Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State

Johnson, Noel D and Koyama, Mark (2012): Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State.

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between the historical process of legal centralization and increased religious toleration by the state. We develop a model in which legal centralization leads to the criminalization of the religious beliefs of a large proportion of the population. This process initially leads to increased persecution, but, because these persecutions are costly, it eventually causes the state to broaden the standards of orthodox belief and move toward religious toleration. We compare the results of the model with historical evidence drawn from two important cases in which religious diversity and state centralization collided in France: the Albigensian crusades of the thirteenth century and the rise of Protestant belief in the sixteenth century. Both instances sup- port our central claim that the secularization of western European state institutions during the early-modern period was driven by the costs of imposing a common set of legal standards on religiously diverse populations.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: State Capacity; Religion; Secularization; Heresy; Legal Capacity; France
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H10 - General; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z12 - Religion; P - Economic Systems > P4 - Other Economic Systems > P48 - Political Economy ; Legal Institutions ; Property Rights ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Regional Studies; K - Law and Economics > K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior > K42 - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law; N - Economic History > N4 - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation > N43 - Europe: Pre-1913

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