The Religious Wave: Religion and Domestic Conflict from 1960 to 2009

Abstract

This study examines how well five theories explain the extent of religious domestic conflict using data from 1960 to 2009 from the Political Instability Taskforce dataset. The results show that secularization theory's prediction of a decline in conflict and Samuel Huntington's predictions of a post-Cold War rise in religious identity conflict are inconsistent with actual conflict patterns. Predictions that religious conflicts will remain present are confirmed but this type of theory does not account for changes over time. David Rapoport's wave theory and Mark Juergensmeyer's religious resurgence theory provide the best explanation for a rise in religious conflict as a proportion of all domestic conflict that began in 1977. The results also show that Muslims have been increasingly and disproportionally involved in religious conflict, but not in a manner consistent with Huntington's predictions.