Political Christianity: Internal Organization, Preferences and Church Political Activity

This dissertation examines the role of internal structure of religious organizations in influencing these organizations' interactions with incumbent governments and ultimately determining the political activities of religious groups. This dissertation fits within a body of literature known as the political economy of religion. I expand upon this literature by examining religious groups in terms of internal organization, focusing on Christian churches in Africa, with Kenya as my primary case country.;The central argument of this dissertation is that churches (national-level denominations) with certain organizational features -- centralized leadership, authoritarian decision-making procedures, and lack of internal accountability mechanisms -- are more likely to have friendlier interactions with governments and therefore tend to adopt more pro-government political stances compared to churches that lack these features. This relationship operates through two mechanisms. First, centralized churches possess negotiation advantages over decentralized churches. Second, centralized, authoritarian churches can more easily be co-opted by incumbent governments. The dissertation also expand upon existing literature by offering a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the preferences of governments and churches vis-a-vis one another, proposing that churches seek to maximize number of church members, member faithfulness, and resources, while governments seek ideological support, citizen mobilization, and social service provision from churches.;These arguments are examined by historical comparative case studies of five of the largest Christian denominations in Kenya over the course of the country's first three post-independence presidents. Through qualitative historical analysis, combined with information gathered through fieldwork in Kenya, the dissertation demonstrates how the preferences of these churches and governments, mediated through the internal organizations of the churches, influenced church-state relations and ultimately determined the churches' political stances. The impact of internal organization is greater than factors such as ethnicity or theological conservatism/liberalism.;The dissertation tests these arguments through a quantitative analysis of church political orientation using national-level data on Christian churches and countries across Africa from independence through 2010. The results of the statistical analyses show significant effects of organizational features such as centralization, consistent with the arguments made concerning Kenya. The dissertation then gives brief qualitative analysis of church-state relations for several of the African churches included in the quantitative dataset.