The Causes of Societal Discrimination against Religious Minorities in Christian-Majority Countries

Using the Religion and State-Minorities and WVS datasets, this study examined the impact of religiosity in Christian-majority countries on societal religious discrimination (i.e., discrimination by non-state actors) against religious minorities. We found that increased levels of religious activity a...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Fox, Jonathan 1968- (Author) ; Finke, Roger 1954- (Author) ; Mataic, Dane R. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI 2021
In: Religions
Year: 2021, Volume: 12, Issue: 8
Further subjects:B Minorities
B discriminaiton
B Religion
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Description
Summary:Using the Religion and State-Minorities and WVS datasets, this study examined the impact of religiosity in Christian-majority countries on societal religious discrimination (i.e., discrimination by non-state actors) against religious minorities. We found that increased levels of religious activity and commitment in a country lead to less discrimination against Muslim and Jewish religious minorities but more discrimination against Christian minorities. We offered two explanations for this complex relationship. First, when Christian-majority nations hold high levels of religiosity, other Abrahamic religions are potential allies in the fight against secularism. Second, in religiously active Christian-majority nations, the majority religion views Christian minorities (rather than Jews and Muslims) as an unwanted competitive threat because denomination switching is more common within the same religious tradition.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel12080611