153 Religious Diversity and Violent Conflict: Lessons from Nigeria Robert Dowd What explains why certain countries or regions of the world are more prone to inter-religious conflict than others? This is an immensely important question as religious tensions continue to fuel and be fueled by social conflict in various parts of the world. If we can identify condi- tions that make some societies more or less prone to inter-religious conflict than others, we can devote ourselves to fostering conditions that decrease the likelihood that religion is used to inspire violence. More ambitiously, we may even be able to cultivate conditions that increase the likelihood that religious institutions are harbingers of tolerance and peace rather than intolerance and violent social conflict. While there are many explanatory variables we could examine to explain why there is more religious conflict in some societies than others, such as poverty, urbanization, and geo-polit- ical context, this essay focuses on religious diversity within societies. The conventional wisdom is that religious institutions tend to play a more constructive role, or at least a less destructive one, in religiously homogeneous societies than in religiously diverse societies.1 This is the Robert A. Dowd is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the Ford Family Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity in the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana. His research interests include African politics, ethnic politics, and the impact of religion on development outcomes and political institutions. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled, God and Democracy in Africa: Islam, Christianity and Liberal Government. vol.38:1 winter 2014 154 the fletcher forum of world affairs conventional wisdom, with good reason. The underlying logic is sound, and there appears to be plenty of evidence to support it.2 Without the presence of people who adhere to different religions or belong to other religious communities, those we might call “religious others,” it is hard to imagine how religion can be used to fuel violent conflict. The more divided a society is by religion, the more likely it is that religion can be used to fuel social conflict. When we look around the world, we find religiously diverse societies, particularly where religious and other social identities like class and ethnicity overlap, to be among the most strife- ridden.3 Although there are religiously diverse societies where there is social tolerance and a low level of societal conflict, such as the United States, most analysts presume that social tolerance preceded and explains religious diversity in such soci- eties.4 It would seem to follow, then, that if we want to decrease the likeli- hood that religion is used to fuel social conflict in the world, particularly in new and fragile democracies, we should keep people of different religions apart Although Nigeria’s Muslim- from one another, and largely confine Christian divide is thought political competition to people who to prompt destabilizing share the same religious identities.5 religious competition and Nigeria is often considered the inspire religious intolerance “poster child” for this conventional wisdom. Including almost equal percent- that has resulted in much ages of Christians and Muslims, Nigeria of the violence that has has been the site of considerable reli- shaken the country, I find gious strife. Since the early 1980s, clashes that communal religious have taken place between Christians engagement among both and Muslims that have claimed tens of thousands of lives.6 Over the past few Christians and Muslims decades, it would appear that there has tends to have a more positive been consistently more religious strife effect on religious tolerance in Nigeria than in other countries in in Nigeria’s more religiously sub-Saharan Africa largely because the diverse settings than in the country is divided between Christians and Muslims. Religious differences overlap country’s more religiously and reinforce ethnic differences in many homogeneous settings. parts of the country. The assumption is that Nigeria’s religious diversity increases religious intolerance and the likelihood of destabilizing religious-based social conflict; that the country would be a more peaceful if it were partitioned differ- ently so as to create more religiously homogeneous political units.7 vol.38:1 winter 2014 religious diversity and violent conflict: lessons from nigeria 155 This essay is intended to spark more careful consideration of the impor- tant problem of religious conflict by pointing to evidence from Nigeria. This evidence calls into question the conventional wisdom and policies that seek to prevent or end religious-based social conflict by preserving or creating religiously homogeneous political units. Although Nigeria’s Muslim- Christian divide is thought to have prompted destabilizing religious compe- tition and to have inspired religious intolerance that have resulted in much of the violence that has shaken the country, I find that communal religious engagement among both Christians and Muslims tends to have a more posi- tive effect on religious tolerance in Nigeria’s more religiously diverse settings than in the country’s more religiously homogeneous ones. In the following section I briefly describe the conventional wisdom and the evidence that appears to support it. I go on to analyze data collected from Nigeria and discuss the implications of the results. Because this essay represents a first cut at a limited body of data, I conclude with questions for further research. RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT It is important to be clear about what we mean by religious diver- sity. I propose that there are three dimensions to religious diversity. One is qualitative and pertains to differences in creed. All else being equal, a society where religious communities are distinguished by core beliefs (e.g., a society with Christians who belief Jesus was God and Muslims who do not believe Jesus was God) is more diverse than the society where they are not (e.g., society with Protestants and Catholics or Shi’a and Sunni). The second dimension is quantitative and concerns the number of distinc- tive religious groups. All else being equal, a society with more distinctive religious groups, particularly a higher number of different world religions (e.g., Christians, Muslims, and Hindus), is more diverse than a society with fewer distinctive religious groups (e.g., Christians and Muslims). Of course, the number of different religious communities in a society tells us nothing of their relative size. Therefore, the third dimension of religious diversity is proportionality. I consider a society where half the popula- tion belongs to one religious community and half the population belongs to another to be more diverse than a society that includes five religious communities, one of which includes 90 percent of the population. The most religiously diverse societies include sizeable percentages of different world religions and different denominations within these world religions. It is important to recognize that differences between distinct world religions, and between denominations within world religions, have been vol.38:1 winter 2014 156 the fletcher forum of world affairs used to fuel social conflict. In some societies conflict has been as or more intense between people of different denominations within the same reli- gions than between people of distinctive world religions, such as the case of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and Sunni and Shi’a in Iraq. In others, the conflict is between different religions, such as Hindus and Muslims in parts of India and Christians and Muslims in Bosnia and Nigeria. The question is, what are the religious demographics of tolerance and intolerance? How does religious diversity, taking into consideration all three of its dimensions, affect the likelihood that religion is effectively used to promote social peace or fuel social conflict? Predominant thinking holds that cultural homogeneity, particularly religious homogeneity, is good for social stability and enhances the pros- pects for peaceful democratization, while religious divisions, particularly where they overlap with and reinforce ethnic or class differences, increase the likelihood of social conflict.8 The logic of the conventional wisdom Predominant thinking concerning how religious divisions lead holds that cultural to destabilizing conflict certainly seems homogeneity, particularly sound: in religiously diverse societies where democratic institutions are new religious homogeneity, is and fragile, we tend to find intense reli- good for social stability and gious contestation as religious commu- enhances the prospects for nities compete for adherents and/ peaceful democratization or social influence. Nigeria, Bosnia, while religious divisions, and Iraq are cases in point. A number of studies have found a positive asso- particularly where they ciation between religious diversity and overlap with and reinforce social conflict.9 ethnic or class differences, The problem with several studies increase the likelihood of that focus on religious diversity and social conflict. social conflict is that they typically analyze cross-national data, look at societies from a distance, and only compare countries.10 If we really want to understand how religious diver- sity affects social conflict, we need