East
 
Contributor Grewal, Sharan
 
Source Arab Barometer, Wave II (2010-2011) and Wave III (2012-2014), accessed March 29, 2019, http://www.arabbarometer.org/survey-data/data-downloads/