When Bootleggers met Baptists

Feeling cute, might publish a Substack essay today

Ok, time to get cranking on those essays I promised. I previously posted about some ideas I had to generate new perspectives on the Bootleggers and Baptists theory. The B&B theory is a workhorse model for a variety of social scientists. By bringing economic (Bootlegger) and moral (Baptist) interests together into a coherent framework, it helps explain a number of political outcomes that would otherwise be difficult to understand.

That said, there are longstanding challenges to the theory that I hope to explore with reference to recent political events. To help our readers appreciate the richer context of B&B theory, I want to start at the beginning by examining the fundamental relationship between these two groups to better understand what drives their interaction in practice.