Religion och demokrati: protestantism, katolicism och islam i ett komparativt perspektiv

Authors

• Krister Lundell

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of Protestantism, Catholicism and Islam on the level of democracy. Instead of treating religion as a continuous variable, as in previous studies, threshold values and dichotomous variables are used. As expected, the level of democracy among Muslim countries is very low, whereas Protestantism and Catholicism are positively associated with democracy. When four other explanatory variables are included in the analysis, Islam stands out as an important factor in determining the level of democracy. Islam is only surpassed by socio-economic development. Surprisingly enough, the impact of Catholicism on the level of democracy is approximately as strong as that of Protestantism. Concerning mean values, however, Protestant countries are somewhat more democratic than Catholic ones. Nevertheless, Catholicism is, in the light of statistical evidence, no longer inferior to Protestantism in producing democratic institutions.