Introduction: Religion and Culture within Historical Political Economy

Historical political economy (HPE) is a growing field, sped along by advances in computational methods and data availability. These tools not only open up the past as a theoretical testbed for new and existing theories, but also allow scholars to reevaluate the past for its own sake. Meanwhile, inspired by contemporary events that highlight the importance of cultural values, social scientists are increasingly focused on religion, values, and beliefs as inputs and outputs of social, political, and economic processes. This special issue casts a spotlight on the intersection of these two trends; the articles we have assembled help make the case that the HPE of religion and culture is a rich area that rightly deserves more attention. Specifically, the articles demonstrate how, by attending to religion and culture, HPE stands to benefit when wrestling with at least three difficult sets of questions: how economic change translates into political change, which mechanisms link individual beliefs and values with institutional and organizational outcomes, and why states discriminate.