Commitment through Sacrifice: How Longer Ramadan Fasting Strengthens Religiosity and Political Islam

Religions seem to defy the law-of-demand, which suggests that all else equal, an increase in cost of activity will induce individuals decrease resources they spend on activity. Rather than weakening religious organizations, evidence shows sacrifices exacted by practices are positively associated with success those organizations. We present first strong this association is neither spurious nor endogenous. use a natural experiment rests peculiar time-shifting feature Ramadan makes fasting duration—our measure sacrifice—vary not just latitude but from year-to-year. find half-hour time during median day increases vote shares Islamist political parties 11 percent Turkey’s parliamentary elections between 1973 and 2018, results one additional attendee per 1,000 inhabitants for voluntary Quran courses. further investigate two mechanisms, screening commitment, could explain effects we find. By testing their divergent implications, infer commitment mechanism triggered sacrifice, drives up intensity beliefs participation turn bolster