Church Politics, Sectarianism, and Judicial Terror: The Scottish Witch-Hunt, 1563-1736

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Parashar Kulkarni, Yale-NUS College; Steven Pfaff, University of Washington

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
ReplicationDatasetEEH2022.dta application/x-stata-dta 111.2 KB 01/25/2022 03:17:AM
ReplicationDoFileEEH2022.do text/plain 27.3 KB 01/25/2022 02:28:AM
ReplicationResult.smcl text/plain 547.8 KB 01/25/2022 03:22:AM

Project Citation: 

Kulkarni, Parashar, and Pfaff, Steven . Church Politics, Sectarianism, and Judicial Terror: The Scottish Witch-Hunt, 1563-1736. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-01-25. https://doi.org/10.3886/E160601V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary We examine a tumultuous period in Scottish history beginning from the Reformation in 1560 until a few years after the Revolution of 1688. During this period, the Crown repeatedly provoked political crises by attempting to impose an episcopal structure on the Church of Scotland. Using time series data of witch accusations, we find that the Scottish Presbyterians were substantially more active in persecuting alleged witches during periods when they were excluded from power. Although monopoly churches can be instruments of state-making and social order, our results show that the disciplinary instruments of an established church can be turned against the state. In polities divided by factional religious conflict the suppression of sectarian groups can lead them to impose religious discipline as a counterweight to state formation.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms religion; violence; judiciary; sectarianism; protestantism; witch-hunts; church-crown relations
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage europe, scotland
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1563 – 1736
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) administrative records data; census/enumeration data; observational data; other

Methodology

Data Source:  View help for Data Source Goodare, Julian, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman. 2003. ’The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft’, http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/witches/ (archived January 2003, accessed February 2013).
Unit(s) of Observation:  View help for Unit(s) of Observation year
Geographic Unit:  View help for Geographic Unit country, county

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V1 [2022-01-25]

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