On Socio-Economic Predictors of Religious Intolerance: Evidence from a Large-Scale Longitudinal Survey in the Largest Muslim Democracy

Arief Anshory Yusuf,Hariyadi Hariyadi,Akhmad Rizal Shidiq

doi:10.3390/rel11010021

Arief Anshory Yusuf, Hariyadi Hariyadi + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11010021

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Abstract

Motivated by increasing religious intolerance, we study the socio-economic covariates of individual-level religious intolerance in Indonesia, the largest Muslim democracy in the world. We use panel data from 2007 and 2014 of more than 20,000 adult individuals (representing 83% of the population) and apply fixed-effect regression analysis to identify relevant socio-economic characteristics that are highly associated with religious intolerance at the individual level. We utilize survey questions on willingness to accept someone with different faith living in the same village, living in the same neighborhood, renting a house, marrying relatives or children, and building a place of worship in the neighborhood as our measures of religious intolerance. We find that higher individual income and educational attainment are positively correlated with the tolerance level. At the same time, a higher level of self-declared religiosity is negatively correlated with a tolerant attitude. For location-specific characteristics, higher income inequality and extent of poverty in the location where an individual resides are associated with a higher level of religious intolerance. These patterns are generally robust across different measures of religious intolerance, although there is heterogeneity in the magnitudes of the correlations, where these covariates have the smallest correlations with the willingness to accept interfaith marriage in the family.

Highlights

Religious tensions and violence have risen globally over the last decade
We have shown that Indonesia, the largest Muslim democracy, faces both democratization and rising Islamic conservatism
The rise of conservatism has been accompanied by an increase in religious intolerance amongst Indonesians, posing a serious threat to the idea of pluralist democracy and a moderate Islam

Summary

Introduction

Religious tensions and violence have risen globally over the last decade. The Pew ResearchCenter (2018), for example, has reported that 28% of countries had “high” or “very high” levels of government restrictions on religious freedom in 2016, a three percentage point increase from 2015.The report mentioned that among the 25 most populous countries in the world, Egypt, Russia, India, Indonesia, and Turkey had the highest levels of religious freedom restrictions. Religious tensions and violence have risen globally over the last decade. Center (2018), for example, has reported that 28% of countries had “high” or “very high” levels of government restrictions on religious freedom in 2016, a three percentage point increase from 2015. The report mentioned that among the 25 most populous countries in the world, Egypt, Russia, India, Indonesia, and Turkey had the highest levels of religious freedom restrictions. Religious tensions have the potential to quickly turn violent. The Minority Rights Group International (2018), for example, has recorded that mass killings and other atrocities involving religious minorities have been increasing in many countries. Despite the country’s progressive democratic reform after the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, Indonesia has witnessed the rising political and social power of hard-line Islamists and a turn towards populist conservatism in recent years (Hadiz 2018; van Bruinessen 2013; Wilson 2017; Rakhmani 2017)

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