Who Pays for the Church? Political Connections and Religious Clientelism in Post-War Italy

Religious leaders wield significant electoral influence over their followers. In a clientelistic setting, politicians may seek to secure this influence by offering material benefits. To test this argument, we combine newly georeferenced information on the renovation history of Italian Catholic churches with a dataset of connections between Christian democratic politicians and Italian Catholic bishops. Leveraging the start of a connection with a difference-in-differences approach, we find that investments into church renovations increase when municipalities are represented by a politician with a personal connection to the sitting bishop. Additional results reveal that church investments increase only when bishops can plausibly mobilize support in favor of the connected politicians, and in places where Christian democrats are losing support. The findings shed new light on the individualistic strategies and motivations of elected politicians in influencing religious leaders.