Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

12-2022

Abstract

A growing literature posits that colonial Christian missions brought schooling to the colonies, improving human capital in ways that persist to this day. But in some places they did much more. This paper argues that colonial Catholic missions in the Philippines functioned as state-builders, establishing law and order and building fiscal and infrastructural capacities in territories they controlled. The mission-as-state was the result of a bargain between the Catholic missions and the Spanish colonial government: missionaries converted the population and engaged in state-building, whereas the colonial government reaped the benefits of state expansion while staying in the capital. Exposure to these Catholic missions-as-state then led to long-run improvements in state capacity and development. I find that municipalities that had a Catholic mission have higher levels of state capacity and development today. A variety of mechanisms---religious competition, education, urbanization, and structural transformation---explain these results.

Keywords

historical political economy, state capacity, economic development, religion, Philippines

Discipline

Asian Studies | Political Economy | Political Science | Religion

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Comparative Political Studies

Volume

55

Issue

12

First Page

2050

Last Page

2085

ISSN

0010-4140

Identifier

10.1177/00104140211066222

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00104140211066222

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