Religious Elite Political Speech and the Limits of Authoritarian Control

How do religious elites navigate politics when they depend on autocratic states for their positions yet possess independent moral authority? In this paper, I introduce a new measurement approach using social media data and machine learning to analyze clerical political speech. I find that while clerics are predominantly apolitical, they increase political speech episodically during contentious moments. Additionally, clerical support of the regime typically relies on religious framing while regime-critical speech tends to use secular framing. Finally, I document substantial variation in clerical speech on personal communication channels from state-mandated sermons. The findings challenge assumptions about religious control under authoritarianism by revealing the limits of authoritarian control and the strategic use of political speech among religious elites. Preliminary evidence of the mechanisms suggests that local religious heterogeneity predicts political engagement. This research demonstrates that social media data can reliably measure religious elite political speech in contexts, like autocracy, where other data is controlled or scarce.