Religiosity and political participation - Panel data evidence from post-communist Poland

Abstract

Numerous contributions to the literature show that religious activities and civic participation are positively correlated. The available studies, however, are mostly based on cross-sectional data and thus rarely control for factors that simultaneously affect both variables. In this paper, using panel data on Poland, we check whether the relationship in question is robust to controlling for municipality-level fixed effects, time-fixed effects, and several time-varying factors. As a proxy for the level of religiosity we use data on religious observance, whereas as a proxy for civic participation we look at electoral turnout. Our results robustly show that municipalities with higher measures of church attendance exhibit higher voter turnout. This, in turn, gives some credence that the relationship between religious commitment and civic participation might be causal.