When Do Religious Organizations Resort to Violence? How Local Conditions Shape the Effects of Transnational Ideology

Abstract

Under what conditions do non-state actors with religious agendas resort to violence? Studies tackling this question typically examine global or local factors in isolation, while those advancing integrated arguments lack the data required for systematic tests across time and countries. We advance and test a theoretical framework combining transnational forces, domestic context, and actor-specific attributes. We argue that by 1979 a new transnational zeitgeist reached maturation, creating fertile ground for religion’s violence-endorsing side. Yet, the effect of this transnational ideological shift depends on its identity linkage with religious organizations and on domestic levels of corruption and religious repression. To test our argument, we leverage a new dataset on ethno-political organizations that provides yearly codings of organizations’ claims and use of violence, spanning all world regions in the years 1946-2013. The statistical analysis corroborates our hypotheses. Overall, ethno-political organizations making religious claims have been significantly more violence-prone after 1979 compared to before. Yet, this post-1979 effect of religious claims depends on local conditions. Specifically, their identity linkage with a particularly salient manifestation of the new zeitgeist – the Iranian Revolution – has made religious organizations from Muslim ethnic groups particularly prone to violence, whereas before 1979 they had been less violent than those without a religious agenda. Moreover, regardless of religious identity, higher levels of political corruption and repression of religious organizations entail a higher risk of anti-government violence by religious organizations after 1979, but not before.