God’s not dead, just overregulated: state history and the regulation of religion at various stages of development

Abstract

Intensity of governmental interference with religion differs extensively across the world. We suggest that part of this variation is entrenched in the historical development of statehood, which has played a crucial role in shaping many aspects of modern-day society, and propose that this further depends on a country’s relative stage of economic development. Using data on a cross-section of countries, our indicator of state history reveals a substantially positive effect on measures of current religious regulation. In addition to this persistent influence, we show that state history exhibits differential effects on religious regulations across countries. The empirical results indicate that the state history - religious regulation nexus is strongest in middle-income countries, followed by low-income countries. However, this association is rarely observed amid high-income countries.