State Capacity and Persecution in Communist Asia

Date: Friday, March 28
Time: 3:30–5 pm
Location: Arts Building Room 102, 9 Campus Dr., Saskatoon

Free and open to the public

About this event

Guest speaker: Dr. Cornelius Christian (DPhil), Associate Professor of Economics, Brock University

Why does religious persecution occur in distinct waves, and why does it sometimes take a long time to unfold? To understand this, we build a game theoretic model, which demonstrates that waves of persecution evolve based on religious hierarchy and state capacity. As weak states build their capacity, persecution will change from targeted opposition to religious leaders, to widespread oppression of the laity. We apply our model to two case studies, involving the persecution of institutional Buddhism: communist Mongolia, which engaged in a state building project from 1921 to 1938, and Khmer Rouge Cambodia, which saw subsequent and quick waves of religious persecution from 1975 to 1979.

Info: economics.dept@usask.ca

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