In what conditions are national episcopates in Latin America likely to confront autocratic regimes? In what conditions are bishops positioned to mediate state-society conflicts? This article offers a structural account of episcopal responses to autocracy through comparative analysis of church-state relations and pastoral letters published in Cuba and Nicaragua during critical junctures from the Cold War to the 2020s. The personalization of regime authority, combined with repressive violence, increases the likelihood that bishops publicly confront autocracy. Personalization reduces opportunities for mediation, as regime leaders resist compromising their authority in mediation processes. Moreover, United States punitive measures against autocracies dependent on great power support can shift bishops into confrontational roles. Latin American regimes seeking alliances with geopolitical adversaries of the United States can also preclude opportunities for bishops to mediate conflicts. Conversely, the depersonalization of authority and the necessity to alleviate United States pressure opens the space that makes episcopal mediation efforts possible.
Studies testing the relationship between preferences for Islamism and preferences for democracy in the Muslim world are inconclusive-and likely the result of measurement issues. Previously, we introduced a four-question battery measuring conceptions of Islamism and found that responses vary predictably across two components: whether respondents consider a shari'a-based government to be one that provides services or one that imposes restrictive Islamic norms. Here, we demonstrate the consistency, generalizability, and utility of the battery through an analysis of 11,849 respondents in 11 Muslim countries. Defining a shari'a-based government as one that provides is significantly and positively correlated with support for democracy, while defining it as a government that imposes is negatively correlated with these preferences across the entire sample.
This article examines how minority groups engaged in armed conflict express solidarity with similarly situated groups elsewhere. While existing research has focused on relations between minorities and majorities, far less is known about cross-minority solidarity in conflict settings. Drawing on an original nationwide survey in Turkey and in-depth interviews with members of parliament, this study analyzes how Kurds perceive the Israel-Palestine conflict in the context of the recent Israel-Hamas war. It argues that although Kurds in Turkey have historically supported the Palestinian cause, recent developments in Turkey and the broader Middle East, along with changes in Palestinian leadership, have complicated this support. The findings demonstrate that cross-minority solidarity is more limited and contingent than is often assumed, even among groups that share a common faith or a history of marginalization. Political ideology, party affiliation, and international alignments play a central role in shaping these attitudes.
What is the impact of income on secularity? Why does higher income lead to greater secularity in some contexts but not others? I argue that the answer lies in the long-term political consequences of direct colonial rule. Challenging conventional wisdom on secularization, I advance a macro-historical account in which colonial intervention reshaped the social meaning of secularity among higher-income groups. In societies subjected to direct colonial rule, secularity became associated with foreign imposition and elite collaboration, generating postcolonial resistance among the affluent. Consequently, higher income does not predict greater individual secularity in these contexts. By contrast, in societies never directly colonized, economic elites historically spearheaded modernization projects that incorporated secularization, producing a positive income-secularity association. I test this argument using 351,960 observations from 269 countries over three decades (1989-2022) in the World Values Survey, alongside additional evidence from the Carnegie Middle East Governance and Islam Dataset.
Although many studies have examined how religion contributes to violence in Nigeria, there is a lack of research examining the reverse relationship. This study seeks to fill that gap by examining the correlation between exposure to violent conflict and religiosity. Religiosity is measured using an item in the World Values Survey (WVS) that asks respondents to rate the importance of God in their lives on a ten-point ordinal scale ranging from "not at all important" to "very important." Exposure to violent conflict is assessed using the cumulative number of conflict incidents occurring within a 30 km radius of respondents' dwellings. Using QGIS software, I construct the measure of conflict exposure by exploiting the geocoded dimensions of both the WVS and conflict data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). Regression analysis reveals that as conflict exposure increases, so does the importance Nigerians attach to God in their lives. The positive relationship persists when the data are disaggregated by religious affiliation (Muslims and Christians), gender (men and women), and region of residence (North and South), with models estimated for each subsample. A plausible explanation for this result is that the existential threat posed by violent conflict prompts individuals to rely on God as a coping strategy.
Why are cash waqfs administered and regulated by the state in some countries but by non-state entities in others? I present a twofold argument to explain this puzzle. First, colonial policies shaped the baseline framework for the regulation of religion, well into the postcolonial period. However, political actors in the postcolonial period then made specific choices within those regulatory frameworks, with implications for the administration and regulation of cash waqfs. In British India, legal arbitration became the primary framework for religious regulation. In postcolonial Bangladesh, successive governments politicized the bureaucracy as they prioritized survival, and so cash waqfs exist within the Islamic banking and finance sector. In British Malaya, local sultans were able to bureaucratize all aspects of Islam. The bureaucratization of Islam proceeded in a centripetal manner from the state to the federal level in postcolonial Malaysia, with the federal government taking charge of cash waqfs.
This study analyses the role of selected Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic faith-based organizations (FBOs) as political actors in the context of local refugee politics in Germany. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with leaders from local FBOs and examined the data via structured content analysis. The empirical material provided information on three aspects: the self-perceived role as political actors, contacts with political decision-makers, and the perception of the FBO’s means in and influence on (local) political decision-making. Most religious leaders do ascribe a political role to their activities in refugee aid. However, the goals and strategies of this role vary markedly, revealing patterns across the three religious groups. We argue that these differences can be interpreted against the background of the historically evolved role of different faiths in Germany. The study offers new insights into how FBOs engage in politics, advocating for their positions in local refugee and integration policies.
Efforts to counter Christian nationalism focus on the power of ideas-that Christian nationalism is historically inaccurate, religiously heretical, or even fascist. Those efforts build upon a vast research agenda on Christian nationalism in the social sciences to argue, at least implicitly, that a Christian nationalist worldview rejects religious, racial, and political pluralism in favor of a (white) Christian-centric goal for the United States. But they may be wrong on at least one account. In a January 2024 survey of 1,500 American Christians, we piloted "anti-Christian nationalism" measures, expecting to find a robust negative relationship with established measures of Christian nationalism. Instead, we find that many Christian nationalists already hold pluralist ideas in their heads. We then explore whether anti-Christian nationalism can work to counter, moderate, or align attitudes with Christian nationalism on political tolerance. We find that Christian nationalism often overrules anti-Christian nationalism, especially when the threat is high.
Muslim Americans are running for and being elected to political office at record levels. Despite this trend, the literature on minority candidate emergence has yet to examine which district factors affect the likelihood of Muslim Americans running and winning their races. What district characteristics influence the emergence of Muslim American candidates, and how do voters respond when they appear on the ballot? Through examining state legislative candidates, I find that Muslim Americans are less likely to emerge in districts with a high white population share and that lean conservative. Overall, Muslim American candidates are less likely to win compared to non-Muslim Americans. However, Muslim Americans are far more likely to emerge as candidates and win in districts with a high Muslim population share. These results demonstrate that Muslim American candidates face supply-side barriers to running and electoral penalties that can be alleviated by high Muslim population shares in districts.
State-registered religion is puzzling because it can be portrayed as both an opponent and a partner of the state. While registered religions need to be receptive to the rules of the government, they also need to satisfy the needs of their congregants. In light of the Communist Party’s increasing repression, I investigate how this complex positioning between the government and the congregation has influenced the content of sermons in state-approved Protestant churches. Using computational text analysis on sermons from a state-approved Protestant church in China between 2009 and 2021, I analyze the pastors’ degree and composition of self-censorship in their receptiveness to changes over time, as well as to politically and religiously sensitive dates. By focusing on sermons shared in state-approved churches, I shed light on the complex positions in which these Party-registered pastors maneuver. This research also contributes to the broader discussion of civil rights and state-society relations in the context of a strong authoritarian state.
Previous research has identified intermarriage as an important factor in immigrant integration, but what affects immigrants’ willingness to intermarry or support intermarriage? A significant and understudied aspect of attitudes toward intermarriage among immigrants is the role of religion. We focus on a particular group of immigrants, Bhutanese refugees, for whom religious persecution featured prominently in their forced migration and resettlement in the US. Using an individual-level survey, we explore factors affecting their attitudes toward intermarriage. Specifically, we analyze the impact of social interactions, socioeconomic conditions, and demographic factors on resettled Bhutanese refugees’ attitudes toward intermarriage. Results indicate that, in addition to age, income, and English proficiency, resettled refugees who spend more time interacting with individuals from outside of their own ethnic, cultural, and religious group are more likely to support intermarriage. Social interactions may allow refugees to overcome religious restrictions and advance refugee integration into American society through intermarriage.
This article proposes a theory of mosque regulation to explain why state-mosque relations vary at the subnational level in Europe, using Belgium's regions as comparative cases. Focusing on Belgium's policy of formal recognition for mosque-communities, I argue that regulatory outcomes emerge from strategic interactions between local officials and mosque leaders, each responding to distinct audience pressures. I draw from original data on 270 mosques and 52 semi-structured interviews to argue that partisanship shapes regulatory practices: left-leaning governments pursue cooperative regulation to court minority voters, while right-wing officials adopt combative approaches to appease anti-Muslim constituencies. Mosque leaders, in turn, consider reputational costs when deciding whether to engage with the state, often pursuing recognition not for material gain but to signal trustworthiness to the broader public. These findings contribute to an emerging scholarship on the political behavior of Muslim leadership, as well as to broader literatures on minority incorporation and subnational governance.
Between 2011 and 2018, Bulgaria enacted a series of reforms accommodating the two most salient demands of its Muslim minority in the postcommunist period: the registration of elected Muslim leadership and the provision of state funding for religious communities. This constituted a significant departure from the restrictive policies pursued during the first two decades after communism and from the repressive legacies of earlier periods. Through process tracing based on 11 semi-structured elite interviews, press releases, and secondary sources, I argue that the geostrategic concerns of Bulgarian elites from the influence of the minority’s kin-state, Turkey, from 2011 onward, and their aim to decrease the dependence of the minority on the kin-state provided the main motivation to accommodate Muslims’ religious demands. These concerns were driven by domestic political changes in Turkey in the post-2011 period and their reflections in the country’s foreign policy.
This paper explores the paradox of secularism in Chile's 2022 constitutional proposal, celebrated as the "world's most progressive" yet decisively rejected in a national referendum. The drafters sought to secularize Chile's political institutions by curbing the influence of mainstream religions-above all, Catholicism-while simultaneously granting broad recognition and autonomy to Indigenous worldviews, including their spiritual and ritual dimensions. This dual strategy raises the question of whether the constitution merely substituted one religious framework for another under the guise of decolonial justice. To explain this apparent contradiction, the paper distinguishes between two axes of division: a first-order cleavage of oppressors vs. oppressed, which shaped the draft's core commitments, and a secondary secular vs. religious cleavage, which played a subordinate role. The analysis concludes that Indigenous worldviews were embraced not as religious doctrines but as expressions of historically wronged communities deserving redress, whereas institutional religion was sidelined as a marker of colonial oppression. The paper contributes to debates on constitution-making and secularism in non-European contexts, illustrating how secular projects can entangle with alternative substantive doctrines in pursuit of historical justice.
Examining religion and state arrangements in the United States, this study investigates under what conditions religious law, rooted in state establishment, declines in democracies. We argue that when (1) state founders or political elites intentionally refrain from embedding religious arrangements within state institutions, (2) the state apparatus enforces a constitutionalized and explicit prohibition against government-sanctioned religion, and (3) legal justifications shift from religious to secular rationale to maintain their justifiable constitutionality, then reliance on religious law within the state diminishes. However, due to institutional path dependence, laws initially rooted in religious arrangements/traditions may persist but are increasingly framed in secular terms, aligning with the broader secularization of modern Western societies, regardless of the extent of separation between religion and state. Hence, the religious influence and objectives of these laws endure despite the secular disguise.
This comparative study explores the relationship between political and personal religious attitudes and their impact on reconciliation and tolerance in conflicts. Using survey data from 2,171 respondents across Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia, the research highlights the mediating role of religious conflict perception in shaping attitudes toward reconciliation. The findings challenge deterministic views of religion's role in protracted conflict, showing that while political-religious attitudes correlate with a rejection of reconciliation, personal religious attitudes do not. Rather, the interplay of religious attitudes, justice perceptions, and conflict narratives shapes these attitudes. In internal political conflicts, the adoption of religious attitudes does not always correlate with intolerance. The study integrates constructivist and instrumentalist perspectives, demonstrating that the role of religion in conflict is context-dependent. It also shows that, regardless of religious affiliation, political and personal religious orientations similarly influence attitudes toward reconciliation and tolerance, offering important insights for intergroup and conflict resolution strategies.
Political crises play a pivotal role in shaping political secularization across sub-Saharan Africa. Côte d’Ivoire, located in the heart of French-speaking West Africa, exemplifies how such crises can catalyze secularist dynamics at the political level. From the early 1990s through the 2020s, especially following the near-overthrow of the government by armed rebels in 2002, it became increasingly apparent to many politicians that institutional religious leaders, both Christian and Muslim, should step back from political involvement. This process of secularization, driven by politicians, remains confined to the political sphere and has yet to permeate broader society and culture. This paper is based on fieldwork and data collected in Côte d’Ivoire between 2017 and 2020, including interviews, archival material from political parties, major newspapers, and religious organizations. Resources from the Pew Research Center further inform this research.
Does deference to religious authority undermine support for democratic norms, including those forbidding the use of violence for political ends? Scholars have struggled to answer this question, in part, we believe, because they have typically employed proxies for religious deference (e.g. Biblical literalism, worship attendance, and self-reported religiosity) instead of measuring it directly. We develop a new measure of deference to religious authority in politics (DRAP), using the 2024 Chapman Survey of American Fears. We find that (1) DRAP is strongly correlated with support for political violence; (2) other common measures of religiosity (e.g. Biblical literalism and self-reported religiosity) are generally uncorrelated with support for political violence once the effects of our new measure are taken into account; and (3) the positive relationship between DRAP and support for political violence is more pronounced among respondents with low levels of religious participation.
Christian Nationalism has been an increasing focus of scholars as it has seemingly come to dominate much of the Republican Party and its voters. Existing research, however, has focused almost exclusively on individual attitudes. In this article, I examine a key piece of the Christian Nationalist agenda, policy change at the state level, seeking to change individuals' perception of the religious foundations of the United States through symbolic legislation. I focus on Project Blitz, an organization that creates model bills for state legislators to introduce all over the country. Project Blitz is an explicitly Christian Nationalist effort, and its origins and supporters help demonstrate a key missing piece of the scholarly and popular conversation about Christian Nationalism: the current power and influence of Christian Nationalist attitudes and activities is based on the historical influence of the Christian Right social movement.
