Institutions and Rapid Religious Reversals: Understanding the Secularization of Canada

Abstract

Why was the decline of religion much more pronounced in Europe than in the US after World War II? The Canadian case holds the key to understanding these divergent secularization patterns since it is a hybrid case: most of the country followed a pattern of sustained religiosity closer to the US, while Quebec saw a rapid decline of religion similar to many European countries. Indeed, Quebec experienced one of the world's fastest episodes of secularization starting in the late 1950s. It went from being the most religious province in Canada to being the least religious one in less than two decades. I propose a new formal theory in which such rapid religious reversals are caused by a high degree of interdependence between public institutions and cultural religiosity. Intuitively, a strong interdependence generates a "political multiplier" effect in which more religious public institutions increase the population's religiosity, leading them to support policies that reinforce the religiosity of institutions, and so on. However, a shock can reverse this multiplier effect and generate a rapid shift toward a strongly secular society. Building on the historical literature, I argue that the institutions of the Catholic Church and the provincial state became highly intertwined---a structure that I call "institutional integration"---which created a greater interdependence between religiosity and public institutions in Quebec than in other parts of Canada. I contend that low federal transfers and insufficient recruitment weakened the religious welfare state in the 1950s, which opened the way for a shift in the 1960s to an equilibrium with a strongly secular and generous welfare state along with low cultural religiosity. To substantiate my theory, I draw on existing data sources and build a new dataset with multiple indicators of religiosity by combining 80 historical polls. Furthermore, I critically assess competing explanations. I conclude by connecting my theory to the decline of religion in the US and in European countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland.