result is “an unattractive product, badly marketed, within a highly regulated
and distorted religious economy” (p. 232). Stark and Iannaccone suggest that,
rather than being driven by religious entrepreneurs, the religious market is
controlled by government civil servants (the clergy); and rather than offer-
ing choice, the market is closed to outside firms (p. 235).
It is beyond the scope of this paper to challenge the more general premises
of supply-side economics and the neoconservative rejection of Keynesian
models of the market and its relation to fiscal policy, taxation, and spending.
Here one might briefly note Amartya K. Sen’s caution that “economics is not
concerned only with consumer behavior; nor is consumption confined to ‘pri-
vate goods’” (1997:330). In supply-side economic models, however, “private
goods are the only one around,” leaving the value of “public goods” like
roads and parks – shared by all citizens without exhausting their value –
beyond the scope of economic theory and analysis. Just as the neoconserva-
tive approach neglects the economic significance of public goods, Stark and
Iannaccone overlook the ways in which “religious” behavior involves more
than simply “servicing” the private interests of its members.
Beyond these macroeconomic issues, Stark and Iannaccone’s interpretation
of religious behavior in Scandinavia through the lens of “supply-side” the-
ory results in erroneous conclusions. As Steve Bruce demonstrates, the “reli-
gious markets” of Scandinavian countries are far less regulated than they
once were, and yet there has thus far been no revival of religious participa-
tion (2000:38). Breaking up the “monopoly” has not resulted in an infusion
of new entrepreneurial religious “firms.”^8 It is also important to note that
significant differences of religious participation and belief exist among the
individual Scandinavian countries, but Stark and Iannaccone’s approach is
unable to explain, for example, why Norwegians are more religious than
Swedes, despite similarities of culture (1994:39). In response to this problem,
Bruce counters the claim that religious demand is closely related to a free
166 • Christopher Craig Brittain
(^8) Much more could be said regarding the claim that lack of diversity and choice in
the religious market results in lower participation. Historically, the trend in Europe
was quite the opposite. In the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods, most nation
states were quite closely tied to religious monopolies, and yet participation and
“demand” for religion were much higher than at present. Stark and Iannaccone might
account for this by arguing that the monopoly was the result of “a particular reli-
gious firm enlist[ing] the coercive powers of the state against competing firms,” but
this only accounts for the monopoly (p. 234). Such a response does nothing to explain
why their “theory of religious mobilization” does not seem to apply to earlier his-
torical periods.