Who Discriminates More? Comparing Religious Discrimination in Western Democracies, Asia and the Middle East

Abstract

Unlike its presence in the world of politics, religion failed to take a prominent role in political science in much of the modern era. Recent research suggests this might be changing. It also suggests that in order to study religion, scholars need more data on the subject. This study introduces a new data collection on religious discrimination at the minority level and uses this new data collection to compare religious discrimination in western democracies, Asia and the Middle East for the time period 1990–2004. In this paper, religious discrimination, ethnicity and religion are first discussed with specific emphasis on Muslim majority states and the Middle East. Second, the process of data collection, including case selection, forming a religious discrimination index, coding and back-up coding issues, is outlined. Finally, results on religious discrimination in different regions and states with different majority religions are presented. The data indicate that western democracies treat their religious minorities much better than Middle Eastern countries or Asian countries. Yet the Middle East, which is considered the most prominent example of a region with religious tension, does not have significantly higher average religious discrimination values than Asia. Similarly, even though states with a Muslim majority seem to be less tolerant compared to states with a Christian majority, in states with other majority religions such as Buddhism or Hinduism, discrimination against ethnoreligious groups is present as well. Moreover, religious discrimination values for the minorities in western democracies increased after September 11.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jonathan Fox, Patrick James, Caroline A. Hartzell and anonymous reviewers for their helpful advice and criticism. I would also like to thank Gönül Tol, Özgür Özdamar and Zeynep Taydas for their back-up coding.

Notes

 1. There are many pieces that focus on secular approach in the discipline. See Eric O. Hanson, Religion and Politics in the International System Today (New York: Cambridge UP 2006); Kenneth D. Wald and Clyde Wilcox, ‘Getting Religion: Has Political Science Rediscovered the Faith Factor?’, American Political Science Review 100/4 (2006) pp.523–29; Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2005); John D. Carlson and Erik C. Owens, The Sacred and Sovereign: Religion and International Politics (Washington, DC: Georgetown UP 2003); Fabio Petito and Pavos Hatzopoulos (eds), Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003); Daniel Philpott, ‘The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations’, World Politics 55 (2002) pp.66–95; Jonathan Fox, ‘Religion as an Overlooked Element of International Relations’, International Studies Review 3 (2001) pp.53–73; Luc Reychler, ‘Religion and Conflict’, International Journal of Peace Studies 2/1 (1997) pp.19–38; Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkley: U of California P 1993). However, literature on religion is growing fast. Specifically many studies focus on political Islam. Recent examples include, but are not limited to pieces from Oliver Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia UP 2004) on new Muslim discourse; Akbar Ahmed, Islam under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World (Oxford: Polity Press 2003) on the role of Islam in a globalizing world; Raymond William Baker, Islam without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2003) and Graham Fuller, The Future of Political Islam (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003) on the future of political Islam; Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (New York: Oxford UP 2003) on Muslims in the West; Paul Weller, ‘Unfair Treatment between Religions: Findings of a Research Project in England and Wales’, Interreligious Insight 1/2 (April 2003) pp.62–71.

 2. Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke, ‘Religious Persecution in Cross-National Context: Clashing Civilizations or Regulated Religious Economies?’, American Sociological Review 72 (2007) pp.633–58.

 3. Ted R. Gurr, Peoples versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 2000) p.106.

 4. Jonathan Fox, ‘Correlated Conflicts: The Independent Nature of Ethnic Strife’, Harvard International Review 25/4 (2004) p.59.

 5. Emphasis added.

 6. Ted R. Gurr, Minorities at Risk (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press 1993) p.3.

 7. R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation (New York: Rowman & Littlefield 2000) p.61.

 8. Jonathan Fox, Ethnoreligious Conflict in the Late Twentieth Century: A General Theory (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 2002) p.71.

 9. Juergensmeyer (note 1).

10. Carsten B. Laustsen and Ole Waever, ‘In Defense of Religion: Sacred Referent Objects for Secularization’, Millennium 29/3 (2000) p.719.

11. Fox (note 8) p.71.

12. Gurr (note 3).

13. Steve Bruce, Politics and Religion (Cambridge: Polity 2003); T. G. Jelen and C. C. Wilcox (eds), Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, the Few and the Many (New York: Cambridge UP 2002); Errol A. Henderson, ‘Culture or Contiguity: Ethnic Conflict, the Similarity States, and the Onset of War, 1920-1989’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 41/5 (1997) pp.649–68.

14. Fox (note 4).

15. Ethnoreligious conflict refers to conflict among different ethnoreligious groups.

16. Jonathan Fox, ‘The Salience of Religious Issues in Ethnic Conflicts: A Large-N Study’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 3/3 (1997) pp.1–19.

17. Jonathan Fox, Religion, Civilization and Civil War (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 2004); Jonathan Fox, ‘Religious Causes of International Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts’, International Politics 38/4 (2001) pp.515–31; Deepa Khosla, ‘Third World States as Interveners in Ethnic Conflicts: Implications for Regional and International Security’, Third World Quarterly 20/6 (1999) pp.1143–56.

18. Rudolph J. Rummel, ‘Is Collective Violence Correlated with Social Pluralism?’, Journal of Peace Research 34/2 (1997) pp.163–75.

19. Marta Reynal-Querol, ‘Ethnicity, Political Systems, and Civil Wars’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 46/1 (2002) pp.29–54.

20. Ted R. Gurr and Barbara Harff, Ethnic Conflict in World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1994).

21. See Gurpreet Mahajan, ‘Secularism as Religious Non-Discrimination: The Universal and the Particular in the Indian Context’, India Review 1/1 (2002) pp.33–51; David Chidester, ‘Religion Education and the Transformation State in South Africa’, Social Analysis 50/3 (2006) pp.61–83; Terry Cradden, ‘Trade Unionism, Social Justice, and Religious Discrimination in Northern Ireland’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review 46/3 (1993) pp.480–98; Nadia Kiwan, ‘Equal Opportunities and Republican Revival: Post-migrant Politics in Contemporary France (2002-2005)’, International Journal of Francophone Studies 10/1 and 2 (2007) pp. 157–72; Alex Cobham, ‘Causes of Conflict in Sudan: Testing The Black Book’, European Journal of Development Research 17/3 (2005) pp.462–80; Nico Landman and Wendy Wessels, ‘The Visibility of Mosques in Dutch Towns’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31/6 (2005) pp.1125–40; Javaid Rehman, ‘Minority Rights and the Constitutional Dilemmas of Pakistan’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 19/4 (2001) pp.417–43.; W. A. Shadid, ‘The Integration of Muslim Minorities in the Netherlands’, International Migration Review 25/2 (1991) pp.355–74.

22. Weller (note 1) p.62.

23. Ibid.

24. Gurr and Harff (note 20) p.5.

25. Maro Ellina and Will H. Moore, ‘Discrimination and Political Violence: A Cross-National Study with Two Time Periods’, The Western Political Quarterly 43 (1990) pp.267–78.

26. Ivo K. Feierabend and Rosalind L. Feierabend, ‘Aggressive Behaviors within Politics, 1948–1962: A Cross-National Study’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 10 (1966) pp.249–71.

27. Ted R. Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1970) and Ted R. Gurr, ‘A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices’, The American Political Science Review 62 (1968) pp.1104–24.

28. Relative deprivation (RD) is defined as ‘actors’ perceptions of discrepancy between their value expectations (the goods and conditions of the life to which they believe they are justifiably entitled) and their value capabilities (the amounts of those goods and conditions that they think they are able to get and keep).’ See Gurr, ‘A Causal Model’ (note 27) p.1104.

29. Mary Caprioli and Peter F. Trumbore, ‘Ethnic Discrimination and Interstate Violence: Testing the International Impact of Domestic Behavior’, Journal of Peace Research 40 (2003) p.5.

30. R. Wentz, Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion (Macon, GA: Mercer 1987).

31. Jonathan Fox, ‘Religious Causes of Discrimination against Ethno-Religious Minorities’, International Studies Quarterly 44 (2000) pp.423–50; M. Juergensmeyer, ‘Terror Mandated by God’, Terrorism and Political Violence 9 (1997) pp.16–23; and K. Greenwalt, Religious Convictions and Political Choice (Oxford: Oxford UP 1988).

32. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2004).

33. Jonathan Fox, ‘The Influence of Religious Legitimacy on Grievance Formation by Ethno-Religious Minorities’, Journal of Peace Research 36/3 (1999) pp.289–307; David Little, Ukraine: The Legacy of Intolerance (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 1991) and Brian S. Turner, Religion and Social Theory, 2nd edition (London: Sage 1991).

34. Fox Religion (note 17).

35. Please see the Center for Reductions of Religious-Based Conflict reports for more information, online at < www.center2000.org/>, accessed 26 Apr. 2006.

36. J. Haynes, Religion in Third World Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1994) and Juergensmeyer (note 1).

37. Paul Weller, ‘Religions and Social Capital: Theses on Religion(s), State(s) and Society(ies): With Particular Reference to the United Kingdom and the European Union’, The Journal of International Migration and Integration 11/2 (Spring 2005) p.278.

38. The UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief Article 1 and Article 2 state the importance of religious freedom. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 18 states that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.’ A copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948 can be found online at < www.un.org/Overview/rights.html>, accessed 26 Apr. 2006.

39. The UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 2, specifically highlights religious discrimination by states: ‘No one shall be subject to discrimination by any State, institution, group of persons, or person on the grounds of religion or other belief.’

40. Gurr (note 3).

41. Jonathan Fox, ‘The Unique Role of Religion in Middle Eastern Ethnic Conflict: A Large-N Study’, Turkish Policy Quarterly 3/1 (2004) pp.113–31.

42. Gurr (note 3) pp.110–22.

43. The cultural discrimination variable measures eight restrictions imposed on a group's culture, including religious restrictions.

44. Jonathan Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State (New York: Cambridge UP 2008).

45. Jonathan Fox, ‘Are Middle East Conflicts More Religious?’, Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2001) pp.31–40.

46. Ibid., p.4.

47. Ibid.

48. Fox (note 31).

49. Michael Freeman, ‘The Problem of Secularism in Human Rights Theory’, Human Rights Quarterly 26 (2004) pp.375–400; J. Paul Martin, ‘The Three Monotheistic World Religions and International Human Rights’, Journal of Social Issues 61/4 (2005) pp. 827–45.

50. Donna E. Arzt, ‘The Application of International Human Rights Law in Islamic States’, Human Rights Quarterly 12/2 (1990) pp.202–30.

51. David Little, John Kelsay and Abdulaziz A. Sachedina, Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty (Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina P 1988).

52. Keith Jaggers and Ted R. Gurr, ‘Tracking Democracy's Third Wave with the Polity III Data’, Journal of Peace Research 32/4 (1995) pp.469–82; Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford: Oxford UP 1993).

53. Arzt (note 50) p.209.

54. S. P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs 72 (1993) pp.22–29.

55. Fox (note 41) and Jonathan Fox, ‘Is Islam More Conflict Prone than Other Religions? A Cross-Sectional Study of Ethnoreligious Conflict’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (Summer 2000) pp.1–23.

56. Jonathan Fox, ‘Are Some Religions More Conflict Prone Than Others?’, Jewish Political Studies Review 16 (2004) p.1.

57. Fox, Religion (note 17) p.55.

58. It is important to note that data collection restricts us to three regions: western democracies, Asia and the Middle East. However, religious discrimination data provided here have more depth than any other data available. Therefore, results put a new light on understanding both Middle East and the Muslim majority states.

59. Cases for data collection are selected from Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset. More information on MAR dataset can be found online at < www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/>.

60. Historically, different traditions of Christianity and Islam have judged themselves as being different from each other and have experienced religiously motivated conflict. This provides enough background for groups, as well as states to perceive different traditions of Christianity and Islam as different religions.

61. This is not a sample selection. There are only 62 MARs belonging to a different religion or different tradition than the majority in western democracies, Asia and the Middle East.

62. It is important to acknowledge that the majority of Muslims do not view the Ahmadiya grouping as Muslim, although Ahmedis see themselves as such.

63. Jonathan Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State (New York: Cambridge UP 2008).

64. Gabriel Ben-Dor and Ami Pedahzur, ‘The Uniqueness of Islamic Fundamentalism and the Fourth Wave of International Terrorism’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 4/3 (2003) pp.71–90.

65. Rudolph J. Rummel, ‘Is Collective Violence Correlated with Social Pluralism?’, Journal of Peace Research 34/2 (1997) pp.163–75.

66. Norris and Inglehart (note 32).

67. World Values Survey (WVS) includes many questions on religion such as: Indicate how important religion is in your life; Do you belong to a religion or religious denomination? Do you trust people of other religion completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all? Survey questions can be found online at < www.worldvaluessurvey.org/>, accessed 19 Jun. 2007.

68. Fox (note 44).

69. The RAS reports include multiple sources such as the State Department sources as well as academic sources and media.

70. MAR reports are available on the qualitative analysis section of the MAR webpage at < www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/data.asp>, accessed 13 Jun. 2007. For each group the report includes risk assessment of the group, i.e. future expectations regarding protest or rebellion of the group as well as an analytic summary of the group that explains coding of major variables in the MAR dataset. These reports were very helpful to form the initial discrimination profile of groups. The RAS reports were an excellent source of information. These are country reports on state-religion relationships and they include significant facts on minorities. They are available directly from the RAS project director, Jonathan Fox. The Annual Reports to Congress on International Religious Freedom are available online at < www.state.gov/g/drl/irf/rpt/>, accessed 13 Jun. 2007. These reports describe the status of religious freedom in each country, and explain government policies that violate religious practices of groups, religious traditions, and individuals. They outline state-religion relationships in detail, so it is a very good source to understand state policies on religion. < www.hrwf.net/> is the webpage of Human Rights without Frontiers (accessed 13 Jun. 2007). There is access to annual news catalogues as well as reports on special issues and projects. This website provides news summaries in each country on religious freedom, so it was possible to check major religious freedom issues debated in each country.

71. One can argue that the period covered is brief and it is a post-Cold War period. What is more, September 11 happens within the time framework of the dataset. The end of the Cold War and September 11 are both significant and unique events. In the future, users of this dataset should be cautious about that.

72. Although social restrictions, xenophobia and in some cases more specifically Islamophobia are major issues for many countries, it is out of scope of this data collection. One of the recent examples from that literature is Paul Weller, ‘Addressing Religious Discrimination and Islamophobia: Muslims and Liberal Democracies: The Case of the United Kingdom’, Journal of Islamic Studies 17/3 (2006) pp.295–325.

73. The Religion and State (RAS) dataset (2004) offers state-level data (not minority-level) for all countries that have a population of more than 250,000 and all western democracies on many aspects of division between religion and state for the period from 1990 to 2002. It is the only dataset that extensively focuses on the relationship between religion and state.

74. The Religion and State Project Data and Codebook is retrieved from Jonathan Fox.

75. Each of the variables on the list deserves a complete discussion as well as how each variable is related to each of the others, but space considerations make this impossible. The section entitled ‘agenda of coding issues’ and the appendix aim to familiarize the reader with the details of some of the variables to fill that gap.

76. For further information see the SAS user manual online at < www.support.sas.com>, accessed 13 Jan. 2007.

77. The religious discrimination variables were all coded by the author of this study. The data collection process took approximately 15 weeks.

78. Please note that like all cases coded, these are selected from the pool of the MAR dataset. These cases are: Ahmedis in Pakistan and Tibetans in China (from Asia), Shi'is in Saudi Arabia and Turkmen in Iran (from the Middle East), and Scots in the UK and Muslims in France (from western democracies).

79. These variables are: restrictions on public observance of religious services, festivals and/or holidays; forced observance of religious laws of another group; mandatory education in the majority religion; arrest, continued detention, or severe official harassment of religious figures, officials, and/or members of religious parties; forced conversions; custody of children granted to members of the majority group solely or in part on the basis of religious affiliation or beliefs.

80. One of the experts, who was at the time of data collection teaching in Israel, generously provided his expertise for many minorities, especially the ones in the Middle East. For the coding of Arabs in Israel, he checked with an Israeli Army chaplain to understand whether there are non-Jewish chaplains in the Israeli Defense Force. Another expert on Singapore, who was at the time of data collection a PhD student in the US, clarified points of confusion regarding Singapore.

81. Religious identity of the majority and minority population are determined through the CIA World Factbook and RAS country reports.

82. P. Weller, A. Feldman and K. Purdam, Religious Discrimination in England and Wales (London: Home Office 2001).

83. A list of minority group assessments can be found online at < www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/assessment.asp?groupId = 95002>, accessed 3 Mar. 2006.

84. Christian (general) and Islam (general) categories have two roles: when no one Christian or Muslim tradition is dominant or when information is unavailable or unclear or inconsistent about demographic divisions among different traditions of Christianity or Islam. Fijians in Fiji fit into this category well because they are Christian but demographic information about minority is not consistent. That is why they are labeled as ‘Christian (general).’

85. More information can be found online at < www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51589.htm>, accessed 19 Jun. 2007.

86. Weller, Feldman and Purdam (note 82).

87. The time period is not long enough to understand the real implications of 9/11 on ethnoreligious minorities of western democracies. For historical evolution of religious discrimination in the UK please see Weller (note 72).

88. It is considered as frequent restriction if half or more than half of the cases are coded as 1 or 2.

89. One might ask the reason why a t-test is not employed instead of an f-test. If there were just two regions, the p value of an f-test and a t-test would be exactly the same. Since there are more than two regions in this analysis, using a separate t-test can be misleading. When a t-test is used with more than two categories, noteworthy differences that are found may not be statistically significant. An f-test is one of the methods to fix this problem. If one finds significant results using an f-test, that result will always hold in the t-test. An f-test is used to overcome the inflation of the experiment error when you are dealing with multiple comparisons that would tend to consider significant differences in the means which are really not significant. For further information see Michael H. Kutner, Christopher J. Nachtscheim, John Neter and William Li, Applied Linear Statistical Models, 5th ed. (Chicago, IL: McGraw-Hill Irwin 2005).

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92. Gurr (note 3).

93. Mohammed Abu-Nimer, ‘Conflict Resolution, Culture, and Religion: Toward a Training Model of Interreligious Peacebuilding’, Journal of Peace Research 38 (2001) pp.685–704.