ROCKING OUR PRIORS

Culture is not a static inheritance, but a dynamic arena of ongoing struggle. From the mosques of Jakarta to the classrooms of Louisiana, from TikTok feeds to university lecture halls, ideological warfare rages. This podcast explores the complex interplay of several crucial factors shaping our cultural landscape: Contestation: Culture is a battlefield where competing ideologies clash, merge, and evolve. Prestigious actors and institutions are especially influential, as others look to them as successful. No norm is set in stone; instead, we see a perpetual push and pull between progressive and conservative forces, each vying to define societal values. Economic growth, technological advances and political freedoms do not entail cultural liberalisation. These are merely vehicles - to be used by progressives and conservatives alike. Religious and cultural traditions: Deep-seated beliefs shape the receptiveness to change, and the scope of public debate. Drawing on my qualitative research across nine world regions and evidence from multiple disciplines, this podcast examines ideological battles in diverse settings, from the United States to the Middle East, Southeast Asia to Latin America.

Imagine: Elon Musk's tweet causes a cryptocurrency frenzy. Kim Kardashian’s outfit becomes an overnight fashion sensation. Daron Acemoglu and colleagues’ paper on settler mortality reshapes economic thinking. The Pope’s words influence millions globally. What links these diverse events? They’re all powerful manifestations of prestige bias. Psychologically, we seek guidance from those who’ve achieved success, looking to emulate their paths to prosperity and social approval. This creates a dynamic where the accomplished influence others, often reinforcing their own status in the process. From NBER’s Summer Institute to the glitz of Hollywood, prestige bias permeates every sphere of human endeavour. However, its impact is perhaps most profound and far-reaching in the realm of religion. Join me on a journey to the heart of the Muslim world, where we’ll explore the influence of Cairo’s Al-Azhar - a beacon of Islamic scholarship whose teachings reverberate globally. Through this lens, we’ll uncover how prestige bias shapes not just individual choices, but entire cultural paradigms.

Senior management remains heavily male, and honestly I’m not entirely sure why. Economist Ingrid Haegele finds that junior men are more likely to apply for promotions, primarily due to a greater desire for team leadership. Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.07750.pdf Haegele: https://www.ingridhaegele.com/

During the World War I, the US federal government was short on civil servants and actively recruited women. Abhay Aneja, Silvia Farina, and Guo Xu find that men with multiple female colleagues were subsequently more likely to marry working women and father careerist daughters! Crucially, the effect is larger when men have many female colleagues and it becomes perfectly conventional. Paper: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32639

How can we improve government capacity and public services? In “Mission-Driven Bureaucrats”, Dan Honig argues that civil servants are often deeply committed, yet hobbled by strict rule books. Trapped by top-down strictures, civil servants may even become disillusioned. Unable to help, they quit. Government ministries can be so much more effective if motivated civil servants actually have the autonomy to be creative, independent, and fix local problems. How do we know this? 4 million individual observations, along with in-depth case research in Detroit, Senegal, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Liberia. We discuss: What do most efforts to improve public management get wrong? How does management style affect recruitment and effectiveness? How can managers build cultures where workers feel empowered? Get the book: https://danhonig.info/missiondrivenbureaucrats

Imagine a world where love knows no boundaries, where two people can marry regardless of their gender. Now open your eyes. In some parts of the globe, this is reality. In others, it's a distant dream. Twenty years ago, a mere 26% of Americans supported same-sex marriage. Today, that figure has skyrocketed to 69%. That is extremely rapid cultural change in favour of love and liberalism. But hold your applause, because here’s the plot twist: most of the world is not joining the parade. When asked about their least desired neighbours, most Africans and Asians still say “homosexuals”. The roots of this divergence go back two thousand years. Truth be told, it’s all about love. In 1950, most of the world was homophobic, but with crucial cross-cultural variation. Some parts of the world celebrated marital love and secular liberalism. Shaking off the shackles of sexual puritanism, activists could persuade wider publics to welcome diversity, for ‘love is love’. Patrilineal societies have been far less receptive, as they prioritised intergenerational loyalty. Religious revival is another major impediment, exemplified by Brazilian Evangelicals, fanning the flames of homophobia. So, for those curious, here’s a little preview of my second book, “The Great GAY Divergence”

Aaron Rock-Singer is a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative. He has published two fantastic books, “Practicing Islam: Egypt’s Islamic Revival” and “In the Shade of the Sunna: Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East”. Aaron is truly brilliant, connecting both the macro and the micro. By examining structural shifts in education and urbanisation as well as Islamic print media, he shows how modernisation triggered counter-mobilisation. We discuss: How did colonialism change religiosity and religious practices in Egypt? Why were post-independence leaders relatively secular? What was the Islamic revival? What was new? Did the 1970s economic downturn raise support Islamists? Why was there a global religious revival in the 1970s? Why was female behaviour so central to religious revival? Would Egypt’s Islamic revival have occurred in the absence of Saudi funding and migration?

The Ten Commandments must now be displayed in all Louisiana’s public school classrooms. The law, signed by Republican Governor Jeff Landry, requires poster-sized copies with easily readable text. Why is this happening? Is it unprecedented? Actually, it echoes the 1970s global religious revival. Threatened by liberal modernity, conservatives worldwide leveraged new technologies and defensively mobilised to institutionalise piety. In this podcast, I draw on my comparative research to highlight parallel trends in Uzbekistan, Kyrygzstan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the U.S.

Professor Robert Hefner has a tremendous new book, “Islam and Citizenship in Indonesia: Democracy and the Quest for an Inclusive Public Ethics”. It’s one of my favourite books of the year, drawing on thirty years of ethnographic research. Today, he joins “Rocking Our Priors”. We discuss: Indonesia’s religious history Why have Hinduism and Buddhism have largely faded in Indonesia? Why were madrasas were rare until the 19th century? What explains the rise in normative Islam? - Economic development and technological advances? - Backlash against secular schooling? - Criminality and demand for moral order? - Saudi funding - The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Michael Cook's "A History of the Muslim World" is my favourite book of 2024. Together, we discussed: - Did Islamic science weaken due to religious authoritarianism? - Why, in the Middle East and North Africa, were there so few peasant rebellions? - Theologically, how important was Ghazali? - What determined the rate at which people converted to Islam? - Why was there so much religious syncretism and diversity in the Ottoman Empire? - Why did the Muslim world fall behind economically? - Did the Ottoman Empire ban the printing press? - Why is South Asia the only place where Muslims ruled for hundreds of years yet remained a minority? - When you study the global history of Islam, what is the best indicator of how Muslim they really were? - Did colonialism trigger an Islamic backlash? - Why do Muslim countries often have weak state capacity? Timur Kuran blames waqfs. Do you agree? "A History of the Muslim World": https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691236575/a-history-of-the-muslim-world On my Substack, you can see my earlier reviews: https://www.ggd.world/p/a-history-of-the-muslim-world-by

Trust is down, worldwide. In India, Iran, Indonesia and Nigeria, less than 15% say that ‘most people can be trusted’. What’s going on? I suggest several likely mechanisms: 1) Generalised distrust is correlated with strong family bonds 2) Poorer countries have rapidly urbanised at a lower level of income 3) Rule of law varies worldwide 4) Political contestation and growing polarisation 5) Online connectivity has boomed, and is increasingly negative My Substack has graphs, data and further resources: https://www.ggd.world/p/whats-driving-the-global-decline

What led to the demise of foot-binding? by Dr Alice Evans

Who are the world's most influential philosophers? by Dr Alice Evans

Saumitra Jha (Associate Professor of Political Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business) joins me to discuss what prevents Hindu-Muslim conflict. We discuss his paper on "Trade, Institutions, and Ethnic Tolerance: Evidence from South Asia" https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/trade-institutions-and-ethnic-tolerance-evidence-from-south-asia/534E0018C1431E7A7615B4FAD26DEB3E

Over the 20th century, the entire world became more gender equal. Or so I thought. But Pakistan has rocked my priors. Female employment has slightly risen. Meanwhile, young Pakistani women are more sexist than their grandmothers. What is going on? Charts and graphs are on my Substack: https://www.ggd.world/p/is-pakistan-becoming-more-patriarchal