Reconceptualizing Church and State: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Separation of Religion and State on Democracy

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article argues that the relationship between democracy and the separation of religion and state needs to be reexamined. We argue that previous studies have misconceptualized the impact that a lack of church-state separation can have on democracy, or have taken a narrow focus by concentrating on specific cases. We use principal component analysis and a large-n data set covering 125 countries to show that the separation of religion and state should be conceptualized multi-dimensionally and that it should be considered a component of democracy. Our findings show that as separation of religion and state increases, the level of democracy also increases.

Department(s)

History, Philosophy and Political Science

Publication Title

Politics and Religion

Volume

4

Issue

2

First Page

229

Last Page

263

Publication Date

8-1-2011

DOI

10.1017/S1755048311000137

ISSN

1755-0483

E-ISSN

1755-0491

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