Religious Regulation’s Impact on Religious Persecution: The Effects of De Facto and De Jure Religious Regulation
Open Access
- Author:
- Grim, Brian Jeffrey
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 17, 2005
- Committee Members:
- Roger Kent Finke, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
George Farkas, Committee Member
David R Johnson, Committee Member
John Philip Jenkins, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Religion
religious regulation
religious freedom
measurement of international religion - 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.