Canadian Political Science Association, Société Québécoise de Science Politique Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique

Société québécoise de science politique
Do Democracies Have Separation of Religion and State?

Author(s): Jonathan Fox
Source: Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol.
40, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), pp. 1-25
Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and the Société québécoise de science
politique
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"Do Democracies Have Separation
of Religion and State?"
Jonathan Fox Bar Ilan University
This study asks a seemingly simple question: Do democracies have sep

aration of religion and state (SRAS)? However, answering this question
is not a simple endeavour, for three reasons. First, there is no agreement
on the meaning of SRAS. Second, however it is defined, SRAS is diffi
cult to measure. Third, the same can be said of democracy. One of the
main foci of this study is to provide a set of usable operational defini
tions of the concept of SRAS and to examine how many democracies (as
measured by existing datasets), as well as how many other states, have
SRAS. To accomplish this goal, this study develops seven separate oper
ationalizations of SRAS based on four different definitions of SRAS.
Despite this objective focus, it is important to remember that the appro
priate role of religion in liberal democracies, and for that matter gov
ernment in general, is a hotly contested political issue in many states,
involving a number of normative issues that are anything but objective.
This study addresses the role of religion in democracies using data
from the Religion and State (RAS) dataset, which was developed by the
author and includes 62 variables in six broader categories measuring dif
ferent aspects of SRAS for all 152 states with populations of one million
or more. The democracy data is taken from the Polity and Freedom House
datasets. All analyses are performed for the years 1990 and 2002 in order
to test whether the relationships found in this study hold true over time.
This analysis is novel because the RAS data contains more information
Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Patrick James, Shmuel Sandler and Baruch
Susser, as well as the Canadian Journal of Political Science's anonymous reviewers,
for their helpful comments. Any errors of fact or interpretation remain mine alone.
This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 896/00) and
the Sara and Simha Lainer Chair in Democracy and Civility. A copy of the RAS
dataset can be obtained from Jonathan Fox at foxjon@mail.biu.ac.il.
Jonathan Fox, Department of Political Studies, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel;
foxjon@mail.biu.ac.il
Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique

40:1 (March/mars 2007) 1-25 DOI: 10.1017/S0008423907070035
? 2007 Canadian Political Science Association (1'Association canadienne de science politique)
and/et la Societe quebecoise de science politique
2 Jonathan Fox
on SRAS than all previous datasets, as well as observations for more

countries than most previous datasets. Furthermore, the few studies which
use analogous SRAS data tend not to focus on its relationship with
democracy.
Religion and Democracy

The debate over whether there is some special relationship between
democracy and SRAS is reflected in several different literatures. Space
considerations allow for only a brief discussion of these literatures.
Many in the West assume that SRAS is the norm in liberal democ
racies. Democracy alone implies that the majority decision rules and this
can include the decision to violate the principle of SRAS. It is liberalism
that includes protections for the rights of minorities. This is often used
to justify SRAS on the grounds that it is a protection against the poten
tial tyranny of religious majorities, especially given past histories of reli
gious intolerance in many democratic states. The expectations placed on
democracies by this strain of liberalism are described by Stepan (2000:
39-40) as follows:
Democratic institutions must be free, within the bounds of the constitution and
human rights, to generate policies. Religious institutions should not have con
stitutionally privileged prerogatives that allow them to mandate public policy
to democratically elected governments. At the same time, individuals and reli
gious communities ... must have complete freedom to worship privately. In
addition, as individuals and groups, they must be able to advance their values
publicly in civil society and to sponsor organizations and movements in polit
ical society, as long as their actions do not impinge negatively on the liberties
of other citizens or violate democracy and the law.
Many make the normative argument that SRAS is desirable and even
essential to democracy. For example, Rawls (1993: 151) argues that we
must "take the truths of religion off the political agenda." Demerath (2001:
2) similarly asserts that "separating religion from the state is both possi
ble and desirable." Some would go as far as to claim that liberalism was
at least in part a response to the religious conflicts of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries and specifically includes SRAS in the ideology in
order to alleviate this type of conflict (Shah, 2000). Many of these argu
ments are based on the assertion that religion often does not tolerate dis
sent to its dictates, which makes it incompatible with democracy.
This normative argument, that democracy and religion are incom
patible, is by no means universally accepted. Tocqueville argues that "suc
cessful political democracy will inevitably require moral instruction
grounded in religious faith" (Fradkin, 2000: 90-91). Greenawalt (1988:
49, 55) asserts that liberal democracy tolerates people who want to impose
Abstract. While many argue that separation of religion and state (SRAS) is an essential ele
ment of democracy, others posit that religion is an essential element of democracy's moral under
pinnings. This study examines the debate using data from the Religion and State (RAS) dataset,
which includes 62 variables in six broader categories measuring different aspects of SRAS for
all 152 states with populations of one million or more, as well as data on democracy from the
Polity and Freedom House datasets. It also develops seven operational definitions of SRAS that
can be constructed using this data. Overall, the results show that a clear majority of democra
cies do not have SRAS even when evaluating multiple operational definitions of both democ
racy and SRAS. However, democracies tend to have lower average levels of government
involvement in religion (GIR) than do non-democracies. This is because, while most democra
cies do not have SRAS, there is an upper limit to the amount of GIR that is found in any
democracy that does not appear to apply to non-democracies. All this indicates that the proper
question regarding religion and democracy is not one of SRAS but rather one of how much and
what types of GIR can democracies tolerate.
Resume. Alors que de nombreuses personnes pretendent que la separation de la religion et de

l'Etat est un element essentiel de la democratic, d'autres avancent que la religion est un ele
ment essentiel des fondations morales de la democratic Cette etude analyse ce debat en uti
lisant des donnees provenant de la base de donnees Religion and State, qui comprend 62 variables
regroupees en 6 grandes categories et mesurant les differents aspects de la separation de la
religion et de l'Etat dans les 152 pays dont la population atteint un million d'habitants ou plus,
ainsi que les donnees sur la democratic fournies par la base de donnees Polity et l'indicateur de
Freedom House. L'article met aussi au point sept definitions fonctionnelles de la separation de
la religion et de l'Etat, que Ton peut composer a partir de ces donnees. Dans l'ensemble, les
resultats montrent que la grande majorite des democraties ne pratiquent pas la separation de la
religion et de l'Etat, meme lorsque Ton prend en compte plusieurs definitions fonctionnelles de
la democratic et de la separation de la religion et de l'Etat. En revanche, le niveau moyen
d'engagement religieux du gouvernement tend a etre plus bas dans les democraties que dans
les pays qui ne sont pas des democraties. Cela s'explique par le fait que, bien que la plupart des
democraties ne pratiquent pas la separation de la religion et de l'Etat, elles observent un plafond
d'engagement religieux qu'on ne retrouve pas dans les pays qui ne sont pas des democraties.
Tout ceci indique que la question la plus appropriee concernant la religion et la democratic
n'est pas celle de la separation de la religion et de l'Etat, mais plutot celle du degre et
des modeles d'engagement religieux que les democraties peuvent tolerer de la part de leurs
gouvernements.
their religious convictions on others "just as it tolerates people who wish

to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat," and that without resort to
religion there are often insufficient "grounds for citizens to resolve many
political issues."
This debate also includes differences of opinion over the facts on
the ground. On the one hand, many authors posit that democracy is not
possible in religiously plural societies (Mill, 1951: 46; Horowitz, 1985:
86-86). The literature on consociationalism and power sharing reflects
this by implicitly arguing that heterogeneous societies can only maintain
democracy through complex power-sharing arrangements (for example,
Lijphart, 1977). On the other hand, there are numerous examples of reli
gion and democracy coexisting, including the existence of established
churches in several Western European states and widespread government
support in Europe for religion, especially religious education (Stepan,
4 Jonathan Fox
2000: 41-43). Anthony Smith (2000) links many particular nationalist

ideologies in democratic states like France, Greece, Ireland, the US and
the UK to religious origins. Research suggests that when there is a stra
tegic interest in doing so, religious groups often support democracy (Kaly
vas, 1998, 2000; Linz, 1978).
Mazie (2004) takes an intermediate approach, arguing that some ele
ments of religion are compatible with democracy, while others are not.
National religious holidays are acceptable as long as observance is not
mandatory and religious minorities can observe their own holidays. Fund
ing of religion is possible because democratic checks and balances and
an effective judicial system can prevent reasonable levels of support for
religion from turning into religious tyranny. However, imposing reli
gious values or behaviour is in most cases incompatible with democracy.
This distinction between acceptable and unacceptable violations of
SRAS brings out more clearly something that is inherent in the argu
ments of all of those who posit that religion and democracy are compat
ible: religion and democracy can coexist, but there are clearly intolerant
forms of religion which are not compatible with the concept of pluralism
and some that are not even tolerant of any diversity within their own
traditions. Thus, democracy can coexist only with manifestations of reli
gion which are either willing to tolerate democracy or whose followers
do not have the ability to oppose it.
This debate touches upon several other literatures. Modernization
and secularization theory predict that as countries modernize they will
become more secular because factors inherent in modernization will lead
directly to the demise of religion. These factors include mass literacy
and education, urbanization, and the rise of science and rationalism as a
basis for organizing society, solving problems and explaining the world.1
The popularity of this body of theory has been waning of late and is
countered by an emerging literature which argues that rather than caus
ing religion's demise, modernization has brought about its resurgence (for
example, Appleby, 2000; Casanova, 1994; Juergensmeyer, 1993). How
ever, some continue to defend elements of the theory. For example, Nor
ris and Inglehart (2004) argue that religiosity is dropping among the
wealthy and those who live in more economically developed states, but
as most of the world's population does not fit into these categories, world
religiosity is actually increasing. Bruce (2002: 30, 44) defends the para
digm even more strongly, asserting that "individualism, diversity, and
egalitarianism in the context of liberal democracy" has led to a "long
term decline in the power, popularity, and prestige of religious beliefs
and rituals."
This overall debate over whether religion and democracy are com
patible is also important in other discussions, including the argument over
whether an Islamic state can be democratic.2
"Do Democracies Have Separation of Religion and State? " 5
Measuring SRAS
While one generally discusses theoretical definitions of a concept before

addressing how to measure it, in this case the former is considerably
dependent upon the latter. Accordingly, I discuss the RAS measures of
SRAS before turning to the question of how SRAS is to be defined.
The RAS dataset essentially measures government involvement in
religion (GIR). This is defined as any form of government support for
religion or interference in religion. This includes treatment of both the
majority and minority religions in a state. I set aside for the moment the
question of how much GIR of what type can exist in a state without vio
lating the principle of SRAS, because this question is easier to discuss in
the context of the specific RAS measures used here.
The RAS dataset measures GIR from several perspectives. This is
because there are a number of ways a government can support religion
or interfere in religious practices and institutions. Thus any compre
hensive assessment of GIR must include an assessment of several types
of GIR.
The RAS data is available yearly for the 1990 to 2002 period for all
152 states with populations of one million or more. All of the variables
are coded primarily based on the behaviour of a state's national govern
ment. They do not include the behaviour of regional and local govern
ments, unless the majority of such governments engage in a practice.
The codings also do not include societal practice, because the dataset
focuses on the behaviour of governments and not on general societal
practices.
There are seven RAS variables used here: 1) official support: the
extent to which a government officially endorses or supports a religion
or several religions; 2) official hostility', the extent to which governments
are officially hostile to all religions; 3) general restrictions: whether the
state in general restricts religious practices; 4) religious discrimination:
the extent to which a government engages in 16 types of restrictions that
can be placed on the religious practices of minority regulations; 5) reli
gious regulation: the extent to which a government engages in 11 types
of restrictions or regulation that can be placed on the majority religion in
a state; 6) religious legislation: whether the government engages in any
of 33 types of religious legislation; and 7) general GIR: a. composite vari
ables which includes the above six variables. A more detailed descrip
tion of these variables is provided in appendix A and Fox (2006). The
RAS variables are considerably more detailed and comprehensive than
previous measures of SRAS. There are a small number of studies that
have developed limited SRAS variables. Chaves and Cann (1992: 280)
measure several aspects of SRAS for 18 Western European countries.
Norris and Inglehart (2004: 253-254) expanded this measure to 20 com
6 Jonathan Fox
ponents. Price (1999) measures religion's influence on politics for 23

Muslim states and 23 non-Muslim states. Barrett et al. (2001) collected
data on whether states have a "religious character" but did not systemat
ically analyze the data, though others such as Madeley (2003a, 2003b)
and Barro and McCleary (2003) did make use of the data.
All of these measures are less comprehensive than the 62 measures
used in this study. Also, other than the crude Barrett et al. (2001) vari
ables, none of them were collected for much more than half of the world's
states, much less the 152 included in this study.
With a few notable exceptions, all other studies which include vari
ables for religion are either survey-based studies that examine individual
religiosity, or macro-level studies that use religious identity variables. Sur
vey studies are not comparable to this one because they focus on indi
vidual religiosity. The identity-based studies, most of which focus on
religion's influence on conflict, measure whether conflict is more likely
when the two sides belong to different religions (Henderson, 1997) or
whether religious diversity within a state is linked with increased con
flict (Rummel, 1997; Roeder, 2003; Reynal-Querol, 2002; Fearon and
Laitin, 2003). Most of the exceptions tend to use variables that focus on
narrow issues like ethnic conflict (for example, Fox, 2002, 2004).
A few studies directly test the link between democracy and some
aspect of religion. Several found that Islamic states tend to be more auto
cratic (Fisch, 2002; Midlarsky, 1998). However, Price (1999) found that
Islam neither undermines nor supports democracy and human rights.
Chaves and Cann (1992) and Fox and Sandler (2005) show that many
European states regulate religion. These studies all have at least one of
three limitations: looking only at the link between a particular religion
and democracy; focusing on only one or two aspects of SRAS in a lim
ited context; or looking only at a limited number of states.
Defining and Operationalizing SRAS
The RAS measures used in this study essentially measure a definition of

SRAS that I call absolute-SRAS\ the absence of any government support
for religion or interference in religious practices. This is an extremely
strict standard that essentially requires that a government score a zero on
each of the RAS measures. Put differently, operationally, this definition
means that a government which in any way engages in any of the 62
types of GIR measured by the RAS variables would not have SRAS.
As is discussed in more detail below, only one state, the USA, meets
this standard of SRAS. Thus it is advisable to create another category of
SRAS, which I will call near-absolute-SRAS; this adheres to the spirit of
absolute-SRAS but allows for a minimal level of GIR. The definition
includes states that generally follow policies of avoiding GIR but have
some limited exceptions to those policies. I include two operationaliza
tions of near-SRAS, with the first being more strict than the second. Of
necessity, these operationalizations are somewhat arbitrary but are argu
ably representative of the intent to allow low levels of GIR within the
definition of SRAS. These operationalizations, as well as the others dis
cussed in this section, are presented in Table 1.
While the absolute-SRAS standard for SRAS is inherent in the cur
rent US tradition of SRAS, it is not discussed extensively in the literature
on the topic. The literature tends to focus on two less strict definitions of
SRAS.3 The first, neutral political concern, defines SRAS as requiring
that the state neither help nor hinder any particular ideal more than oth
ers. This standard of SRAS allows government support and/or interfer
ence in religion, as long as this support and/or interference is equal for
all religions. The RAS variables can be used to measure this standard. This
study creates three different operationalizations of this standard in order
to reflect varying levels of strictness of interpretation of this standard.
For a state to have a level of SRAS consistent with this definition it
would need to be coded as "no support" or "supportive" on the official
support variable, because all of the higher codings involve preferential
treatment for some religions. The latter of these codings does include
support?but on an equal basis?for all religions. The "no hostility" cod
ing of the official hostility variable certainly fits this standard. The other
codings may or may not fit this standard. On the one hand, none of them
imply any preferential treatment of religion, as it is possible for the state
to be equally hostile to all religions. However, at some point the level of
government hostility to religion can be said to violate an intuitive under
standing of SRAS. For the purposes of this study, a coding of "sepa
rationist" is always considered to meet the neutral political concern
standard, because it implies low-level but general hostility toward reli
gion, but the highest coding of "hostility" is deemed to be too high to
meet this definition of SRAS. It also implies a government preference of
an anti-religious ideology that is essentially supporting a secular ideal
over religious ones.
The neutral political concern standard also requires low levels of
religious discrimination, because such discrimination implies unequal
treatment. However, as is the case with the near-absolute-SRAS stan
dard, the operationalization of the neutral political concern standard
allows for some low levels of religious discrimination. Operation
alizing this definition with regard to religious regulation and religious
legislation is also difficult. The state can theoretically engage in low
levels of these types of GIR without violating the neutral political con
cern standard of SRAS but it is difficult to determine exactly where to
draw the line.
00 o >H > X
Official Official General Religious Religious Religious General

Support Hostility Restrictions Discrim. Regulation Legislation GIR
Exclusion of Ideals None, All codings Practical Up to 10 Up to 10 See list Up to 30
Absolute-SRAS None None None None None None 0 Only Neutral Political Concern 3 None & None, separationist Practical Up to 5 Up to 10 Up to 5 Up to 20
Near-Absolute-SRAS 2 None Separationist None Up to 5 Up to 5 Up to 5 Up to 10
supportive & inadvertent limitations

Near-Absolute-SRAS 1 None None None Up to 3 Up to 3 Up to 3 Up to 5 supportive separationist limitations insensitivity
Neutral Political Concern 2 None & None & Practical Up to 3 Up to 5 Up to 5 Up to 15
supportive separationist
& cooperation limitations
Neutral Political Concern 1 None & None & None None Up to 3 Up to 3 Up to 10
supportive & legal
Operationalizations of Separation of Religion and State
Table 1
The second standard of SRAS, exclusion of ideals, defines SRAS as

an absence of a preference for any particular way of life in state actions.
This definition focuses on intent rather than outcome. Since the RAS
variables focus on action rather than intent, it is difficult to operational
ize this standard. However, it is fair to argue that when the outcome of a
state's practices involve a certain amount of GIR, it is unlikely that the
intent to maintain SRAS exists. States with official religions certainly
do not have SRAS even under this standard. It is also extremely unlikely
that those that in law or practice give preference to a single religion over
others ("civil religion" or higher on the official support measure) or
engage in substantial levels of religious discrimination have SRAS based
on this standard. It is also arguable that the following types of religious
legislation do imply the legislation of a specific religious tradition, thus
indicating that "ideals" are involved in this legislation:
dietary laws (restrictions on producing, importing, selling or consum

ing specific foods);
restrictions or prohibitions on the sale of alcoholic beverages;
restrictions on conversions away from the dominant religion;
restrictions on public dress;
mandatory closing of some or all businesses during religious holidays,
including the Sabbath or its equivalent;
other restrictions on activities during religious holidays, including the
Sabbath or its equivalent ("blue laws");
some or all government officials must meet certain religious require
ments in order to hold office;
prohibitive restrictions on abortion;
the presence of religious symbols on the state's flag; and
presence of an official government body that monitors "sects" or minor
ity religions.
While this operational definition is not exact, it arguably approximates

the exclusion of ideals standard. It also, arguably, includes close to the
maximum amount of GIR that any fair interpretation of the exclusion of
ideals standard would allow.
The operationalizations of all of the standards for SRAS other than
absolute-SRAS reflect a fair amount of ambiguities in applying these def
initions and include cutoffs that are somewhat arbitrary. Unfortunately,
an element of arbitrariness is unavoidable in this type of exercise. Thus,
these seven operationalizations are clearly not the only possible ones,
and the use of seven operationalizations, as opposed to six or eight, for
example, itself is also arbitrary.
Nevertheless, I argue that these operationalizations meet four key
criteria that make them useful and appropriate. First, they represent a
10 Jonathan Fox
good faith attempt to operationalize the concepts at hand. Second, they

range from the relatively strict to the relatively lenient, thus allowing for
the testing of a broad range of operational definitions of SRAS. In fact
the most lenient of the definitions arguably allow about as much GIR as
any reasonable definition would likely allow and the strictest allows the
minimum possible amount of SRAS. Third, there are a sufficiently finite
number of operationalizations to make them workable in a study of this
nature. Finally, based on the results presented below, it is unlikely that
other operationalizations that remained faithful to the definitions of SRAS
discussed here would produce substantially different results.
It is important to note that both the neutral political concern and
exclusion of ideals standards are part of a more general liberal ideal,
which advocates that the state should be separate from religion. While
these definitions are more recent developments, they are based on clas
sical liberal thought. This concept is strongly tied to the concept of
secularism (Madeley, 2003a). Secularism "identifies something called
'religion' and separates it from the 'secular' domains of the state, the
economy, and science. The 'secular', then is associated with the worldly
or temporal. It carries no overt reference to a transcendent order or divine
being. In normative terms, secularism in characterized by its universal
ist pretensions and its claim to superiority over non-secular alterna
tives" (Hurd, 2004: 235).
It is also important to note that this tradition of secularism and some
definitions of SRAS, especially the neutral political concern standard,
have been criticized as not actually being neutral, because they in effect
give preference to the secular. That is, in practice many government pol
icies of "neutrality" toward religion give preference to secular ideologies
and institutions over religious ideologies and institutions (Bader, 1999;
Hurd, 2004: 239; Monsma and Soper, 1997). Be that as it may, this study
is not intended to assess whether any particular form of SRAS gives pref
erence to secularist ideals. Rather, it determines whether democracies meet
any standard of SRAS. Thus, this criticism, while important for our under
standing of how SRAS policies influence government decisions, does
not substantially influence the analysis presented here.
Research Design
Unless otherwise noted, all variables in this study are taken from 1990
and 2002 and all tests in this study assess each of these years separately.
These years are used because they are the first and last available for
the RAS data and using them implicitly tests whether the relationships
included in this analysis change over time.
I use two variables for democracy, which focus on different aspects.

The Polity variable from the Polity dataset has a range from -10 to 10,
with -10 being the most autocratic and 10 being the most democratic. It
is based on the regulation, openness and competitiveness of executive
recruitment, constraints on the executive, and the regulation and compet
itiveness of political participation.4 The Freedom House variable includes
two scales, one for civil rights and one for political rights, both of which
range from one to seven, with one being the most democratic.51 re-scaled
each of these measures to range from zero to six, with six being the most
democratic, then added the two to create a scale of zero to 12. This inver
sion of the scale is to increase ease of comparison with the Polity mea
sure, which also gives the highest score to the most democratic countries.
These variables are the most used in quantitative studies to measure
democracy6 and including both variables allows testing of whether results
based on the two variables are consistent.
The data analysis proceeds in several steps: first, I analyze whether
states have SRAS based on the criteria described in Table 1 and control
ling for democracy. This is presented as the percentage of states in a
given category that have SRAS based on each of the seven operational
definitions used in this study. For this test, I divide both the Polity and
Freedom House scales into several categories, ranging from the most dem
ocratic to the least democratic. I determined the specific components of
each category based on two criteria: an accurate assessment of the range
of regimes and an approximately equal number of states in each cat
egory. I also provide the percentage of states with SRAS among Western
democracies7 and states that have constitutional clauses declaring SRAS.8
The test using constitutional clauses is performed only for 2002 because
the data on constitutional clauses was collected for that year only.
Second, I use OLS multiple regressions to assess the impact of
regime type on GIR, controlling for other factors using all seven mea
sures of GIR as dependent variables. I use the Polity and Freedom House
variables to measure democracy, though each of them is used in separate
regressions because the two are strongly correlated. The control vari
ables are as follows:
(1) Economic development, as measured by log-per-capita GDP
taken from the UN Statistics Division Web site.9
(2) Several variables measuring the specific religion of the majority
population in each state including: Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Chris
tian, other Christian10 and Muslim.11 Each of these variables measures one
if the majority of the state's population is of the specified religion and
zero if it is not. These variables are included because many argue that reli
gious tradition has a significant influence on political phenomena.12
(3) Religious diversity is measured using the Herfindahl index, which
measures the probability that two random people will belong to the same
12 Jonathan Fox
religion. As this index effectively measures religious homogeneity, the

version used here is 1?(Herfidahl index).13 I include this variable be
cause, as noted above, several studies link religious diversity to political
phenomena.
(5) Political stability. This is measured by how many years a regime
has persisted without a change in the Polity measure.
(6) The log of that state's population (in thousands) is taken from
the CIA World Factbook.
Third, I analyze scatter-plots between the two democracy variables
and general GIR. This analysis is included in order to explain a contrast
in the results from the first two sets of analysis, explained in more detail
below.
Data Analysis and Discussion
The results presented in Table 2 show that the vast majority of democra
cies do not have SRAS. Depending on the year in question and opera
tional definitions of democracy and SRAS, between 2.9 and 32 per cent
of the states in the most democratic category have SRAS. In fact, in no
category of state in this table do more than 36.8 per cent of states have
any of the operationalizations of SRAS. Furthermore, in a number of
cases, a greater proportion of states in some of the less democratic cat
egories have SRAS than do the most democratic states.
Only one state in the study, the US, has absolute SRAS. The expla
nation for this cannot be found in any uniqueness in the US constitu
tional structure. Of the 128 states in this study for which I was able to
obtain an English-language copy of their constitution, 50 of them (includ
ing the US) have constitutional clauses or the equivalent that declare
SRAS. Yet, as shown in Table 2, the majority of these states do not have
SRAS. What seems to differentiate the US and other states with consti
tutional SRAS clauses is not the clauses themselves but, rather, the
enforcement of those clauses. The US court system traditionally strictly
interprets the establishment clause of the US Constitution. Based on these
results, this policy appears to be the exception rather than the rule.
Given all of this, it is fair to conclude that most governments do not
have SRAS based on any definition or operationalization of the term used
here, and that this is also true for democracies. The verdict also applies
to liberal democracies, as the results are similar for Western democracies.
However, OLS regressions predicting GIR, presented in Table 3, show
that democracies are associated with lower levels of GIR. In fact, with
the exception of the regressions for official support, both the Polity and
Freedom House measures of democracy are significantly and negatively
associated with the RAS variables for all of the regressions, both in 1990
Table 2
The Proportion of States That Have SRAS in 1990 and 2002,
Based On Seven Operational Definitions of SRAS_
% of States That Meet Operationalization of SRAS
Neutral Neutral Neutral
Near Near Political Political Political
Absolute SRAS SRAS Concern Concern Concern Exclusion
Democracy Variable n SRAS 12 12 3 of Ideals
Polity, 1990
10 (most democratic) 26 3.8% 19.2% 23.1% 19.2% 23.1
8 to 9 19 0.0% 15.8% 21.1% 15.8% 31.6% 36.8% 5.3%
6 to 7 8 0.0% 25.0% 25.0% 12.5% 25.0% 25.0% 0.0%
0to5 13 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 7.7% 7.7% 15.4%
-6to-l 14 0.0% 21.4% 21.4% 21.4% 28.6% 28.6% 14.3%
-10 to-7 47 0.0% 19.1% 21.3% 17.0% 23.4% 23.4% 4.3%
Polity, 2002
10 (most democratic) 31 3.2% 6.5% 19.4% 9.7%
8 to 9 29 0.0% 14.3% 21.4% 7.1% 28.6% 28.6% 10.7%
6 to 7 21 0.0% 13.6% 27.3% 13.6% 31.8% 31.8% 18.2%
0to5 18 0.0% 16.7% 16.7% 16.7% 16.7% 22.2% 0.0%
-6to-l 25 0.0% 12.0% 12.0% 8.0% 16.0% 24.0% 8.0%
-10 to-7 23 0.0% 3.6% 7.1% 0.0% 7.1% 7.1% 3.6%
Freedom House, 1990
11 to 12 (most dem.) 31 4.0% 20.0% 24.0% 16.0
8 to 10 26 0.0% 22.2% 22.2% 18.5% 25.9% 25.9% 11.1%
5 to 7 22 0.0% 4.5% 4.5% 4.5% 9.1% 9.1% 13.6%
3 to 4 27 0.0% 23.1% 23.1% 19.2% 26.9% 26.9% 0.0%
0to2 25 0.0% 16.1% 19.4% 16.1% 22.6% 22.6% 3.2%
Freedom House, 2002
11 to 12 (most dem.) 35 2.9% 11.4% 25.7% 11.4% 25.7% 28.6% 2
8 to 10 32 0.0% 12.5% 18.8% 9.4% 21.9% 25.0% 6.3%
5 to 7 31 0.0% 9.7% 16.1% 9.7% 19.4% 22.6% 9.7%
3 to 4 25 0.0% 12.0% 12.0% 8.0% 12.0% 16.0% 4.0%
0to2 29 0.0% 6.9% 10.3% 3.4% 12.8% 17.2% 3.0%
W. Democracies, 1990 20 5.0% 20.0% 20.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 10.0%
W. Democracies, 2002 20 5.0% 10.0% 20.0% 10.0% 20.0% 20.0% 10.0%
State has SRAS clause
in constitution, 2002 50 2.0% 12.0% 26.0% 10.0% 30.0% 36.0% 24.0%
All states, 1990 132 0.8% 17.4% 19.7% 15.9% 23.5% 24.2% 8.3%
All states, 2002 152 0.7% 10.5% 17.1% 8.6% 19.1% 22.4% 10.5%
and 2002. Furthermore, in all but one of these 16 regressions w

democracy variables are significant, the beta for the democracy
is the highest of any of the variables in the regressions, mean
democracy is the most influential variable in predicting the extent o
This does not appear to be consistent with the results presented in T
Setting aside this seeming inconsistency for the moment, it
tant to note that other factors also have an impact. Religious de
tion proves significant in most of the regressions. This set of relati
is complex and is beyond the scope of the topic at hand, but sho
Official Support Official Hostility General Restrictions
Democ: F. House ? -.017 ? -.039 ? -.405* * ? -.40 * * ? -.480* *

Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 5
2002 1990 2002 1990 2002 ?h

1990 2002 1990 2002 1990
Variables Dependent Variables

Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2
Maj. Islam .096 .047 .011 .009 -.438*** -.435**** -.274** -.284** -.082 -.040
Maj. CMaj. * * -.324* * -.206* -.243* f i Maj. Islam
atholic -.093 -.142 -.262* -.235* -.1 2 -.164* -.374Orthodox .028 -.008.114
.161** -.004 -.004
-.063.086 -.084
.051 -.369*** -.295*** .026
.260**** -.007 q!
.210*** -.202** -.224*
DF 128 124 145 147 128 124 145 147 128 124
Maj. Other
Maj. Other Christ -.016 -.009 -.005 -.003 -.380*** -.331*** -.277*** -.261** -.155 -.103 Christ -.146 -.123 -.229** -.196* -.160* -.134 -.373**** -.369**** -.215** -
General Restrictions Religious Discrimination Religious Regulation
Maj. Orthodox .037 .041 .185** .187** -.098* -.109 -.125 -.159* .005 -.013Rel. Diversity -.088 -.155* -.243** -.278*** -.050 -.123 -.265***
e Stabil ty .081 .104 .019 .019 .0 4adj-r-squared
.038 .128 .158 .026 .04 .456 .442 .405 .405 .125 .166 .167
Per-Capita .148.085-.071
GDP .234
.065 .239
Maj. Catholic -.124 -.110 -.154 -.144 -.224 -.195 -.058 -.097 -.208* -.174
Log Population -.047 .002
.099 -.002
.123 .089.129
.201.146 .141*
.026 .053.102
.094.195**
Rel. Diversity -.648**** -.686**** -.658**** -.651**** .090 .060 .146 .099 -.289*** -.299***
.188 .144*
Democ: Polity .03 ? .0 2 ? -.239* ? -.415* * ? -.381* * ?
ressions Predicting GIR, 1990 and 2002_
Table 3 Independent
- 5^
_ fl} J?
-?
1990 2002 1990 2002 ^
DF 145 147 128 124 145 147 127 124 145 147 ?
Log Population .175*** .118* .247**** .235**** .225**** .167*** .256**** .263**** .268**** .227**** fl>
Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 ?}

Democ: Polity -.556**** ? -.379*** ? -.591**** ? _.422**** ? -.484**** ? -.
Democ: F. House ? -.597**** ? -.520**** ? -.622**** ? -.524**** ? -.502**** t5

Per-Capita GDP .199** .259*** .247** .346**** .276**** .333**** .153 .293*** .141 .174* ^j
- -te
DF 128 124 145 147 127 124 145 147 ^
Polity -.194** ? -.189** ? -.312****

Freedom? -.House
467****? -.215**
Rel. Diversity -A24**** -.439*** -.380**** -.385**** -.538**** -.569**** -.391**** -.443**** ^ ? g ? -.245*** ? -.444**** _ -.516*** ;g
Regime Stability -.025 .017 .017 .057 .044 .089 -.015 .016 -.059 -.017 ? adj-r-squared .378 .384 .331 .373 .523 .489 .300 .343 .420 .408 ^ Maj. Catholic -.181** -.184** -.159* -.158* -.304*** -.270*** -.194** -.227*** ^
Maj. Other Christ -.069 -.060 -.003 .010 -.238*** -.204** -.161** -.138* ^ Log Population .052 .049 .121** .097* .140** .136 .187**** .139*** ^
Per-Capita GDP .320**** .339**** .314**** .360**** .221** .305*** .248**** .307**** ^
Maj. Islam .313**** .327*** .328**** .327**** -.051 -.051 .048 .023 ^
Maj. Orthodox -.081 -.093 -.012 -.024 -.057 -.073 .152** .115* ^
adj-r-squared .583 .562 .517 .531 .482 .502 .586 .599 g.
Regime Stability .047 .065 -.039 -.025 .055 .092 .017 .053 ^
Religious Legislation General GIR ^
All values in table are Beta values.
**** = significance > .001 ^

*** = significance > .01 ?/s
** = significance > .05 ^
= significance > .1 >*
16 Jonathan Fox
to be an interesting avenue for further research. Religious diversity is

consistently associated with less GIR. This indicates that SRAS is a
popular strategy for mitigating religious tensions in religiously diverse
societies.
Per-capita GDP is positively associated with religious discrimina
tion, religious regulation, religious legislation and general GIR. This is a
particularly intriguing result because it contradicts the predictions of mod
ernization and secularization theory. If secularization theory were cor
rect, one would expect more economically developed countries to have
less GIR.14 On the surface, these results seem to contradict the empirical
findings of Norris and Inglehart (2004), who established that in more
developed societies, individual religiosity is lower. However, individual
religiosity and GIR are not the same thing. Furthermore, the supply-side
theory of religion specifically predicts an inverse relationship between
individual religiosity and state religious monopolies, so from this per
spective the findings presented here are consistent with those of Norris
and Inglehart (2004).15 A full discussion of this result is beyond the scope
of the topic at hand and should be explored in future research and analysis.
Finally, countries with larger populations tend to have higher levels of
GIR.
As noted earlier, on the surface, the results in Tables 2 and 3 do not
seem fully consistent. On the one hand, most democracies do not have
SRAS but on the other hand, democracies tend to have less GIR than
non-democracies. The results in Figure 1 help to explain this seeming
contradiction. Due to space considerations, Figure 1 presents the results
for general GIR only, but these results are consistent with those of the
other GIR variables, except for official support. In order to briefly illus
trate the extent of GIR that is reached in democracies, the highest scores
in democratic states (based on the most democratic categories of the Pol
ity and Freedom House datasets in Table 2 and Western democracies) are
presented in Table 4.
The results show that while many democracies have substantial scores
on the general GIR variable as well as the other RAS variables, there is
an upper limit. That is, many democracies have substantial levels of GIR
but there seems to be a line that democracies do not cross. Except for
official support, democracies do not have scores that place them among
the highest on any of the RAS measures but, as illustrated in Table 4,
some do have scores that are well above absolute-SRAS.
Thus, the results from Tables 2 and 3 are in fact consistent. Most
democracies do not have SRAS, but since there appears to be an upper
limit for GIR in democracies, on average, non-democratic states tend to
have more GIR than do democracies. The only governments that might
be said to cross the line between being involved in religious issues and
becoming religious states are some (but by no means all) of the more
Figure 1
Scatter-plots for Democracy and General GIR, 1990 and 2002
12 ? ? ? *? 10 ?? MM ?!? ?
O 8 - < ?*
? 10- ? ?* ? 6-? ?? *
*" <? ? 4 * * *
? 8-*#
? ? ? 2g> <> *
O 6 - ? m > ?"
- ? -2 *
Q 4-? ?? (?-4
"g <*? <?
u.
0 + -1-?-8 --U--1-r?
? ? .-1 -10 ^j -1-#n
j^
0 20 40 60 80 0 20 40 60 80
General GIR, 1990 General GIR, 1990
10 ip>j"Hjy*?5j 12?? ?? ?*??

6<i?* ft** ** ? 10" * ? **?
?? <M <M? 4?4?
? 8- ?? ?
s 2 : ?
>; o-?* ? 6^? ??
= -2 % C ?
? -4^ ++? + X O <&
4 <* # ?
6-8
?? ? ? U.
* JE 2-m
^ ^
.10-I-,-?,-,- , o-I-,-?? ? m i-#i
0 20 40 60 80 0 20 40 60 80
General Gir, 2002 General Gir, 2002
autocratic ones. Using the results for general GIR in 2002, the demo
cratic states that come the closest to being religious states are Israel (gen
eral GIR = 36.84), Greece (general GIR = 33.31), Finland (general GIR =
32.88) and Costa Rica (general GIR = 31.61). While the governments of
these states are substantially involved in religious matters, there is no
comparison between them and the more autocratic states, which score
much higher on the general GIR measure, such as Saudi Arabia (77.56),
Iran (66.59), Egypt (62.92) and Jordan (60.51).
This brings up an interesting result. The majority of the highest
scoring states on the general GIR variable are states with Muslim major
ities. In fact, nine of the highest ten scores on general GIR are found in
Muslim majority states, as are 21 of the 25 top scoring states. In con
trast, none of the top 25 are Christian states. Sixteen of the lowest 25
scoring states are Christian states and only three of them are Muslim.
>
al General Religious Religious Religious

ort Hostility Restrictions Discrimination Regulation Legislation
stria, Belgium, Greece & Switzerland) & Portugal) Sweden
Rica, (France & (Austria, Belgium, ermany, Slovenia Pana

Denmark, Greece, (France) Austria, Belgium, Greece & S
2002 (Denmark,
parationist Legal Greece (France) 6(Austria,
Limitations Belgium,
(Austria, Greece3&(C
Germany,
ion Separationist Legal Limitations 6 (Austria, Ge
W. Democracies
Freedom House One Official Religion One Official
Separationist Legal Religion
Limitations Separationist
6 (Austria, France, 3 Legal Limitations
& Spain) q
(Costa 6 (Austria
Rica, 10 (Belgium
W. Democracies One Official Religion Separationist & Norway
Legal
& Limitatio
taneRica, (Uruguay)
Official (Austria,
Religion Belgium, & Switzerland)
Separationist Legal Limitations
Norway Sweden Denmark,
Greece, Dominical
Norway, Finland, Uruguay)
Pakistan Finland, France & Switzerland)
1990 (Costa Rica, Denmark, (France) (Austria, Belgium, & Portugal)
Democracies on RAS Measures, 1990 and 2002_

Denmark, Greece, Finland,Denmark,
Hungary Greece, Finland, Hungary
Norway & Sweden) & Spain)

Pakistan & Sweden) & Spain)
Rep. & Norway) & Hungary)
Israel & Norway) & Spain)
Table 4 ?
Conclusions
While there is a vigorous debate in the literature over whether democra

cies do and should have SRAS, the results presented in this study show
that most democracies do not have SRAS. This is true whether democ
racy is measured through its procedures via the Polity dataset or whether
it is measured with the civil and political rights measures of the Freedom
House dataset. It is also true for Western democracies. These empirical
results strongly indicate that SRAS, no matter which operationalization
of the concept one uses, is not necessary for a functioning democracy or
liberal democracy.
Furthermore, some of these operationalizations of SRAS allow for
substantial GIR. For instance, based on the exclusion of ideals defini
tion, a state can do all of the following and still be considered to have
SRAS:
Give preference to some religions over others, as long as no single

religion is singled out for special status.
Have a general policy of regulating all religious institutions to the same
extent that it regulates other political and social institutions, even if
the government is generally hostile to all such institutions.
Place practical restrictions on some religious institutions or
denominations.
Engage in as many as five of the 16 types of religious discrimination
against minority religions in the RAS dataset (less if some of these
individual types of religious discrimination are applied widely or in
their more extreme form).
Significantly regulate all religions, including the majority religion (or
just the majority religion). This can include up to 10 of the 11 types of
religious regulation included in the RAS dataset, though less if some
of these types of regulation exist in their more extreme forms.
Legislate any or all of the 23 types of religious legislation included in
the RAS dataset that are not on the list of 10 types of religious legis
lation that specifically violate the exclusion of ideals standard for SRAS.
Even based on this extremely forgiving operational definition of SRAS,

most democracies do not have SRAS, either in 1990 or 2002. This includes
most Western democracies, which tend to be considered liberal democ
racies. Given this, it is clear that either SRAS is not a necessary element
of liberal democracy, or that many of those states considered to be lib
eral democracies do not, in fact, fulfill the criteria to be included in this
category.
However, this study also shows that no democracy goes beyond a
certain point of GIR. Thus, the major difference between democracies
20 Jonathan Fox
and non-democracies is not the presence of SRAS but rather an upper

limit on GIR.
Given the above conclusions, it is necessary to rethink the debate
over the link between democracy and SRAS. It is difficult to argue that a
democracy, or even a liberal democracy, requires SRAS to function, as
many in fact do just that, despite not having SRAS by any of the opera
tional definitions used in this study, which include some very forgiving
standards. It is even arguable that these results speak to the normative
debate over whether democracies ought to have SRAS. That is, most
democracies do not have SRAS and seem to function well enough; con
sequently, SRAS is not a necessary trait for liberal democracies.
However, as Mazie (2004) points out, there are some forms of GIR
that violate the principles of liberal democracy more than others. For
instance, restrictions on the practice of minority religions are a far less
acceptable feature than the funding of religious institutions. Given this
and the results of this study, our understanding of the role of religion in
democracy would be better served by inquiries into which forms of GIR
are compatible with democracy and which are not, than by inquiries into
the definition of SRAS and which states have it.
Notes
1 For a more complete discussion and critique of this theory see, among others, Fox
(2002: 31-64) and Wilson (1982).
2 For more on this debate see Dalacoura (2000: 879), Lewis (1993: 96-98), Stepan
(2000: 46-49), Esposito and Piscatori (1991), Fuller (2002) and Hefner (2001: 494).
3 I use the descriptions provided by Madeley (2003a) of these definitions of SRAS but
it should be noted that Madeley's discussion is based on Raz (1986).
4 For more details see Jaggers and Gurr (1995) and the Polity project Web home page
at http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/index.htm.
5 It should be noted that the Freedom House measure includes religious freedom as
one of its components, so there are some minor issues of covariance with the RAS
variables, especially the religious discrimination variable.
6 See, for example, Midlarsky (1998) and Fisch (2002).
7 For the purposes of this analysis, Western democracies include Western Europe, North
America, Australia and New Zealand.
8 The phrasing of these clauses varies. They include statements such as bans on declar
ing a religion, declarations that there is no official religion, and declarations that the
state is a secular one.
9 For more details see http://unstats.un.org/unsd/default.htm. I selected this variable
over others like the UN's human development index and birth mortality because it
was available for more states. However, the results based on these other measures of
economic development are similar to those for log-per-capita-GDP.
10 This category includes Christian denominations that do not fit into any of the other
categories, states where no one Christian denomination is in the majority, and states
where information on denomination is unavailable or unclear.
11 A variable measuring the "other" category in the religious population variable is not
necessary because the variables for Catholic, other Christian and Islam, when used
together, effectively control for this final category.
12 See, for example, Minkenberg (2002) and Norris and Inglehart (2004), who provide
extensive references to this literature.
13 This variable is taken from Barro and McCleary (2003) and measures religious diver
sity in 2000. As religious diversity does not change significantly over short periods
of time, using this variable for the years 1990 and 2000 is not problematic.
14 For a more complete discussion of this finding see Fox (2006).
15 For a further discussion of the supply-side theory of religion see, among others, Nor
ris and Inglehart (2004), Chaves and Cann (1992) and Stark and Iannaccone (1994).
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Appendix A: The RAS Variables

There are seven RAS variables used in this study. More detailed descrip
tions of these variables, as well as reliability tests for them, are provided
in Fox (2006). The first variable, official support, measures government
support for religion on the following scale:
0. No support.
1. Supportive: The state supports all religions more or less equally.
2. Cooperation: The state falls short of endorsing a particular religion
but certain religions benefit from state support more than others. (Such
support can be monetary or legal.)
3. Civil religion: While the state does not officially endorse a religion,
one religion serves unofficially as the state's civil religion.
4. The state has more than one official religion.
5. The state has one official religion.
The second variable, which complements the first, is official hostility,

which measures government hostility to religion on the following scale:
0. No hostility.
1. Separationist: Official SRAS, and the state is slightly hostile toward
religion.
2. Inadvertent Insensitivity: There is little distinction between regulation
of religious and other types of institutions.
3. Hostile: Hostility and overt prosecution of all religions.
The purpose of these two variables is to measure the official relationship

between religion and state. They are based on a measure developed by
Durham (1996) that, to my knowledge, was never collected. The vari
ables (not the concepts of tolerance and hostility) are mutually exclusive
in that it is not possible for both of the variables to be coded as above
zero at the same time. While many states support some religions while
being hostile to others, these two variables do not reflect this because
they focus on the treatment of the majority religion in a state rather than
the treatment of all religions. This is because states that support any reli
gion are not hostile to the concept of religion. This is a critical dis
tinction that differentiates states such as Saudi Arabia, which supports
Wahabbi Sunni Islam and is hostile to all other religions, and states like
North Korea, which is hostile to all religions. The treatment of minority
religions is assessed in a separate variable.
24 Jonathan Fox
The third variable, general restrictions, measures whether the state

in general restricts religious practices. It is measured on the following
scale:
0. No (other) religions are illegal and there are no significant restric

tions on (other) religions.
1. No (other) religions are illegal but some or all (other) religions have
practical limitations placed upon them.
2. No (other) religions are illegal but some or all (other) religions have
legal limitations placed upon them.
3. Some (other) religions are illegal.
4. All (other) religions are illegal.
The word "other" is in parentheses because states with preferred reli

gions will restrict other religions but states with no preferred religion
may restrict all religions.
The fourth variable, religious discrimination, measures restrictions
that are placed on the practice of religion by minority religions but not
the majority religion in a state. It includes 16 specific types of discrim
ination; each of the following restrictions is coded on the following scale:
0. Not significantly restricted for any.

1. The activity is slightly restricted for some minorities.
2. The activity is slightly restricted for most or all minorities or sharply
restricted for some of them.
3. The activity is prohibited or sharply restricted for most or all minorities.
The results are then totalled to result in a composite variable that ranges
between 0 and 48. A full listing of the components of this variable, as
well as the components of the next two variables, can be found in Fox
(2006).
I weight each component in this measure equally (and do the same
for the measures described below) not because I feel that each is equally
important. Rather, it is because there is unlikely to be any consensus as
to the weight that should be given to each of these 16 measures. Given
this, the most transparent option is to weight each equally. As each com
ponent variable is coded separately, others who wish to weight them dif
ferently will be able to do so.
The fifth variable, religious regulation, measures whether the gov
ernment regulates all religions or the majority religion. It includes 11
separate components, each of which is coded on the following scale:
0. No restrictions.
1. Slight restrictions including practical restrictions or the government
engages in this activity rarely and on a small scale.
2. Significant restrictions including practical restrictions or the govern

ment engages in this activity occasionally and on a moderate scale.
3. The activity is illegal or the government engages in this activity often
and on a large scale.
The results are then totalled to result in a composite variable that ranges
between zero and 33.
The sixth variable, religious legislation, examines whether the gov
ernment legislates religious precepts as law. It includes 33 individual types
of laws, each if which is coded as one if such a law exists in a state.
While there are 33 components to this variable, the optional and manda
tory religious education components are mutually exclusive. Thus, when
totalled, this measure ranges from zero to 32.
The final measure, General GIR, is a composite measure of the above
six variables. It provides an approximate measure of the overall relation
ship between religion and state. I re-scaled each of the above variables to
measure from zero to 20. For example, religious legislation, which ranges
from zero to 32, is divided by 32 then multiplied by 20. Since official
support and official hostility cannot both be greater than zero at the same
time, the resulting scale ranges from zero to 100. I weight each of these
measures equally for the same reasons as described above for weighting
the individual components of these measures equally.
It is certainly arguable that the qualitative differences in the phenom
ena measured by the components of this variable make combining them
problematic. I do not dispute that this objection has some validity, but I
argue that the advantages to using this measure outweigh the disadvan
tages. Each individual measure looks at a limited aspect of GIR and does
not present the entire picture. By combining these diverse measures, I
create a variable that arguably provides a more accurate assessment of
GIR. Also, since most of the tests performed in this study are also per
formed on each of the individual measures, those who disagree with this
decision are able to evaluate the impact of these individual measures.

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Société québécoise de science politique

Do Democracies Have Separation of Religion and State?

Canadian Political Science Association, Société québécoise de science politique are

Jonathan Fox Bar Ilan University

This study asks a seemingly simple question: Do democracies have sep

Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique

on SRAS than all previous datasets, as well as observations for more

Religion and Democracy

Resume. Alors que de nombreuses personnes pretendent que la separation de la religion et de

their religious convictions on others "just as it tolerates people who wish

2000: 41-43). Anthony Smith (2000) links many particular nationalist

While one generally discusses theoretical definitions of a concept before

ponents. Price (1999) measures religion's influence on politics for 23

Defining and Operationalizing SRAS

The RAS measures used in this study essentially measure a definition of

Official Official General Religious Religious Religious General

Exclusion of Ideals None, All codings Practical Up to 10 Up to 10 See list Up to 30

supportive & inadvertent limitations

& cooperation limitations

Neutral Political Concern 1 None & None & None None Up to 3 Up to 3 Up to 10

supportive & legal

Operationalizations of Separation of Religion and State

The second standard of SRAS, exclusion of ideals, defines SRAS as

dietary laws (restrictions on producing, importing, selling or consum

While this operational definition is not exact, it arguably approximates

good faith attempt to operationalize the concepts at hand. Second, they

I use two variables for democracy, which focus on different aspects.

religion. As this index effectively measures religious homogeneity, the

Data Analysis and Discussion

and 2002. Furthermore, in all but one of these 16 regressions w

Democ: F. House ? -.017 ? -.039 ? -.405* * ? -.40 * * ? -.480* *

2002 1990 2002 1990 2002 ?h

Variables Dependent Variables

General Restrictions Religious Discrimination Religious Regulation

Democ: Polity .03 ? .0 2 ? -.239* ? -.415* * ? -.381* * ?

ressions Predicting GIR, 1990 and 2002_

Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 ?}

Democ: F. House ? -.597**** ? -.520**** ? -.622**** ? -.524**** ? -.502**** t5

Polity -.194** ? -.189** ? -.312****

All values in table are Beta values.

**** = significance > .001 ^

** = significance > .05 ^

= significance > .1 >*

to be an interesting avenue for further research. Religious diversity is

General GIR, 1990 General GIR, 1990

10 ip>j"Hjy*?5j 12?? ?? ?*??

General Gir, 2002 General Gir, 2002

al General Religious Religious Religious

stria, Belgium, Greece & Switzerland) & Portugal) Sweden

Rica, (France & (Austria, Belgium, ermany, Slovenia Pana

1990 (Costa Rica, Denmark, (France) (Austria, Belgium, & Portugal)

Democracies on RAS Measures, 1990 and 2002_

Norway & Sweden) & Spain)

While there is a vigorous debate in the literature over whether democra

Give preference to some religions over others, as long as no single

Even based on this extremely forgiving operational definition of SRAS,

and non-democracies is not the presence of SRAS but rather an upper

Appendix A: The RAS Variables

The second variable, which complements the first, is official hostility,

The purpose of these two variables is to measure the official relationship

The third variable, general restrictions, measures whether the state

0. No (other) religions are illegal and there are no significant restric

The word "other" is in parentheses because states with preferred reli

Democ: F. House ? -.597 ? -.520 ? -.622 ? -.524 ? -.502 t5

Polity -.194 ? -.189 ? -.312****

10 ip>j"Hjy?5j 12?? ?? ???