The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Sociology RELIGIOUS REGULATION’S IMPACT ON RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION: THE EFFECTS OF DE FACTO AND DE JURE RELIGIOUS REGULATION A Thesis in Sociology by Brian Jeffrey Grim © 2005 Brian Jeffrey Grim Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2005 ii The thesis of Brian Jeffrey Grim was reviewed and approved* by the following: Roger Finke Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies Thesis Advisor Chair of Committee David R. Johnson Professor of Sociology, Human Development and Family Studies and Demography Director, Survey Research Center George Farkas Professor of Sociology, Demography, and Education Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Sociology Philip Jenkins Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies Paul Amato Professor of Sociology and Demography Head of the Department of Sociology *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Religious persecution is a form of social conflict that has attracted the attention of social scientists and policy makers in recent years. Religious persecution, as used in this dissertation, is the physical abuse or physical displacement of people due to their religious brand affiliation or due to their disposition to other religious brands. This dissertation investigates the proposition that religious regulation leads to religious persecution; specifically, this study investigates whether religious regulation—composed of socio-religious hegemony (de facto regulation) and inequitable legal/policy restrictions (de jure regulation)—offers a strong, significant, and direct explanation for variation in the level of religious persecution. Socio-religious hegemony (de facto regulation) is theorized to have both a direct impact on the level of religious persecution and an indirect effect on religious persecution, working through its impact on the inequitable legal/policy restriction (de jure regulation) of religion. Using improved measures for socio- religious hegemony and inequitable legal/policy restriction of religion for 196 countries, a series of hypotheses related to this proposition are developed and tested. Competing hypotheses are also considered and tested. The model of religious regulation put forward in this research also offers a practical approach to understanding the socio-religious forces which contribute to religious persecution, socio-religious conflict, and government responses to religion today. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .....................................................................................................viii LIST OF TABLES.......................................................................................................ix CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................1 EARLY LITERATURE ON SOCIAL CONFLICT....................................................1 RECENT PERSPECTIVES AND MEASUREMENT ISSUES ................................3 MOVING BEYOND PAST RESEARCH...................................................................9 OUTLINE OF DISSERTATION ................................................................................12 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL ARGUMENTS AND HYPOTHESES ............14 BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS ................................................................14 De Facto Religious Regulation: Socio-Religious Hegemony ...................................18 De Jure Religious Regulation: Inequitable Legal/Policy Restrictions on Religion ..23 COMPETING PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGIOUS REGULATION ........................26 The Clash of Civilizations ........................................................................................26 Religious Economies ................................................................................................29 THESIS, MEASUREMENT ISSUES, AND HYPOTHESES ...................................33 Thesis Related to the Religious Economies Perspective ............................................33 Thesis: Religious regulation—composed of socio-religious hegemony (de facto regulation) and inequitable legal/policy restrictions (de jure regulation)—offers a strong, significant, and direct explanation for variation in the level of religious persecution. ..........................................................................................................33 Measurement Issues ....................................................................................................34 Measurement Issue 1: Socio-religious hegemony and inequitable legal/policy restriction of religion are closely related constructs. ............................................................34 Measurement Issue 2: Socio-religious hegemony and inequitable legal/policy restriction of religion are closely related constructs that significantly relate to a recent measure of religious regulation. .........................................................................................34 Measurement Issue 3: Socio-religious hegemony and inequitable legal/policy restriction of religion significantly relate to a past level of religious regulation. .................35 Hypothesis 1.1: Socio-religious hegemony has a direct effect on both inequitable legal/policy restriction of religion and religious persecution; inequitable legal/policy restriction of religion also has a direct effect on religious persecution. ..............36 Hypothesis 1.2: Inequitable legal/policy restriction of religion has an indirect effect on religious persecution by allowing religious believers to be threatened by government or other forces. .....................................................................................................38 v Hypothesis 1.3: Religious regulation leads to religious persecution and not vice versa. 40 Alternative Hypotheses ...............................................................................................41 (a) civilizational/external ............................................................................................42 Hypothesis 2: Being located on a civilization fault line explains religious persecution. 42 Hypothesis 3: There will be little if any religious persecution when a country is religiously homogeneous. ....................................................................................44 Hypothesis 4: The level of religious persecution is explained by the level of armed conflict. ................................................................................................................46 (b) population and economy .......................................................................................47 Hypothesis 5: High population growth when combined with high population density explains the level of religious persecution. ..........................................................47 Hypothesis 6: The level of religious persecution will be higher in countries with strong economies. ...........................................................................................................49 Hypothesis 7: A high level of income inequality results in religious persecution. ...50 Hypothesis 8: Religious persecution can be explained by economic crisis. ............52 (c) ethnicity and gender ..............................................................................................52 Hypothesis 9: Religious persecution is primarily ethno-religious in nature. ............53 Hypothesis 10: As women become better off, the level of religious persecution increases. ..............................................................................................................55 CHAPTER III: DATA AND MEASUREMENT REVIEW .................................58 DATA SOURCES ......................................................................................................58 SPECIFIC MEASURES ..............................................................................................59 Latent Variable A: Socio-Religious Hegemony .......................................................59 Latent Variable B: Inequitable Legal/Policy Restriction...........................................62 Independent Variable: Religious Freedom Scale (2000) ..........................................64 Independent Variable: Religious Liberty (1945) ......................................................65 Dependent Variable: Religious Persecution ............................................................66 Mediating Variable: Government Threats ................................................................68 Control Variable: Civilization Divide.......................................................................69 Control Variable: Religious Homogeneity ...............................................................70 Control Variable: Armed Conflict.............................................................................72 Control Variable: Population Growth .......................................................................73 Control Variable: Population Density.......................................................................74 Control Variable: Economic Strength.......................................................................74 Control Variable: Income Inequality ........................................................................75 Control Variable: Economic Crisis ..........................................................................75 Control Variable: Religion-Ethnicity Tie