Papal Visits Spur Human Rights Improvements Before the Pope Arrives

🔎 What This Study Asks

This study examines whether visits by the Catholic pope lead host governments to improve human rights, and how a small theocracy like the Vatican can exert disproportionate political influence internationally.

📝 How the Relationship Is Theorized

The argument centers on a strategic interaction between the Catholic Church and host governments. The pope’s use of conditional approval and public criticism creates incentives for governments to refrain from rights violations and to signal better behavior ahead of a visit.

📚 New Data on Papal State Visits

• A newly assembled dataset of papal state visits outside Italy is used to observe government behavior around visit dates.
• A novel identification strategy isolates anticipatory government responses from other contemporaneous changes.

🧭 How the Effect Is Tested

The empirical design tests, for the first time, whether governments react in anticipation of a papal state visit by changing their human rights practices prior to the pope’s arrival. The approach aims to identify a causal effect of visits on human rights protections, addressing potential confounders.

📈 Key Findings

• Robust empirical evidence indicates that governments improve human rights protection in anticipation of papal visits.
• The observed causal effect is consistent across robustness checks and is corroborated by qualitative evidence that links papal statements and official signaling to government behavior.

⚖️ Why It Matters

Findings show that symbolic religious diplomacy—through conditional praise and criticism—can produce tangible improvements in state respect for human rights. This demonstrates a concrete mechanism by which moral authority and soft power influence state conduct in the international arena.