RT Article
T1 State regulation of religion: the effect of religious freedom on Muslims’ religiosity
JF Religion, state & society
VO 48
IS 4
SP 256
OP 275
A1 Ridge, Hannah M.
LA English
PB Routledge
YR 2020
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1735670707
AB Substantial scholarship argues that regulation of religion suppresses religiosity in a community by reducing individuals’ satisfaction with their religious experience. To date this research has assumed that regulations are enforced on and affect religious communities uniformly. It has also focused heavily on Western Christian populations and aggregated national data. We suggest that state regulation of religious communities and behaviours impacts citizens differently based on their affiliation. Using individual-level assessments of freedom and religiosity from Muslim-majority countries, we show that, at the individual level, restricting freedom suppresses religious belief and behaviour. Restrictions on religious minorities, however, can increase religiosity. As such, we question the religious market theory literature’s conclusion that the freest religious markets must have the greatest levels of religious participation. We also raise concerns about current measures of religious freedom’s capacity to measure individuals’ freedom in Muslim-majority countries.
K1 Islam
K1 Freedom
K1 Regulation
K1 Religion
K1 religious market theory
DO 10.1080/09637494.2020.1804781