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Competing Social Influence In Contested Diffusion: Luther, Erasmus And The Spread Of The Protestant Reformation, Sascha O. Becker, Steven Pfaff, Yuan Hsiao, Jared Rubin

ESI Working Papers

The spread of radical institutional change does not often result from one-sided pro-innovation influence; countervailing influence networks in support of the status quo can suppress adoption. We develop a model of multiple and competing network diffusion. To apply the contested-diffusion model to real data, we look at the contest between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus, the two most influential intellectuals of early 16th-century Central Europe. Whereas Luther championed a radical reform of the Western Church that broke with Rome, Erasmus opposed him, stressing the unity of the Church. In the early phase of the Reformation, these two figures utilized influence …