Religious Discrimination in the European Union and Western Democracies, 1990 to 2008

J. Fox, Yasemin Akbaba

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Abstract

This study focuses on exploring the variation in the treatment of religious minorities in the West using a special version of the Religion and State Minorities round 2 (RAS2-M) dataset. The extent and causes of religious discrimination against 113 religious minorities in 36 democracies in the European Union (EU) and the West from 1990 to 2008 are analyzed in three stages. First, we examine the mean levels of religious discrimination on a yearly basis. Second, we inspect the extent of each of the 29 specific categories of religious discrimination. Finally, we look at the causes of religious discrimination, using OLS (ordinary least squares) multiple regressions for 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008 in order to assess whether the relationships found in the bivariate analysis are present and consistent over time. The analysis compares theories related to the securitization of Islam in the West and the defense of culture argument. We find that Muslim and Christian minorities suffer from the highest levels of discrimination in the EU and Western democracies. Not surprisingly, states with high levels of religious legislation—indicating that they strongly support religion—are also associated with high levels of religious discrimination. The findings demonstrate that both theories explain aspects of the changes over time in religious discrimination in the EU and Western Democracies.
Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationReligion and the Discourse of Human Rights
EditorsHanoch Dagan, Shahar Lifshitz, Yedidia Z. Stern
PublisherJerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute
Pages331-355
ISBN (Print)9789655191394
StatePublished - 2014

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