Political Survival and Domestic Religious Influence.

Political leaders desire to stay in office. This implies that leaders make both domestic and foreign policy decisions in a manner most likely to satisfy the people who keep them in office. Selectorate theory (Bueno de Mesquita, Morrow, Siverson, Smith 2001) suggests that when a leader's winning coalition is small (autocracies), leaders bestow private benefits to stay in office and when a leader's winning coalition is large (democracies), leaders are inclined to provide public goods. This paper argues that when leaders make foreign policy decisions congruent with the desires of domestic religious actors, it a public good rather than a private benefit. Thus, religious political influence is more likely to occur in democracies than in autocracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]