After publishing his Hitler e il Nazismo Magico (Galli, 1989), a book that explored the esoteric interests of National Socialists, Galli noted that much to his surprise political scientists had paid little to no attention to the relationship between magic/witchcraft and politics.

The fact that political scientists (and economists) had paid so little attention to the interplay between political and economic behavior and institutions on the one hand and witchcraft beliefs on the other hand was particularly surprising because other social sciences, from anthropology (Fraser) to sociology (Freud) to psychoanalysis (Pareto) had long been fascinated by the survival of witchcraft beliefs.

Frazer (1927) - like Pareto (1918) few years earlier, or like Baris and Pelizzo (2023) more recently - explained the survival and the pervasiveness of witchcraft beliefs in proto-functionalist terms by basically suggesting that these non-rational beliefs/forces are instrumental in securing the stability of social relations and the performance of institutions (O’Dea, 1955:178).

In the aftermath of the publication of Galli’s book, economists and political scientists have started paying increasing attention to the role, presence, and consequences of witchcraft beliefs. This wave of studies has, in some respects, corroborated the claims advanced by social scientists at the beginning of the 20^th century, but it has also rejected some of them.

The first theme on which there has been some disagreement between the contemporary scholars and their predecessors concerns the relation between mind and matter, that is whether ideas, beliefs, including witchcraft beliefs, are a function or a byproduct of material conditions and forces, whether such beliefs shape material conditions and forces or whether material and ideational forces influence each other in a dynamic fashion. In this respect there is a wide spread of opinion. Douglas (1982) regards culture, cultural change and the transformation of traditional beliefs as a result of a transformation in the material/contextual conditions under which individuals and society operate. At the other extreme there are scholars (Frazer, 1927; Tubadji, 2022) who regard ideational forces, such as traditional beliefs, as the determinants of material conditions. And, in between, we have studies that  question/problematize the impact of changes in material conditions on ideas and beliefs (Pelizzo, et al., 2023) or that highlight the fact that ideational beliefs and material conditions affect one another. Finally, there are studies that have documented how ideational forces and beliefs are instrumental in shaping, stimulating, generating other ideas and beliefs (Kuzenbayev et al., 2023; Pelizzo et al., 2023a; Pelizzo et al., 2023b; Kinyondo, et al., 2024).

The second respect in which one could detect a disagreement between the early 20^th century studies and the contemporary ones is the relationship between religion on the one hand and traditional (including witchcraft) beliefs on the other hand. Early studies, notably Frazer (1907), believed/suggested that societies would go through three stages-magic, religious and rational- and that with the diffusion of religion, traditional beliefs would disappear or become remarkably less popular. This claim does not seem to be consistent with the evidence presented in several studies published in the aftermath of Frazer (1907). Mbiti (1970) has shown that magic/witchcraft still remains a significant component of traditional religions; religiosity has not disappeared even in countries that have made considerable progress along the developmental path (Norris and Inglehart, 2011) and Gershman (2022) documented that two-fifths of the world adult population still believes in witchcraft and that witchcraft beliefs are still held by large portions of the population of the global North.

The third respect on which there is a disagreement between the early 20^th century studies and the most recent ones concerns the alleged benefits of traditional beliefs including witchcraft beliefs. The early studies (Pareto, 1916; Frazer, 1927) suggested that traditional beliefs ensured the stability of the social order and the proper functioning of institutions. The more recent studies paint an altogether different picture: witchcraft beliefs contribute to the erosion of social capital (Gershman, 2016), promote the acceptability of conspiracy theories (Kinyondo, et al., 2024), undermine the level of electoral participation (Harakan, et al., 2023; Pelizzo et al, 2023), favor antidemocratic attitudes (Pelizzo et al., 2023a; Pelizzo et al., 2023b) and secure the stability of party system in poorly institutionalized setting by preventing the elections from securing a minimal level of electoral accountability (Pasquino et al., 2022; Pelizzo et al, 2023).

It is precisely because traditional beliefs, including witchcraft beliefs, continue to have far reaching consequences for the proper functioning of our political systems, that greater efforts should be made to investigate the nexus between such beliefs and the quality of governance.

References

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2. Douglas, Mary. "The effects of modernization on religious change." Daedalus (1982): 1-19.
3. Frazer, James George. 1907. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. London. Macmillan. 1907.
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6. Galli, Giorgio. Hitler e il Nazismo Magico, Milano: Rizzoli, 1989.
7. Gershman, B. (2016) "Witchcraft beliefs and the erosion of social capital: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond." Journal of Development Economics 120, 182-208.
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8. Gershman, B. (2022) "Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis." Plos one 17 (11) e0276872.
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18. Pelizzo, R., & Nygmetzhan K. (2023 a) "Beyond Religion: Superstition, Traditional Beliefs and the Extreme Right." World Affairs 186 (4), 978-1018.
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21. Tubadji, Annie. "UK Witches: Subversive Narratives and Radicalization." Available at SSRN 4212249 (2022).
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