Special thanks to my advisers and the awesome scholars who contributed their thoughts and suggestions to this work over the course of its development.

5) Political actors might employ different targeting strategies in the same context; rewarding different constituents (supporters vs opponents) at different points in time in response to temporal shifts in threats from formal and informal channels.

(4) Distributive politics might follow the electoral calendar. Yet, in societies where tradition and norms matter, religious calendars might be equally important in regulating government strategies and citizen's reactions.

(3) Government distribution is not only about serving, but could also be about "showing". Distributive politics can be "performative", and this will shape the timing of distribution and actual targeting strategies.

(2) In contrast to evidence from Western contexts, religious distribution might not necessarily reduce government incentives for distribution. Pressures on the government to abide by popular religious norms can turn religious and governmental distribution into complements.

(1) Informal institutions (e.g., religion), under certain conditions, might increase the alignment between citizens' demands and policy-making in less democratic settings and compensate -at least partially- for the failures of formal institutions to keep governments in check.

But what does this study tell us beyond its specifics?

I argue that the religious environment (time-variant) creates reputational pressures and collective action threats during Ramadan, boosting government incentives for distribution and shaping targeting strategies. Religious seasons translate into religious policy cycles.

I take the distributive politics of Ramadan as a gateway to understand the alternative mechanisms that regulate citizen-government relationships in religious societies; how can political accountability and policy responsiveness be attained without democracy or elections?

The paper documents an empirical regularity in Muslim societies; governments expand their distributive interventions during the religious season of Ramadan; Religious calendars regulate who gets what and when. Why? What is the political rationale behind such policies?