The state of freedom in Russia: a regional analysis of freedom of religion, media and markets1

Much of the work for this article was completed while one of the authors (Christopher Marsh) was serving as a research scholar in residence at the Institute on Religion and World Affairs at Boston University. Both authors would also like to thank Peter Berger, Wallace Daniel, Nikolas Gvosdev, Anthony Gill and Lawrence Uzzell for their assistance and comments on the ideas expressed in this paper.

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Notes

Much of the work for this article was completed while one of the authors (Christopher Marsh) was serving as a research scholar in residence at the Institute on Religion and World Affairs at Boston University. Both authors would also like to thank Peter Berger, Wallace Daniel, Nikolas Gvosdev, Anthony Gill and Lawrence Uzzell for their assistance and comments on the ideas expressed in this paper.

This law is translated in Journal of Church and State, 33, 1991, pp. 191–201.

This law is translated in Emory International Law Review, 12, 1998, pp. 657–80.

While Homer and Uzzell did not intend their study to be converted into a quantitative indicator of religious freedom, at least one of the authors (Lawrence Uzzell) feels that this approach is valid and may generate significant findings that can complement other work being done in this area. Personal communication with Christopher Marsh, 12 May 2003.

Homer and Uzzell discuss at least three different sources of this information and three different tallies. In developing the index used here, any reference to a restrictive religion law was counted.

Coding was done in this manner in order to have a scale that ranges from low to high, i.e. from a low score of 0 (little religious freedom) to a high score of 2 (most religious freedom), which would result in positive correlations with the other variables examined later in the article.

While coding the regions into three groups exposes some of the variation in religious freedom in Russia, it cannot accurately measure the true magnitude of this variation. Correlations with other variables, therefore, will be weak, but given the large number of cases involved, significant correlations should at least give an indication of the nature of the relationship between religious freedom and other freedoms in Russia.

Results of an independent sample t‐test are as follows: t = −0.107; p = 0.915; μ _{group 1} = 1.465; μ _{group 2} = 1.483.

Data for these variables were obtained from the following sources: Regiony; Orttung, 2000.

Homer and Uzzell cite the case of Kostroma, where the more restrictive religion law was passed in order to appease Orthodox clergy (1999, p. 307), while Fagan discusses a case involving the close collaboration between a local Moscow Patriarchate diocese and various state organs in a particular republic that involved the financing of a new Orthodox cathedral.