Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2016
The existing studies on the determinants of the regulation of religion are based on the theories of modernization, clash of civilizations, and economics of religion, which do not properly take into account the potential impact of the political environment. The current study aims to address this gap in the research. It discusses some of the ways in which the differences in the political environment in autocratic and democratic countries might influence the regulation of religion. The results of the descriptive analysis for ca. 150 countries show that there is more variation in regulation of religion among the autocratic countries than among the democratic ones, and that in the autocratic countries there is a clear association between patterns of legitimation and regulation. The results on the association between the constitutional structure of the democratic countries and regulation of religion are ambiguous.
I would like to thank the editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the earlier drafts of the paper. I would also like to thank Steffen Kailitz for the access to his data, and Catherine Sommer for her help with language editing.