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Sacred Politics: Religious Leaders and Conflict in Israel by Michael R. Freedman B.A., Hebrew University (2010) M.A., Hebrew University (2014) Submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Political Science at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 2019 @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2019. All rights reserved. Signature redacted A u th o r ................................................................ Department of Political Science June 11, 2019 Signature redacted C ertified by ..... ....................... Fotini Christia Professor of Political Science Thesis Supervisor Signature redacted Accepted by ....... ....................... MASSACHUSETTSINSTITUTE Fotini Christia OnTECHNOL.OY Professor of Political Science T 292019 Chair, Graduate Program Committee IIRRARIFR 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 MITLibraries http://Iibraries.mit.edu/ask DISCLAIMER NOTICE Due to the condition of the original material, there are unavoidable flaws in this reproduction. We have made every effort possible to provide you with the best copy available. Thank you. The images contained in this document are of the best quality available. Sacred Politics: Religious Leaders and Conflict in Israel by Michael R. Freedman Submitted to the Department of Political Science on August 18, 2019, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Political Science Abstract My dissertation examines why religious leaders adopt nationalist positions and how these positions contribute to the duration of an ongoing conflict. I propose a general framework of sacred politics that incorporates the state, religious leaders, and religious communities. Within this framework, I develop a theory of religious credibility that explains the variation in religious leader ideology through examining leaders' incentives to strategically adopt ideological positions and the network of religious institutions. I test these hypotheses in Israel using a combination of methods including statistical text methods that analyze religious communication of different religious leaders, spatial panel data showing the electoral impact of religious institutions, and a novel experimental design where I vary the credibility of religious leaders using religious sermons. This dissertation offers significant social science contributions as it offers an account of why religious leaders adopt moderate and extreme ideologies. They also give insight into the reasons why some religious leaders cooperate with the state, why this cooperation is crucial for the termination of conflict, and the influence that religious leaders have on the political behavior of their followers. Outside of schol- arly literatures, the dissertation offers important findings for policy-makers seeking to understand and include religious leaders in development and peace-building processes. Thesis Supervisor: Fotini Christia Title: Full Professor Thesis Supervisor: Richard Nielsen Title: Associate Professor Thesis Supervisor: Guy Grossman Title: Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania 3 4 Acknowledgments After 6 years, I realized it really does take a village - a very large one with friends and family - to write a dissertation. I would have never been able to complete the dissertation without the help of many people and organizations. I would like to thank my excellent committee - Fotini Christia, Rich Nielsen, and Guy Grossman - who provided fantastic guidance throughout my dissertation. Other faculty at MIT who played a key role include David Singer, Kathy Thelen, Danny Hidalgo, Teppei Yamamoto, and In-Song Kim. The administrative staff at MIT was also super helpful, with special thanks to Susan, Paula, and Diana for helping me navigate the bureaucratic waters. I also benefited greatly from my collaborations with co-authors. Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom provided great advice, especially for our joint experimental paper. Daniel Karell provided both financial support and introduced me to the rich world of sociol- ogy, networks, and Afghanistan. I also received important advice and support from Esteban Klor and Avi Ebenstein. I also would like to thank the organizations which provided me with funding during the dissertation. I was fortunate to be a recipient of the Global Religion Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Global Religious Research Initiate, which allowed me to focus exclusively on my research during my 6th year. I was also fortunate to receive generous funding from the Israel Institute as a Doctoral fellow. I also received funding from MISTI Israel, CIS, and ASMEA for different parts of the dissertation. I also benefited from rich workshops held by POMEPS, WESSI, and the Coase Institute. I would also like to thank my excellent cohort at MIT, which was a constant source of intellectual and emotional support. Particular thanks go out to Elizabeth, Tugba, Wei, Nina, Phil, and Meg. I also benefited from others at MIT including Elissa, Tesalia, Dean, Dan De Kadt, Yiqing, Justin, Tom, and Mike Sances. Many friends at Hebrew University also helped along the way including Noam Gidron, Chagai Weiss, Yair Fogel-Dror, Saar Barkat, Omer Yair, Alona Dolinsky, and Netta Barak-Corren. I also benefited from my meetings with the political psychology 5 lab at Hebrew University including Haggai, Shani, Jonathan, Ori, and Naama. I also am grateful for helpful comments from friends including Chaim, Netanel, Gilad, and Ido. My parents, grandparents, and siblings all provided important support throughout the dissertation. My apologies for anyone I have forgotten. As those who know me, I am sure my poor memory has omitted many others who have helped along the way. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their patience and support, especially with all the travel over the years and whenever I worked weekends. Special thanks to Sara, whose strong support over the years made everything possible. 6 Contents 1 Introduction 17 1.1 Motivation ..................... 17 1.2 Argument ..................... 19 1.3 Context ...................... 20 1.4 Methodology ................... 21 1.5 Dissertation Roadmap .............. 22 2 Fighting from the Pulpit: Religious Leaders and Violent Conflict in Israel 25 2.1 Religious Leaders and Conflict . ........ ....... ..... 29 2.1.1 Indivisible Territory and Different Types of Conflict .. ... 29 2.1.2 Religious Ideology and the State ....... ....... .. 31 2.1.3 Jewish Religious Leaders and Conflict in Israel ........ 32 2.1.4 Impact of Religious Leaders on Conflict ...... ...... 34 2.2 Converting Religious Pamphlets into Data .... .......... 35 2.2.1 Religious Pamphlets .... ........... ....... 35 2.2.2 Sampling and Generalizability .. .......... ..... 37 2.2.3 Measurement of Key Variables ................. 39 2.3 Empirical Strategy ........... ................ 41 2.3.1 Validity of Design . ..................... .. 41 2.4 Impact of Conflict on Religious Rhetoric ............... 42 2.4.1 Robustness of Results ........ .......... ... 43 2.5 Religious Heterogeneity ........ ............ ..... 45 7 2.5.1 Potential Mechanisms .. ................... 46 2.6 Conclusion ................................ 47 3 Vote with Your Rabbi: The Electoral Effects of Religious Institu- tions in Israel 57 3.1 Theory of Religious Influence on Politics .... ..... ... 61 3.2 Religious Institutions in Israel ... ............ ... 64 3.3 D ata ............................. .. .. 66 3.4 Descriptive Statistics ........ ............ ... 68 3.5 Empirical Strategy ..................... .. 71 3.6 Main Results . .................. ..... ... ... 74 3.7 Types of Religious Institutions and Potential Mechanisms . ...... 78 3.8 Alternative Explanations ......... ......... ...... 79 3.9 Conclusion .......................... 81 4 Religious Authority and Political Compromise: Evidence from Re- ligious Leaders in Israel (with Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom) 85 4.1 Introduction ................ ..... .......... 86 4.2 Religious Leaders and Political Compromise . .. .......... 89 4.2.1 Symbolic Dimensions of Conflict ...... .......... 89 4.2.2 Religious Leaders and Political Compromise ..... ..... 91 4.2.3 Religious Authority ...... ....... .. ... ... .. 92 4.2.4 Political Credibility ............. .......... 93 4.3 Research Design .................. .... ... ... 94 4.3.1 Outcome Variables: ............. .......... 95 4.3.2 Treatments ................. .......... 96 4.3.3 Sampling .................. .......... 98 4.4 Results for Study 1 ................ .......... 98 4.4.1 Mechanisms ................. ....... ... 100 4.4.2 Impact on Religious Tolerance ..... .. .. .... ... 102 4.4.3 Heterogeneity of Results .. ........ .......... 103 8 4.5 ResultsforStudy2 ....... ............. ........ 104 4.6 Conclusions .... ...... ...... ...... ..... ..... 107 5 Conclusions 109 5.1 Contributions ... ... .... .... ... .... ... .... ... 109 5.2 Lim itations ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .. 111 5.3 N ext Steps ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... ... 113 A Supplemental Information for Chapter 2 115 A.1 Religious Leaders in the Sabbath Pamphlets ... .... .... ... 115 A.1.1 How Influential are the Sabbath Pamphlets? .. ..... ... 115 A.2 Textual Analysis Details ....... ........ ......... 117 A.2.1 Data Pre-Processing .... ........... ........ 117 A.2.2 Structured Topic Model .... ........ ........ 117 A.2.3 Validation of the Topic Model ..... ............. 118 B Supplemental Information for Chapter 3 135 B.1 Details on Israel's Religious Political

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