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AbstractThe 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.

AbstractThis article argues that the relationship between democracy and the separation of religion and state needs to be reexamined. We argue that previous studies have misconceptualized the impact that a lack of church-state separation can have on democracy, or have taken a narrow focus by concentrating on specific cases. We use principal component analysis and a large-ndata set covering 125 countries to show that the separation of religion and state should be conceptualized multi-dimensionally and that it should be considered a component of democracy. Our findings show that as separation of religion and state increases, the level of democracy also increases.

Totalitarianism and political religion -- Mythic politics and the masses -- Excursion: on comparison -- Liberalism and capitalist religion -- Secular age, idealist scholarship -- "Everything religion" and the capitalist framework -- A humanistic view on religion -- Basic definitions -- Relating modern religions and political ideologies.

AbstractWhile the study of religion in political science has reemerged as a growing field of inquiry in the last few decades, most research still focuses on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What religion is and how it is measured has largely been conceptualized through the lens of these Abrahamic faiths. This article, by contrast, examines Hinduism, the world's oldest and third most populous religion. I randomly assigned closed-ended or open-ended surveys about Hindu religiosity across and within two demographically similar villages in the north Indian state of Bihar. A comparison of survey responses from a sample of 100 respondents suggests that many Hindus: (a) do not recognize basic analytical categories scholars use in the social scientific study of religion; (b) do not differentiate between ostensibly religious and secular categories; and (c) recognize features of everyday life, such as attire or obedience to rules about purity and auspiciousness, as religious in ways that may be different from most Western religious communities. This article productively challenges how political scientists think about what religion is and how to measure it, tasks that must precede explaining how it affects political behavior.

Hundreds of books were written in the Arab world during the Bosnia and Kosovo wars, overwhelmed with rhetoric aimed at arousing a sense of Islamic solidarity. However, they have no scientifi c basis and are, therefore, of no scientifi c value. They were either along the lines of the West's Balkan political campaign or were intended to elicit voluntary donations that were, more often than not, followed by large-scale fi nancial scandals. For this reason, it is also necessary to shed light on the insincerity of some fundamentalist structures in the Arab world that have raised their voice in support of Kosovo Albanian Muslims, irrespective of the fact that their claims are illegitimate. At the same time, these structures turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the claims of other Muslims, despite the fact that their claims are legitimate. In order to answer these questions, one should realistically and honestly say that NATO was only keen, exclusively and solely, to remove the obstacle to its further conquests, obstacle called Yugoslavia, particularly Serbia. That country was such obstacle to Western world–lords that they attributed to her, through their powerful political and media machinery, every single evil and villainy. West spared no money and means to dismantle and destroy Yugoslavia and particularly Serbia. So we faced such paradox that separatist movements were described as 'revolutionary' and 'liberation armies'. Yet, if these things are natural for America and Europe, what is then natural for fundamentalists in Arab and Islamic world? There is no convincing answer but to describe our fundamentalists loyal to West as unionists loyal to their Vatican. Fundamentalists in Arab and Moslem world use our faith in a very bad manner, abusing it in the interest of politics. They mortify their faith in accordance to the needs of those forces in the world that are interested only for egoistic increase of their own power.

AbstractBuilding on previous quantitative and qualitative research on cross-country differences and similarities in regulation of religion, this paper employs data for 2000 and 2014 from the third round of the Religion and the State project and uses various cluster analysis techniques to identify country clusters based on the form in which countries regulate religion. The analysis separates between democratic and authoritarian countries. We further study if and how the clustering of the countries changes depending on the employed indicators and the employed cut-off points in defining democracy and autocracy. Overall, the results demonstrate the potential and limits of empirical classifications. In addition to the methodological and descriptive contribution, the results are compared and contrasted with previous work on state-religion relationships.

The analysis concerned indicates that the publication activity deployed by he Islamic Comunity has obtained the remarquable results. They had begun rather modestly and cautiously, under permanent consultations with various state and ideological commissions, to print basic religious literature, caracterised by the oldfashioned subjects and poor graphic presentation. Making use of all the liberal phases of social development of the period conerned, the management of the Islamic Community kept gradually getting out of the control in the publication fi eld of activity. The institutional shaping up of the Nonaligned Nations Movement had controbuted thereto, as well as the changed foreign policy orientation of the country and good relations Yugoslavia had established with the majority of Islamic countries. The personnel educated at the best Islamic Universities, had begun promoting new standards in that fi eld upon their return to the country, characterised by setting deeper Islamic foundations to all the subjects under study, by eff orts to study the actual problems in an inter-disciplinary way, as well as by the modern marketing access thereto, all of the same having for a goal the books to reach the end user – the ordinary believers. Following up this new strategy, the Islamic Comminity within the FRY, becomes marked by the end of this period. by publication of a larger number of the good quality books, which developed, thanks to the renowned authors, the way of presentation of their material, their actuality and modern graphic design, into the irreplaceable material for all the interested to get acquainted with the up-to-date achievements of the Islamic theology and with the attitude of the Islamic scientists concerning various actual problems or the history of this great religion. After having successfully overcome the opposition from the offi cial state authorities and solved certain organisational and proff essional problems, the holy Islamic book of Koran, was translated into the Srbo-Croatian language. Upon publication of the fi rst edition thereof, all state interefrence had ceased, due to the then adopted attitude than the Islamic believers were entitled to their own copy thereof and the Islamic Community, in its capacity of their representative, was entitled to organise both the printing and distribution of the Koran. Translation of the Koran into the Albanian language meant the achievement of a strategic goal in addition to the religious and cultural one, because in such a way the second largest group of the Islamic believers in Europe, had got the possibility to get acquainted with the basic and binding principles of their faith in their mother tongue. A large number of various newspapers and magasines have been started thanks to the great eff orts deployed by all the Islamic Community structures. In time, the editorial offi ces and journalists they employed, had acquaired the necessary experience, and thanks to the decisions and subsidiaries from the Republican offi cials and to the activities of the members of the Ulema (Islamic religious institution) at the fi eld, all these newspapers and magasines achieved a high number of copies according to the criteria of that period. By their devoted work within the Djemat (Religious Committee), the immams had succeeded to attain the goals, previously by the supreme bodies within the Islamic Community in Yugoslavia, i.e. that every Muslem house should prosess a copy of an Islamic newspaper. By way of making them reading only this sort of the press, edited by the persons under direct control and infl uence of the top people from the religious institutions, the conditions had been created to estrange the Islamic believers in a very large measure, from the multinational and multi-religious environment in which they lived.