世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

Peter Berger (1929) is an American sociologist best known for his collaboration with Thomas Luckman in writing The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That book argues that human reality, and knowledge of it, is a social construct, emerging from the individual or group’s interaction with larger social structures (institutions). Social structures, once widely adopted, lose their history as social constructions (objectivation), and come over time, by the people who live within them, to be deemed natural realities independent of human construction (reification). Berger predicted, in his later book, The Sacred Canopy, near-term all-encompassing secularization of religion, which prediction has proved false, especially in the third world (as Berger himself has acknowledged in his later work, Desecularization).

神圣的帷幕 : 宗教社会学理论之要素 = The sacred canopy elements of a sociological theory of religion

Ethnic Groups in Conflict

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us

Peasants into Frenchmen: The modernization of rural France 1870–1914: Eugene Weber, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1976. Pp. xv + 615. $20·00)

The concept of ‘big man rule’, conventionally invoked to refer to a kinship-based relationship between patron and client, is now finding application in the charismatic Pentecostal movement in Africa. This article explores why new Pentecostalism emerges as an alternative to traditional clientelism, and how well the analogy of big man rule applies. It traces the Pentecostal form of big man rule to four socio-economic transformations: ongoing weakness in the state’s ability to provide social welfare; a change in social values in the wake of the global financial crisis; expanding state control over customary activities; and urbanization. Drawing on data collected from both patrons and clients in Ghana, the article shows that Pentecostalism mirrors traditional big man rule by encouraging members to break from their past, to trust leadership, and to commit exclusively to their religious social network. Among church leaders, Pentecostalism also encourages internal competition and the provision of social services. Most importantly, the movement creates pay-off structures that replicate the exchange of resources for loyalty central to big man rule. The implication is that Pentecostalism’s success as an alternative informal institution is not a function of Weberian ethics or occult spiritualities, but rather its ability to fill voids left by the state and to provide new social networks. SINCE MARSHALL SAHLINS’ SEMINAL TYPOLOGY of local leadership in Melanesia, the concept of the ‘big man’ has featured prominently in descriptions of politics in the developing world. This is particularly true of scholarship on sub-Saharan Africa, where the combination of pre-colonial norms, post-colonial institutions, and weak states created *John F. McCauley (mccauley@umd.edu) is Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, USA. An earlier version of the article was presented at the Nigeria Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies (NCPCS) Conference, Abuja, Nigeria, 2012. I thank E. Gyimah-Boadi and Rev. Roland Owusu-Ansah for their assistance in the field. Donald E. Miller, Danny McCain, and Umar Danfulani provided helpful comments. I am grateful to the John Templeton Foundation and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California for financial support. 1. Marshall Sahlins, ‘Poor man, rich man, big man, chief: political types in Melanesia and Polynesia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 5 (1963), pp. 285–303. African Affairs, 112/446, 1–21 doi: 10.1093/afraf/ads072 © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved Advance Access Publication 6 December 2012 1 at U niersity of M arland on Sptem er 5, 2015 http://afraordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from opportunities for personal rulers to gain and maintain power by virtue of informal relationships with local masses. The typical underpinning of big man rule in Africa has been the kinship ties that bind leaders to their followers and serve as a heuristic cue for both sides in the intricate exchange of resources for loyalty. Recently, the concept of big man rule in Africa has found application outside of the standard channels of ethnicity and kinship in the most powerful social movement to touch the continent over the last generation, charismatic Pentecostalism. Alternatively referred to as charismatic Pentecostalism, new or neo-Pentecostalism, or sometimes born-again Pentecostalism, the movement is characterized by a focus on the Holy Spirit and on material well-being. Its spread began in the late 1970s, as new churches and leaders distinguished themselves from the classic, mission-based Pentecostal churches. Paul Gifford has noted in this movement a shift away from popular participation and toward a model of ‘unchallengeable big men’. David Maxwell applies the concept of the big man to the leadership structure of the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa (ZAOGA) revivalist movement. Ruth Marshall describes the new forms of prestige that have made leaders of the born-again Pentecostal churches in Nigeria analogous to political big men, and Ogbu Kalu writes of the ‘big man of the big God’. While the term resonates with observers of superstar pastors, megachurches, and excessively rich Pentecostal benefactors, largely missing from the discussion has been a careful analysis of the political implications. This article seeks to clarify the relationship between big man rule, as typically understood in political studies of Africa, and the charismatic Pentecostal movement. Are Pentecostal leaders and wealthy church benefactors the new big men in Africa? If so, what explains the shift in social norms away from a kinship-based distribution of resources and loyalty and toward a Pentecostal, church-based format? To whom might an 2. Goran Hyden, African Politics in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006); Robert H. Jackson and Carl Rosberg, ‘Personal rule: theory and practice in Africa’, Comparative Politics 16, 4 (1984), pp. 421–42; René Lemarchand, ‘Political clientelism and ethnicity in tropical Africa: competing solidarities in nation-building’, American Political Science Review 66, 1 (1972), pp. 68–90. 3. Gifford calls new Pentecostalism the most significant ideological reformation on the continent. See Paul Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a globalising African economy (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2004). 4. Ibid., p. 188. 5. David Maxwell, ‘Delivered from the spirit of poverty? Pentecostalism, prosperity, and modernity in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Religion in Africa 28, 3 (1998), pp. 350–73. 6. Ruth Marshall, Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal revolution in Nigeria (Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL, 2009), pp. 105–7. 7. Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An introduction (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008). 2 AFRICAN AFFAIRS at U niersity of M arland on Sptem er 5, 2015 http://afraordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from alternative formulation of big man rule apply? Building on a framework of informal institutions, patron–client relations, and the burgeoning literature on Pentecostalism in Africa, I construct an argument that explains the link between big man rule and the charismatic Pentecostal movement in Africa. My analysis is based on evidence collected during two years of field research, including interviews with over 40 Pentecostal leaders and 500 congregants of various denominations. The article begins with a review of the notion of big man rule, as it applies to the political distribution of resources and loyalty in Africa. Focusing on the role of informal institutions and the importance of ethnic ties in patron–client relations, I characterize regional politics as deeply reliant on reciprocal relations between big men patrons and their loyal followers. I then explore the contemporary breakdown in the traditional system that has created space for the charismatic Pentecostal movement to emerge, for some, as an alternative to kinship ties. I argue that the financial crisis of the late 1970s sparked a change in social values and an opportunity for new norms to develop. Furthermore, an expanding government administration has undercut the strength of customary norms, but the state has remained weak in its ability to address social welfare needs. Finally, the increasing urbanization of African states pulls individuals away from their traditional support networks. The outcome is an upsurge in the need for new networks of support, and an opportunity for revivalist religious movements to fill that void and gain popular salience. Next, I consider the features of charismatic Pentecostalism that make this particular movement an appealing contemporary alternative for both patrons and clients, with respect not only to their customary kinship ties but also to traditional, mainline churches. More specifically, I show that by promoting internal competition, materialism as a blessing, and a complete break from one’s past, the movement creates pay-off structures that allow Pentecostal big men to distribute goods and resources in exchange for loyal support from their congregations of followers. The application of big man rule to new Pentecostalism is not without its limitations, however. The opportunity to supplant traditional patron–client ties with Pentecostal ones applies only to the movement’s adherents, of course, and the contexts in which the argument can be generalized may be limited to those in which Pentecostalism is prominent yet politically informal. Most importantly, the analogy of big man rule to new Pentecostalism is threatened by the provenance of resources distributed from patrons to clients, since traditional big men rely on access to the state, which is not typically, or at least not yet, a feature of Pentecostal leadership. Despite these and other challenges, the presence of new opportunities for informal, mutually beneficial exchange between Pentecostal patrons and their congregant clients suggests that AFRICA’S NEW BIG MAN RULE? 3 at U niersity of M arland on Sptem er 5, 2015 http://afraordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from the Pentecostal movement is indeed emerging as a new form of big man rule in Africa. Traditional big man rule in Africa Big man rule conventionally describes the relationships between patron and client in a patrimonial system, with an emphasis on the personal – sometimes almost mystical – power of the patron and the distance between leader and subject. Notorious leaders like Mobutu Sese Seko, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and Daniel arap Moi are frequently cited as examples, but the concept of the big man applies equally well to contemporary leaders and to local chiefs or powerful figures who operate below the national level. The essence of the patron–client relationship is that patrons provide material resources, services, and opportunities – to which they as big men have 

Africa's new big man rule? Pentecostalism and patronage in Ghana

When elites mobilize supporters according to different cleavages, or when individuals realign themselves along new identity lines, do their political preferences change? Scholars have focused predominantly on the size of potential coalitions that leaders construct, to the exclusion of other changes that might occur when one or another identity type is made salient. In this article, I argue that changes in the salience of ethnicity and religion in Africa are associated with variation in policy preferences at the individual level. I test this claim empirically using data from a framing experiment in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. By randomly assigning participants to either a religious or an ethno-linguistic context, I show that group members primed to ethnicity prioritize club goods, the access to which is a function of where they live. Otherwise identical individuals primed to religion prioritize behavioral policies and moral probity. These findings are explained by the geographic boundedness of ethnic groups and the geographic expansiveness of (world) religions in the study area.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003055414000410

The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Africa

This book explains why conflicts in Africa are sometimes ethnic and sometimes religious, and why a conflict might change from ethnic to religious even as the opponents remain fixed. Conflicts in the region are often viewed as either 'tribal' or 'Muslim-Christian', seemingly rooted in deep-seated ethnic or religious hatreds. Yet, as this book explains, those labels emerge as a function of political mobilization. It argues that ethnicity and religion inspire distinct passions among individuals, and that political leaders exploit those passions to achieve their own strategic goals when the institutions of the state break down. To support this argument, the book relies on a novel experiment conducted in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana to demonstrate that individual preferences change in ethnic and religious contexts. It then uses case illustrations from Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Sudan to highlight the strategic choices of leaders that ultimately shape the frames of conflict.

The Logic of Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa

Africa’s arbitrary country borders have been seized upon as sources of “natural experiments”: having randomly assigned people to different country treatments, differences in outcomes on either side of the border can then be attributed to the institutions, demographics, or policies put in place in each country. While methodologically attractive, the use of African borders as sources of natural experiments presents several potential pitfalls. We describe these pitfalls—some common to all studies that employ jurisdictional boundaries, some unique to African borders—and offer guidelines for overcoming them. We conclude that African cross-border studies can provide research advantages similar to well-executed comparative case studies, but that they frequently offer weaker inferential leverage than is claimed.

/pdf/african-borders-as-sources-of-natural-experiments-promise-voxw7wdor1.pdf

African Borders as Sources of Natural Experiments Promise and Pitfalls

Under what conditions does religion become a salient social identity? By measuring religious attachment among the people living astride the Burkina Faso–Cote d’Ivoire border in West Africa, an arbitrary boundary that exposes otherwise similar individuals to different political contexts, this article makes a case for the importance of the political environment in affecting the weight that people attach to their religious identities. After ruling out explanations rooted in the proportion of different religious denominations, the degree of secularization and the supply of religious institutions on either side of the border, as well as differences in the degree of religious pluralism at the national level, it highlights the greater exposure of Ivorian respondents to the politicization of religion during Cote d’Ivoire’s recent civil conflict. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the power – and challenges – of exploiting Africa’s arbitrary borders as a source of causal leverage.

/pdf/the-political-sources-of-religious-identification-evidence-30urw91990.pdf

John F. McCauley

Papers

Africa's new big man rule? Pentecostalism and patronage in Ghana

The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Africa

The Logic of Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa

African Borders as Sources of Natural Experiments Promise and Pitfalls

The Political Sources of Religious Identification: Evidence from the Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire Border