discussion + reply "Rulers, Religion and Riches"

1. According to Rubin, rulers sustain their rule and where they derive their political legitimacy from their religious power. The main factor for most rulers back in the day was to maintain and strengthen their hold on power, which is the propagation of their rule. In order to get legitimacy in their rule, the rulers had to collude with the religious power to exert their authority on the citizens. Therefore, it was the religious power that contributed to giving the political rulers power. The political legitimacy that is derived from the religious power is not very good for economic development since the religion is not unified. There are many religious organizations and all of them cannot exert political legitimacy at the same time. The combination of political force and religious legitimacy meant that the Ottoman Empire did not need to negotiate with its economic elite at the political bargaining table. This challenge with time resulted to be disastrous for the Ottoman economy. Therefore, the source of political legitimacy matters a lot for economic development.