THE ORTHODOX ETHIC? THE ROLE OF CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY IN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS IN MACEDONIA

Abstract

Max Weber’s analysis in his prominent book The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism has prompted a generation of research that observes the role and impact of religion in world affairs. The core of Weber’s thesis is his argument that religious teachings have imposed psychological sanctions in individuals, and in turn, these sanctions have affected people’s behavior in worldly affairs. Guided by this argument, this thesis explores religious influence in the political and economic domain and seeks to understand the dynamics through which these influences materialize in people’s behavior and attitudes. In both domains, this thesis finds evidence that it is the threat to the ontological security of actors that elicits the enactment of religious norms, which in turn affect people’s behavior and attitudes in the political and economic spheres. The evidence in this thesis is drawn from a case study of Christian Orthodoxy and a field study in Macedonia. Drawing from field surveys, religious doctrines, and the existent literature, I delineate Christian Orthodox norms in respect to political and economic behavior and empirically test the extent to which these norms are manifested in the behavior of Christian Orthodox adherents. Influence of Christian Orthodox norms are found in both the political and economic domains in the case of Macedonia. Moreover, this thesis detects an intricate interplay of the logic of appropriateness and self-interest in the enactment of Christian Orthodox norms in Macedonia.