Religious Discrimination against Muslim Minorities in Christian Majority Countries: A Unique Case?

Abstract

Previous research on Muslims in Christian majority states either focuses exclusively on Muslims or assesses public opinion concerning Muslims and/or religious minorities but does not assess cross-national trends comparing Muslims and non-Muslims. This study compares the extent of religious discrimination against Muslim minorities in Christian majority countries to the treatment of other religious minorities in the same countries as well as to the treatment of religious minorities in non-Christian countries. We utilize a new dataset that includes 24 types of restrictions placed on the religious practices or religious institutions of 590 religious minorities in 175 countries. This measure is more detailed than any previous measure and, unlike previous studies, we include all religious minorities which meet a minimum population threshold. We find that Muslim minorities do not suffer from disproportionate levels of religious discrimination when compared to other minorities in Christian majority states. This is true both of the extent of discrimination and specific types of discrimination. Discrimination is relatively low in general in Christian majority states, other than those in the former Soviet bloc, when compared to non-Christian states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]