Religious Frontiers and Xenophobia: Evidence from Weimar Germany

Robert Braun, University of California, Berkeley

This paper argues that religious frontiers produce fear of strangers. Spatial proximity to religious borders simultaneously enhances community strength, and threat perception. Together, these two forces create collective fear for those who are from outside the community. The author develops this argument by analyzing a newly created database on folklore and religion in approximately 20,000 towns and villages in religiously divided Germany during the 1930s. Spatial econometrics reveal that inhabitants of Protestant towns in the proximity of Catholic towns (and vice versa) were more likely to tell their children stories featuring xenophobic bogeymen. Instrumental variable analysis using 16th century religious boundaries, allow the author to rule out some endogeneity bias and establish causal order. In line with the main theory, religious frontier effects were particularly strong in towns that had stronger community norms, religious associations, militias and were located in areas where religious conflict had been more intense. The findings shed new light on how identity politics and state-formation unintentionally shape how citizens are taught to see and feel the world around them.

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 Presented in Session 71. Civil Society and the Welfare State