on was said to be doing well by the author, and a negative value
indicated that this system was said to be doing poorly. The
RSC variable was used to record whether an author described
the communities themselves as maintaining their traditions
and high levels of social cohesion. A positive value indicated
that social cohesion and historical traditions remained strong,
while a negative value indicated an erosion of these values.
The final variable that we coded was labeled “Targeted Conservation”
(TC), which took on identical values as REC and
RSC. A positive value for this variable indicated that the
author described religious governance as having a positive effect
on the primary resource being used in a case. A negative
value indicated that religious governance was reported to have
a negative effect. Unlike the other variables we coded, TC relies
on a causal inference in its coding. The TC variable summarizes
the effects of religious governance generally, as the
studies did not provide enough detail to sort out which particular
religious implementations were having more or less effects
on the target of conservation.