Pacem in Terris: Are Papal Visits Good News for Human Rights?

• Published date: 01 February 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140241237466
• Author: Marek Endrich,Jerg Gutmann
• Date: 01 February 2025

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2025, Vol. 58(2) 364–393

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140241237466

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Pacem in Terris: Are

Papal Visits Good News

for Human Rights?

Marek Endrich

1

and Jerg Gutmann

2



Abstract

We analyze the effect of state visits by the Catholic pope on human rights in

the host country to understand how a small theocracy like the Vatican can

exert disproportionate political inf‌luence in international politics. Our theory

of the strategic interaction between the Catholic Church and host govern-

ments describes how the pope’s use of conditional approval and criticism

incentivizes governments to refrain from human rights violations. Drawing on

a new dataset of papal state visits outside Italy and a novel identif‌ication

strategy, we test for the f‌irst time whether governments react in anticipation

of a papal visit by improving their human rights protection. Our empirical

analysis offers robust evidence for this causal effect, which is supported by

qualitative evidence.

Keywords

catholic church, human rights, international political economy, pope,

repression, rewards, sanctions

JEL-codes

D74, D78, F5, K38, P16, P26, P48, Z12

1

Interface Demography, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

2

Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Jerg Gutmann, Institute of Law and Economics, Universityof Hamburg, Alsterterrasse 1, Hamburg

20354, Germany.

Email: jerg.gutmann@uni-hamburg.de

Data Availability Statement included at the end of the article

Introduction

A popular assumption in international politics is that a country’s political

inf‌luence is roughly proportional to its size in terms of population, economy,

and military. For a long time, the Vatican has been a startling exception to this

rule. Even though it lacks the economic and military means of other nation

states, the Vatican enjoys a reputation as an inf‌luential player in the global

political arena.

1

This exceptionalism is due to the Vatican being home to the

Roman Catholic Church, one of the oldest religious organizations and the

largest Christian church with 1.3 billion members worldwide.

Among religious organizations, the Catholic Church is unmatched in its

inf‌luence on global politics. It is credited as a catalyst for breakdowns of

repressive regimes in the Eastern Bloc and Latin America and has served as a

mediator in domestic conf‌licts as well as international disputes, such as that

between Argentina and Chile in 1978 (Hanson, 1987;Toft et al., 2011;Weigel,

2003). Its international engagement and impact have given it the reputation of

a global advocate for democracy and human rights (Huntington, 1991;

Shelledy, 2004). Nevertheless, political economists and political scientists

have paid little attention to the potential effects of the Vatican’sagendaon the

political and economic performance of countries around the globe. This is the

f‌irst quantitative empirical study of papal state visits, one policy instrument

used by the Vatican to exert worldwide inf‌luence. More precisely, we analyze

whether and how off‌icial state visits by the pope inf‌luence governance quality

in the form of human rights protection in host countries.

Our study complements extant research on the persuasive power of the

Catholic Church (Bassi & Rasul, 2017;Deiana et al., 2023;Farina & Pathania,

2020). However, unlike previous studies that are interested in attitude changes

in the general population after a papal visit, we argue that politicians react

rationally and in anticipation of the pope’s visit. We introduce a theory of the

strategic interaction between the Catholic Church and the host country’s

government. It predicts, f‌irstly, that governments improve human rights

protection before papal visits. Secondly, papal visits are more likely and

effective where governments are more responsive to the prospect of approval

or criticism by the pope, indicating that our estimated treatment effects are an

upper bound for the treatment effect on the untreated countries.

To test our hypotheses, we conduct the f‌irst empirical analysis of the

political effects of off‌icial state visits by the pope on host countries. By

addressing the endogeneity of the pope’s travel itinerary, we also provide

unique empirical evidence on the decision criteria underlying the pope’s

choice of destination countries. For this purpose, we have collected a novel

dataset of papal visits and various indicators suited to explaining the selection

into treatment. We use characteristics of the pope, Catholic Church calendars,

proxies for the strategic interests of the Vatican, and characteristics of the host

Endrich and Gutmann365