Power and Conviction: The Political Economy of Missionary Work in Colonial-Era Africa Wietzke Frank-Borge
This Element engages with recent attempts by economists and political scientists to rigorously estimate impacts of missionary work in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that, although these efforts…
Specifikacia Power and Conviction: The Political Economy of Missionary Work in Colonial-Era Africa Wietzke Frank-Borge
This Element engages with recent attempts by economists and political scientists to rigorously estimate impacts of missionary work in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that, although these efforts contribute to more accurate assessments of the 'true' effects of missionary presence, they also have a tendency to present Christian involvement in the region as a largely apolitical process, that was relatively unaffected by the rapidly evolving geopolitical and socio-cultural contexts of the colonial period. Countering this trend, this Element illustrates aspects of missionary behavior that were inherently more political and context-dependent, such as local struggles for religious hegemony between Protestants and Catholics and interactions between colonial regimes and the church-based provision of goods like education. The Element draws heavily on market-based theories of organized religious