De-Polarizing Politics: Faith Meets Science in the French Third Republic” with Gianandrea Lanzara, Mara P. Squicciarini, Nico Voig tländer
Abstract:
We investigate whether individual politicians can help reduce polarization in parliamentary debates. Focusing on the French Third Republic (1880–1914 ), we study Members of Parliament educated in Jesuit collèges—institutions combining religious formation with rigorous scientific and rhetorical train ing. Using newly digitized data on Jesuit school enrollments and over one m illion parliamentary speeches, we identify Jesuit-educated MPs (JeMPs) and analyze their linguistic and behavioral patterns through text embeddings an d large language models. We find that JeMPs systematically employed less em otional and less polarized rhetoric, emphasized reason and science, and mod erated subsequent speakers’ tone within the same debate. These effects were particularly pronounced during the contentious 1905 Separation of Church a nd State Law. Our results provide the first large-scale quantitative eviden ce that personal formation rooted in both faith and rational inquiry can fo ster moderation in polarized political environments, highlighting a histori cal mechanism for “de-polarizing” politics.
DTSTAMP:20260416T210416Z DTSTART:20260326T163000Z DTEND:20260326T180000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR