Regime Type, Religion-State Arrangements, and Religious Markets in the Muslim World

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of religious regulation and favoritism on religious markets in the Muslim world. Specifically, the paper examines to what extent the institutional promotion of Islam has generated more robust national religious markets and whether levels of political openness have conditioned such robustness. The paper builds a “comparative political economy” approach to analyze Muslim-majority religious markets by drawing on a more complex understanding of the varieties of ways in which states institutionalize their relationships with the religions of their nations. In doing so, the paper argues that some types of state-sponsored religious monopolies are more efficient at promoting religious dynamism than others. A cross-national analysis of religiosity in the Muslim-majority world suggests that religiously friendly policies in democratic settings can boost national rates of religiosity and that the possibility of religious coercion in authoritarian settings magnifies the effects of the promotion (or de-promotion) of religion.